Technical support

FAQs

Getting Started

• How do I get started?

  Once you are ready to get using Staff Pulse, your first step is to add/invite your staff to the Tes School Portal, so that they can receive surveys. You will then need to choose your survey settings by selecting a day, time and frequency you would like your surveys sent to staff. Once that is done, your survey is live and has started collecting data from your staff; your data is accessible in real time within your Staff Pulse dashboard.

Adding staff

• How do I add staff?

  So that your staff can receive your wellbeing surveys, you need to go to the Staff Pulse tile within Tes School Portal and on the left hand navigation bar click ‘Add Staff’. From here, there are a number of ways you can add/invite staff members.

• How do I add multiple members of staff?

  To add/invite a number of staff members in one go, the easiest way is to use our CSV file. To do this you would need to click on ‘Invite via file download’.

  From here, you can click on the ‘Download CSV template’, in this template, it will ask you for 4 columns of information, first name, last name, email address and job title (the first 3 columns are mandatory, the job title column is optional).

  Complete this template with your staff information and save. Once the document is completed and saved, you can then drag and drop the document from your files on your device, into the section underneath the ‘Download CSV template’ button. The ‘Staff Pulse Invite’ button will automatically be selected and all you need to do is click ‘Send invite’.

  If there are any errors on the template you have completed, it will appear here and tell you which column has the errors, if there are no errors, the invite will go out to all staff that you added to the template.

• How do I add a single member of staff?

  If you are adding/inviting a single staff member or just a few, you can do this by clicking on the ‘Invite via email’ in the ‘Add staff’ section from the left hand navigation, enter the individual email address, the ‘Staff Pulse Invite’ will be automatically selected for you and you can click on ‘Send invite’

   

• What do staff need to do once they have been invited?

  Once you have invited your staff, they do not need to do anything, they will be given the option to register for a user log in but this is optional.

  If a member of staff chooses to register for a user log in, they will not be able to see any results or any other information from your Tes School Portal.

  If staff choose not to sign up, the surveys will still go out to them as normal. A user can receive surveys for 3 years without registering for a user log in, after 3 years, the invite closes and the staff member will stop receiving surveys.  

• What will staff have access too?

  As an 'Admin' member on the Tes School portal, you are able to add/invite your staff members, view all of the Staff Pulse results as well as respond to anonymous comments.

  Once you have added/invited members of staff to the Tes School Portal and given them 'Staff' access, they will be given the option to register for a user log in.

  If a member of staff chooses to register for a user log in, they will not be able to see any results or any other information from your Tes School Portal. They will simply have their email address registered for the Staff Pulse surveys. 

  If staff choose not to sign up, the surveys will still go out to them as normal. A user can receive surveys for 3 years without registering for a user log in, after 3 years, the invite closes and the staff member will stop receiving surveys.  

Setting up your first survey

• How do I set up my first survey?

  Now your staff have been invited, it's time to set up your first survey. 

  To do this, click on the 'Settings' button on the left hand navigation bar in Staff Pulse. 

  From here you will need to choose a day of the week, a time and a frequency that you would like the wellbeing surveys to be sent to your staff. Once you have selected your choices, click save and your survey is live and will be sent out to your staff on the day you have chosen. 

Data

• How is the data stored?

  Data is stored in our live platform which is located inside a high-security, data centre environment in the UK. The data is stored in an encrypted format at rest and in transit. We use pseudonymised user identities in the application layer.

  Data protection default policies are at the heart of our data processing activities and we provide instructions to our development and engineering teams to maintain data protection and security. All data storage and processing activities are overseen by our technology governance team who identify and oversee the management of technology, data privacy and security risks.

• Will the data be shared with any other parties?

  As part of the performance of the platform, we use trusted sub-processors, eg, Amazon Web Services in our critical infrastructure. All sub-processors used for Tes Portal processing are under signed contracts. No data will be made available to third parties outside of the core business process performed by the platform.

Setting up and viewing results

• Can I pre-set a specific date in the future for the survey to start?

  You can’t pre-set dates. Once you’ve set the day, time and frequency, the first survey will go out as per the selection and will continue until it’s changed or paused.

• When can I view the results?

  You’ll be able to start to see the results as soon as your staff complete their first survey. As surveys are sent out every week/fortnight (depending on what you select) the categories will continuously update with changing scores. Don’t think of it as a completed cycle – Staff Pulse is continuous and scores will update as staff complete the pulses. Staff members will randomly receive a selection of 10 questions out of the full 81 question set per email.

• How are the scores calculated?

  To ensure everyone contributes equally, we take the average of each staff member's score for each category and then take the average of all those scores over the last four survey cycles. The combined score isn’t just the average of questions scores or even all responses. If it were calculated this way staff who respond to more questions would have a bigger influence on the overall score than users answering fewer.

   

• If a new staff member joins can they take part in previous surveys?

  No, whenever a staff member is added they’ll only be eligible for future surveys.

• Is benchmarking currently available for schools?

  Yes, benchmarking is available. You’ll see a national average against each category.

• Can I include customised questions?

  Yes. Go to ‘settings’ and then ‘custom questions’. You can write as many custom questions as you like in step 1. You the choose the specific custom questions you'd like to ask in the next survey in step 2. You can only include three custom questions per survey. For best results, we suggest using statements rather than questions.

• How can I pause the surveys?

  Go to ‘settings’ and under the survey frequency click on the option to pause your survey. You’ll then be prompted to select how long you want the survey to be paused for. Your surveys will automatically resume after the time period chosen. 

   

Staff segments

• Where do I create staff segments?

  Go to ‘settings’ and select the ‘staff segmentation’ section.

• How many staff members are needed to create a segment?

  To keep the anonymity of your staff, you’ll need to add at least five members of staff to a segment.

• Can a staff member be added to more than one segment?

  No. A staff member can only be added to one segment in order to protect their anonymity.

• Why can't I see the staff member I want to add in the drop down list?

  This could be for two reasons:

   

  First, they may not have been added to take part in Staff Pulse surveys. Check they’re in your staff list by going to the ‘administration’ section in Tes Portal. If not, then you’ll need to invite them to join before you can add them to a segment.

   

  Second, if they have already been added to a segment their name will no longer appear in the list. If you want to move them to the new segment, you’ll need to remove them from the one they’re already in before you can select them in the drop down list.

• How do I see the scores for each segment?

  On your Staff Pulse dashboard at the top of the page you will see a ‘filter’ button (it only appears once you’ve created a segment). To filter the results, select the segment you wish to view. The scores on the dashboard will then update with your selected segment. You can also dig deeper into each category to see how your staff in that segment have scored the individual questions and view any comments they have made.

Conversations

• Who can respond to comments?

  Anyone with administrator or senior leader permissions in Staff Pulse.

• Do I know who I’m responding to?

  No, the staff members remain anonymous, however when you reply to a comment your name will be displayed to that staff member.

• How do staff know when a senior leader has responded to a comment?

  The staff member will receive an email with both their original comment as well as the senior leader's response.

• Can a staff member continue a conversation with the senior leader?

  Yes, if the staff member wishes to start a two-way conversation, they can choose to reply. This will open up a web page where they can respond and view the entire conversation.

• How will senior leaders know when a staff member responds to them?

  Every time a staff member responds, the senior leader will receive an email. New conversations will be highlighted in the conversations page.

Action plans

• What’s the action plan feature?

  This feature gives you the opportunity to gather ideas from your staff which you can then use to help build your action plan in a particular category. You can then assess the impact of your action plan and track its effectiveness by asking your staff for feedback and then monitoring and tracking changes.

• How does the action plan feature work?

  You can select a category that you feel needs to be improved. Through the system you can send an email to all your staff members asking them to provide specific ideas on how this area can be improved. Staff will be directed to a web page where they provide their ideas. Once they’ve submitted these ideas, they can be viewed by the senior leadership team in the action plan section. Staff will have two weeks to provide their ideas for improvement.

• How many surveys do I need to have completed before I can start an action plan?

  You only need to have completed one survey to start an action plan.

• Who can create an action plan?

  Only administrators within Staff Pulse are able to create an action plan.