Creating and sending a survey

Learn how, as an HR admin, you create a survey, such as a short pulse check on workload or an engagement survey, and how you get it to your colleagues.

Where do you find it?

In the left menu, go to HR → Surveys. You'll see all surveys with their status, number of responses and due date.
A survey always has one of these statuses:

• Draft: you're still working on it. Nobody can fill it in.
• Active: colleagues can fill it in.
• Closed: no new responses come in. The results stay available.

No surveys yet? Then you'll see "Ask your team how things are going" with three starting points:

• Employee Engagement Survey: how valued, supported and heard people feel. Good to run once or twice a year.
• Quick Check-in: how people feel this week and what is in their way. Easy to repeat every month.
• Start from scratch: your own questions, or a different template.

Pick a starting point and the questions are ready to go. You can change every question before you send the survey.

Step 1: Basic information

1. Click Create survey.
2. Enter a Survey title, for example "How's your workload?".
3. Choose the Survey language. All questions and buttons appear in this language for everyone.
4. Add a Description if you like. It's for you and other HR admins only: respondents don't see it.
5. Choose a Due date if you like. Turn on Auto-close at the end of the due date if the survey should close by itself. Without that switch, the due date is only a target and the survey stays open.
6. Choose whether the survey is anonymous with Anonymous responses. See "Anonymous or not?" below.
7. Want to hear about every completed response? Turn on Notify me when there's a new response. You'll get an email and a notification.

Step 2: Questions

Start with a ready-made set of questions via Load template, or write your own:

1. Click Add a question.
2. Choose the question Type:
3. • Likert scale: a statement with five answers, from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. Useful for statements like "I have enough time for my work".
   • Rating scale: a number on a scale, from 1 to 10 by default. You can change the Lowest score and Highest score and label the ends, for example "Not at all likely" and "Extremely likely".
   • Multiple choice (single answer): the respondent picks exactly one option from your list.
   • Multiple choice (multiple answers): the respondent picks one or more options. Use Choose at least and Choose at most to set limits.
   • Open text: the respondent answers in their own words.
3. Type your question. For a multiple choice question, add the options with Add option.
4. Turn off Required if the question can be skipped. Every question is required by default.
5. Click Add question.

While the survey is a draft, you can change, delete and reorder questions.

If you change the Survey language after loading a template, the questions switch to that language too. If you've already changed the questions, Heartsome first asks "Replace existing questions?". Choose Replace questions and your changes are lost.

Step 3: Distribution

When you activate the survey, Heartsome always creates a shared link. You can share it wherever you like: Slack, Teams, an email or your intranet.
Want to send a personal email invitation as well? Tick Send email invitations and choose who to Invite:

• All employees
• Specific teams: tick the teams.
• Specific employees: tick the colleagues.

With email invitations you can see how many people have filled in the survey. For a non-anonymous survey you can also see who, and send reminders.

Step 4: Save or activate

• Click Save draft if you want to carry on later.
• Click Activate survey when it's ready. The invitations go out straight away.

After activating, you'll see the survey's page with the shared link. Copy the link with the icon in the field. Open survey shows you the survey the way your colleagues see it.

Anonymous or not?

• Anonymous: you can't see who answered what. People tend to be more honest, especially about sensitive topics like workload or leadership. Results only appear once there are 3 responses. See Viewing survey results.
• Non-anonymous: you can see what each person filled in. Useful for practical questions, like "Which date works for you for the team day?".

Sending reminders

For a non-anonymous survey with email invitations:

1. Open the survey and click View all invitations.
2. For each colleague you'll see whether the invitation is Completed or Pending, and when the invitation and any reminder were sent.
3. Click Send reminders and confirm.

Only colleagues who haven't filled in the survey yet get a reminder. You can send reminders at most once an hour.

For an anonymous survey you can't send reminders per person, because Heartsome doesn't show who has taken part. Share the shared link with the whole team again instead.

Changing an active survey

Via Actions → Edit, you can only change the title, description, due date and typos in questions and options of an active survey. You can no longer add, remove or reorder questions, or change the language, anonymity or distribution.

Closing, reopening and deleting

Open the survey and choose from Actions:

• Close survey: no new responses come in. The results are kept.
• Reopen: a closed survey opens again. If the due date has already passed, Heartsome removes it.
• Delete: the survey and all its responses are gone for good. You can't delete an active survey: close it first.

Good to know

• Invitations only go to colleagues with the status Active. Anyone who hasn't been invited to Heartsome yet, or hasn't logged in yet, won't get one. See Inviting, suspending and removing colleagues.
• If you're one of the colleagues you invite, you get an invitation too. If you fill in your own survey, you don't get a notification for it through Notify me when there's a new response.
• The overview also lists exit surveys, labelled Exit survey. You send those to one colleague who is leaving. See Sending an exit survey.
• Anyone who starts using Heartsome after you activate the survey won't get an invitation. Send them the shared link.

Who can do this?

Only HR admins and the account owner can create and send surveys and view the results.

Updated on: 21/10/2026