Turn a theme, a driver, or an answer into an action

An action is a follow-up with an owner, a status and a due date. You can raise one from something you found in your results, so the finding does not stay a finding. When the source has a number behind it, SurveyRock records that number at the time you raise the action, so you can see later how it has moved.

Actions are included on every plan. Free accounts can keep three open at a time. Paid plans have no limit on open actions.

Where actions live

Open Actions in the main navigation. The page lists every action in the workspace, with its title, source, owner, status and due date. Use the Status filter to switch between open, closed and all, and the Owner filter to show only your own.

Under the heading, the page shows how much room you have: “1 of 3 open actions on your plan” on Free, or “unlimited on your plan” on a paid plan. Open means Not started, In progress or On hold. Done and Canceled actions do not count, so closing one frees a slot.

What you can raise an action from

Each source has its own button, next to the thing you are looking at:

Source	Where to find it	Button
Theme	The theme’s detail panel in Intelligence	Create action
Key driver	The key drivers analysis on a survey’s results. Use the plus icon beside a driver, or click a driver in the chart	Create an action for this driver (shown when you hover the icon)
Executive summary suggestion	Beside each suggestion in the executive summary	Create action
AI insight	Under the insight	Create action
Single response	The respondent’s detail page	Follow up
Anomaly alert	The anomaly alert on the Intelligence dashboard	The clipboard icon, labelled Create action on hover

You can also choose New action at the top of the Actions page to create one with no source.

These buttons appear only to people whose role allows managing actions, and only where the source itself is available on your plan. If you do not see a source, such as key drivers or themes, check the plan note on the page that holds it. For example, see Reading your results.

Raise an action

1. Open the result you want to act on and choose its button from the table above. A panel titled New action opens on the right.
2. If the action came from a source, the panel shows it at the top, such as “Theme: slow delivery”. The Title is filled in for you, for example “Address: slow delivery”. Edit it so it says what will be done, not what was found.
3. Optionally add a Description for context worth keeping with the action.
4. Choose an Owner from the workspace members. The default is you, and you can pick Unassigned. The owner has to be a member of the workspace, and their role has to be able to see actions. For an action raised from a survey, they also have to be able to read that survey’s responses. See Teams and workspaces.
5. Optionally set a Due date.
6. Optionally set a Target: choose should rise to or should fall to and enter a number. Themes and anomalies default to “should fall to”; everything else defaults to “should rise to”. A target shows progress only if the action is tracking a question’s score or a theme’s mention share.
7. Choose Create action.

If you are the only member of the workspace, the Owner field tells you the action is assigned to you and links to Invite teammates.

When an action is assigned to someone else, they get a notification in their tray and an email. Assigning an action to yourself does not notify you. A workspace manager can also post assignments to a Slack channel, as described under Notifications.

Keep the action up to date

Click any row on the Actions page to open the action.

• Status moves between Not started, In progress, On hold, Done and Canceled.
• Resolution note is where you record what happened. It is optional.
• People who manage actions can edit the title, description, owner, due date and target, and delete the action. The owner of an action can change its status and add a resolution note even without those permissions.
• The Activity list records changes to the action.

Choose Save to apply your changes.

Sub-actions

An action can have sub-actions, for work that splits into smaller steps. In the action’s panel, choose + Add sub-action. Nesting goes one level deep: a sub-action cannot have sub-actions of its own.

Notifications

Two things send email or messages about actions.

• Assignment. When someone assigns you an action, you get a notification in your tray and an email. Both follow your own notification preferences. Open the menu in the notification tray, choose Notification preferences, and find the Action assigned category. Both channels are on by default.
• Due-date email. At 08:00 in your own time zone, SurveyRock emails you when an open action you own is due that day, became overdue the day before, or has been overdue for exactly one, two, three or four weeks. One email per workspace lists all of your open actions that are due or overdue, so an action overdue for longer still appears whenever another one triggers the email. It is not sent on other days. For each action it shows the title, the due date, whether it is overdue and where it came from. Nothing is sent when nothing is due. In a workspace with PHI mode on, the email only says that actions are due and asks you to sign in; it does not list titles. To stop it, open Notification preferences from the menu in the notification tray and switch off Email for Actions due today. This category has no in-app switch, because it is only ever an email. Preferences apply to one workspace at a time, so switch it off in each workspace where you do not want it.

To post assignments to a Slack channel, choose Notifications at the top of the Actions page. If no Slack workspace is connected yet, the panel tells you to connect one from a workflow’s Send Slack Message step first. Once connected, enter a channel and turn on Post to this channel when an action is assigned. This posts to one shared channel for the workspace. It does not message individual people.

See how the metric has moved

When you raise an action from a source with a metric, SurveyRock records it. This applies to a theme or a key driver, for example. On the action, it shows the Before value, and Since created once enough responses have come in. Until then it shows how far along it is, for example “Waiting for responses — 12 of 30”.

The comparison is a change in a number. It does not show that your action caused the change. Other things change between two sets of responses, so treat it as one input to your judgment.

Example

A customer satisfaction survey shows a theme called “slow delivery” in open-text answers. You choose Create action on that theme and change the title to “Review carrier handoff times”. You assign it to the operations lead, set a due date two weeks out, and set a target so the theme should fall to a lower share of mentions.

The operations lead gets a notification and an email. As new responses arrive, the action shows how mentions of the theme have changed since you raised it. When the work is finished, the lead sets the status to Done and adds a resolution note on what changed.

Troubleshooting

You cannot create a new action on the Free plan. The panel says you have reached the limit of three open actions. Set one to Done or Canceled to make room, or move to a paid plan. The count covers every workspace in the account.

You cannot find the button to create an action. Your role may not allow managing actions, or the source you are looking at may need a plan that includes it, such as key drivers or themes. Check that you can open the source result. You can always choose New action on the Actions page.

The action shows no comparison yet. The comparison appears once at least 30 responses have come in since the action was raised. Until then it shows how many of 30 you have.

A theme action says it can’t be compared. If the theme was merged into another, deleted, removed from analysis or replaced by a later analysis, the action says so instead of showing a number. For example: “This theme was merged into another theme, so it can’t be compared.” No comparison is possible for that action.

You cannot pick someone as the owner. The owner has to be a member of the workspace, with a role that can see actions. For an action raised from a survey, they also need access to that survey’s responses. The panel shows the reason.

The owner did not get a notification. Assignment notifications follow each person’s own preferences. Ask them to check the Action assigned category in their notification preferences. Assigning an action to yourself does not send one.

You expected the respondent to be contacted. Choosing Follow up on a single response does not send anything to the respondent. SurveyRock does not contact respondents from an action. If you want to follow up with that person, you do it yourself, outside SurveyRock.

You want to manage actions through the API. Actions are not available through the public API.