Key Concepts

Understanding the core concepts of Pindrop will help you get the most from the tool. Here is a summary of the key building blocks.

Questionnaires

A questionnaire is a collection of survey questions grouped into sections. You can write your own questions or import them from files (Word, PDF, Excel) or from Qualtrics / SurveyMonkey / Typeform (AI can suggest dimensions — there is no paste-a-brief generator). Each questionnaire goes through a status workflow — Draft, Review, Approved, Archived — so a named client reviewer can sign it before you launch.

Item Frameworks

An item framework defines the measurement structure for your EX programme. It maps dimensions (like "Belonging" or "Growth") to specific survey items, enabling you to track scores against a coherent model rather than ad-hoc questions. Frameworks support benchmark comparisons and trend analysis.

Listening Strategies

A listening strategy is your plan for when, how, and why you listen to employees across the cycle. The Strategy Builder walks you through a multi-step wizard: Discover (understand context), Design (choose listening moments), Measure (define KPIs), Govern (set ownership and cadence), Assemble (build the calendar), and Export (share the plan).

Surveys

A survey is a live instance of a questionnaire sent to a panel of respondents. Surveys manage invitations, reminders, anonymity settings, response tracking, and communications. You can run pulse checks (short, frequent) or census surveys (comprehensive, periodic).

Analysis

Once responses are collected, the Analysis module lets you explore results with live dashboards, heatmaps, trend lines, and verbatim comment review.

Plotlines is experimental: optional narrative frames. Do not send a Plotlines document out until a real deck is beautiful — presentations remain the pack to send.

Level of detail

Context, listening strategies, roadmaps, programmes, projects and questionnaire design can each be shown at three levels: Simple, Standard and Detailed. Nothing is lost when you change level; a simpler level only shows less.

Pick a level on any of those pages and it is remembered for that part of Pindrop. The options button beside the three levels lets you use the current level everywhere, so you can work at Simple across the platform and keep Detailed for, say, listening strategies. The same menu returns a part of Pindrop to your usual level. Your choice is remembered in the browser you are using.

How plans set the highest level

Your workspace's plan sets the highest level you can edit at. Free allows Simple, Essentials allows up to Standard, and Professional, Practice and Enterprise allow Detailed. Within that, you still choose your own level: working at Simple on a Professional plan is fine, and a level above your plan's is simply not offered for editing.

Saved work above your plan's level stays readable. If a strategy was written at Detailed and your workspace later moves to a lower plan, you can still open and read everything; it is shown read-only and nothing is deleted, cleared or hidden. An administrator can compare plans under Admin → Subscription.

Action Plans

An action plan sets out what you want to change (wish), the result you hope for (outcome), what could get in the way (obstacle) and what you will do (plan). It carries a review date and a scale from −2 to +2 for the outcome, and it is started from a workshop or from a finding. It is not a kanban card dumped on managers. Empty fields are allowed while drafting; a plan that leaves your hands with only a wish is not finished. Start one from a survey's Improve tab, from the findings of an imported analysis, or from Plotlines when you use that experimental route. The employee-facing you said / we did note is assembled from those action plans and exported into their comms — that is what follow-up on earlier surveys is measured against.