Survey distribution

Employee experience uses Surveys to measure the employee interaction with a company, which are usually distributed using Rules. However, not all employees who are eligible to receive an EX survey have email addresses, which is common in industries such as retail, hospitality, and food and beverages. In such cases, alternate survey distribution mechanisms are required to ensure all employees are able to access their survey and provide feedback.

As a good practice, target the employees where they are by integrating with their frequently used applications or communication tools.

Important: It is not common practice to send EX surveys to employees personal email address or phone numbers. This may require approval from HR, Legal, and other departments within the company. All emails sent by Medallia require the use of an opt-out link, whereas corporate emails addresses can remove the opt-out. As a best practice, phone communications should always include an opt-out option since most client data does not distinguish between corporate or personal mobile.

The following sections list alternate ways of distributing surveys for EX.

Authenticated surveys

Authenticated surveys are the recommended method to survey employees. In addition to an SSO-enabled link within a personalized invitation email, SSO-authenticated surveys provides a single URL per program that the client embeds on their intranet portal or any application that employees can easily access. Employees clicking on the URL are identified by their SAML SSO parameters and redirected to their unique personalized survey.

You can also redirect users to an Anonymous survey URL (where the URL may be converted into a QR code and displayed in locations) while capturing the Org hierarchy information shared via the SAML SSO parameters.

Note that this integration is for a single IdP only.

Employees click on a single URL gateway link, authenticate via SSO, and access the different surveys.

Take into account:

All employees eligible for the EX survey must have access to SSO.
Once implemented, it can be extended to any number of EX programs.
Contact your Medallia expert to access SSO authenticated surveys.


Pros	Cons
Supports both personalized and anonymous surveys.	Client IT resources are required to work on the SAML 2.0 integration.
May be extended to multiple EX programs.	For some clients, a change order is required and integrates with only one IdP.
Includes all advantages of personalized surveys, such as: Confidentiality. Availability of accurate response rate information. Ability to expire the survey without manual intervention. Improved analysis using segmentation fields from the Organization and Feedback invitation data sets.	Client IT resources may be required to embed the survey URL on the intranet or any other application that employees use. It may require IT involvement at the beginning and end of each survey wave.

For more information, see Survey authentication.

Internal distribution systems

EX provides a batch file with a unique survey URL for each employee ID. The client then distributes those URLs to each employee through their internal communication system (such as Workday notification, Slack, Intranet, etc.).

EX can also integrate directly with Slack and deliver survey invitations to individual employees. For more information, see Medallia for Slack.


Pros	Cons
Supports personalized surveys.	Client IT team work is required to manage the internal distribution of the survey URLs to each employee.
Includes all advantages of personalized surveys, such as: Confidentiality. Availability of accurate response rate information. Ability to "expire" the survey without manual intervention. Improved analysis using segmentation fields from the Organization and Feedback invitation data sets.	It may require IT involvement at the beginning and end of each survey wave.

For more information, see Survey authentication.

Personalized invitation survey with individual code (PIN)

EX provides a single survey URL to a page with an individual code (PIN) used for all employees. Employees enter their PIN (which must include their employee ID) which redirects them to their unique survey. The employee ID may be concatenated with some date information (such as month and year) to make the PIN more secure.


Pros	Cons
Survey can be tied to the employee. You may use Segmentation fields from the Org hierarchy for analysis.	Employees must know their Employee ID, or more specifically, their unique identifier in Experience Cloud (which is typically the Employee ID).
One link to a PIN page to be distributed anywhere (QR Code, Intranet, etc.)	The survey does not appear confidential as employees are required to enter their Employee ID.
Survey takers with email may receive their personalized survey directly or also use the PIN page. Those without email can use the PIN page to be redirected to their personalized survey.	Risk of impersonating other employees if their IDs are known.
Does not require client IT team involvement and it may be communicated in a simple manner to all employees.

Anonymous survey with individual code (PIN)

EX provides a single anonymous survey URL used for all employees with a text field on the first page to input the Employee ID. The employee ID may be concatenated with some date information (such as month and year) to create a unique duplicate check value.


Pros	Cons
Survey can be tied to the employee. You may use Segmentation fields from the Org hierarchy for analysis.	The survey does not appear confidential as employees are required to enter their Employee ID.
May limit to one survey per employee ID per wave using duplicate check.	No response rate information; only Number of responses.
Does not require an Invitation file from the client.	Risk of impersonating other employees if their IDs are known.
Does not require client IT team involvement and it may be communicated in a simple manner to all employees.	A single employee can take the survey multiple times using different IDs.
	Manual effort to close survey wave.

Anonymous survey with group code

EX provides a single anonymous survey URL used for all employees with a text field on the first page to input a code provided to groups of employees (either by location, teams, etc.). Medallia and the client define the code, but the client distributes it to employees. The code may be concatenated with some date information (such as month and year) to create a unique duplicate check value.

Note: Using a group code typically means that your unit in the program is not the employee. Contact your Medallia expert if part of the program are employee units.


Pros	Cons
Survey appears confidential as employees do not enter their employee ID.	Client manages communication of survey URL and codes to each group.
Survey can be tied to the team or location. You may use Segmentation fields from the Org hierarchy for analysis, but they are only associated with the team or location.	No response rate information; only Number of responses.
Does not require a Feedback invitation file from the client.	Risk of impersonating other groups if their IDs are known.
Does not require client IT team involvement.	Risk of data mismatch if employees enter an incorrect code due to a typographical error.
	A single employee can take the survey multiple times using the same of different IDs.
	Manual effort to close survey wave.

Medallia Digital

If employees have a work-related mobile app, use Digital Feedback to trigger surveys in-app when employees log into the app.


Pros	Cons
Survey appears confidential as employees do not enter their employee ID.	Requires client IT team involvement to install and maintain the Digital Mobile SDK SDK.
May limit to one survey per employee using Quarantine rules	May require exporting and importing to associate surveys with employees as units (Digital feedback is typically tied to the Digital property as the unit).
Does not require an an Invitation file from the client.	Available Response rate information, but it does not account for employees who do not log into the app.
Employee information may be collected as custom parameters and displayed in reports.	Manual effort required to close or unpublish the survey.

Anonymous survey

EX provides a single anonymous survey URL used for all employees without any employee ID tied to it. Survey responses are completely anonymous and cannot be associated to an employee.


Pros	Cons
Does not require client IT team involvement.	Responses cannot be tied to units. As a result, insights will only be available at the organization level.
It may be communicated in a simple manner to all employees.	The survey may include demographic information such as tenure, gender, race, etc. to use in reports. However, the results accuracy cannot be verified.
	A single employee can take the survey multiple times and bias the results.
	No accurate response rate calculation.
	No standard duplicate checking or quarantine rules.
	Manual effort to close the survey wave.