What's stored — and what isn't
Stored with your answers
- Your ratings.
- Any comments you write.
- Your answers to any other multiple-choice questions.
Each answer is saved on its own — not even joined to your other answers — and nothing else is saved with it.
Never stored with your answers
- Your name or email address.
- The date or time you answered.
- Your IP address, device or browser.
- Which link you used.
- Your team or how long you've worked here (see below).
- Whether you have or haven't responded.
Kept separately, and never connected to anyone's answers
- How many people were invited, and how many have responded — counts only.
- Group totals for questions like your team or length of service: for each option, how many people chose it and the total of their ratings. Your choice only adds one to that total — it's never saved with your comments or other answers.
- A scrambled, one-way code for each unused link, so the system can check a link is genuine. It's deleted the moment that link is used.
- A scrambled, one-way code made from each invited email address, used only to avoid sending anyone two invitations and to retry emails that couldn't be delivered. It isn't connected to any link or answer.
Your link works once
Each invitation contains its own random link. The system only keeps a scrambled code for it — not your name or email — so nobody, including the administrator, can look up whose link is whose.
Opening the link doesn't use it up; only submitting does. When you submit, your link is deleted at the same moment your answers are saved, and nothing records which link went with which answers. Straight afterwards the survey's private data is rewritten in a random order and the space it used is overwritten, so even the way data is laid out doesn't show which links were used or the order responses arrived.
The private part of your link is the code after the “#”. Browsers never send that part to the website's server, so it can't end up in website logs.
Because the survey doesn't record who has responded, reminder emails go to everyone.
Some surveys are sent automatically, such as a short pulse every few months. Their invitations go straight from your organisation's directory: your email address is read at the moment it's sent and isn't kept, and these surveys only go to groups of at least 6 people.
How results are shown
- Only as group totals, averages and percentages — never anyone's individual answers.
- Nothing at all is shown until at least 3 people have responded. After that, any rating or multiple-choice question answered by fewer than 3 people is hidden, and left out of every other figure. (Comments work differently — see below.)
- Most surveys keep results hidden until they close, so nobody can compare results from before and after one person responds.
- Some surveys (such as rolling onboarding surveys) show results while still open. Those results are shared in batches: they only update after at least 3 more people respond. The first screen of a survey tells you which kind it is.
- Team and length-of-service comparisons are optional to answer. Any group with fewer than 3 responses is hidden — and whenever that happens, one more group is hidden too — and group sizes are only shown as ranges.
- While a survey is open, the people running it see the number of responses in steps of 3 (“at least 15”) — never a count that ticks up as each person answers.
- You may see “About 60% of the team has had their say”. It's rounded down to the nearest 10%, changes at most once an hour, never goes past “Nearly everyone”, and only appears once at least 3 people have responded from a group of at least 6. It can't show anyone that you've answered.
- Once results are showing, leaders may email everyone a summary: the overall scores and how many took part, the strongest and weakest areas, and what they're doing about them. It never includes comments, team breakdowns or anything the report keeps hidden.
The honest limits
No system is perfect, so here's what anonymity can't protect against:
- Someone with access to your email inbox could tell whether your link has been used — but never what you answered.
- A comment can identify you if it mentions specific people, events or details only you would know. Each answer is saved on its own, so a comment can't be used to find your other answers — but its own words can still give you away. If you're worried, keep comments general.
- Choosing your team and how long you've worked here adds a little information about you. Both are optional, and small groups are hidden in results. But if only one or two people give the same answer as you (skipping the question counts as an answer here), someone who can open the database itself could work out your ratings, or come close, from that group's totals. They still couldn't tell which comments are yours.
- If your team has about 3 people, its results can only appear once nearly all of you have taken part — so seeing them shows your team responded, though never who said what. And in a group of exactly 3, if the others compared their own answers, they could work out yours.
- Like most websites, the services Pulse runs on keep short-lived technical records of their own. Someone with access to them who could also tell when a particular person submitted might use these to work out that person's answers. And, as with any system, anyone who can change the software could make it record more.
- These protections rely on a survey going to a real group of people. A survey sent to only one or two people — or to extra email addresses that someone answers themselves — couldn't protect anyone. Every report shows how many people were invited and how many responded, so anyone reading it can check those numbers make sense.
Questions about how the survey works?
Just ask the survey administrator.
About comments
Comments are different from ratings. Once a survey's results are showing, every comment is shown word for word — even if only one or two people answered that question. They're shown without names, in a mixed order rather than the order they were submitted.
Because your exact words are shown, please don't include names, specific events or details that could identify you or anyone else. If you're worried, keep comments general.