Pulse Survey

Overview

Pulse Surveys are quick questionnaires sent to stakeholders ahead of a contract renewal. They give you input straight from the people actually using the tool -  not just the contract owner’s perspective.

With Pulse Surveys, you can: 

• Spot whether a tool is critical or barely used
• Collect real feedback to guide negotiations
• Back up renewal or cost-cutting decisions with data
• Save time by replacing scattered Slack threads, emails, or spreadsheets

Why Use Pulse Surveys

• Base renewals on evidence, not hunches. If responses show low satisfaction and low importance, it’s a clear sign the contract isn’t worth keeping.
• Bring real voices into negotiations. Quotes from stakeholders carry more weight than a generic “the tool is critical.”
• Spot redundancies. If two tools both get low marks, it’s a signal you can consolidate and cut costs.
• Prioritize your time. If only a handful of people value the tool, you don’t need to spend hours on that renewal — focus on the contracts that matter most.
• Compare against peers. Once network data is available, see how your scores stack up against Tropic’s averages. If your numbers lag, it’s a clue others are getting more from the tool.

How Pulse Surveys Work

Use your prebuilt, date-triggered Pulse Survey workflow for renewals. All you need to adjust is the timing and who’s responsible for sending it.

Automatic/Date-Triggered Surveys

Set surveys to go out automatically before every renewal, so feedback is collected on time. Adjust the date trigger to match how your team handles renewals.

• Go to Settings > General Workflows > Pulse Survey.

• By default, the Date Trigger is set to 30 days before the renewal reminder. You can change this to any number of days to match how your organization handles renewals.
• The Send Pulse Survey task goes to the contract owner (or whoever you assign) to choose participants.
• The Pulse Survey task is what actually sends the questionnaire to those participants."

On-demand Pulse Surveys

Sometimes you’ll want to collect feedback outside the normal renewal cycle. That’s where on-demand surveys come in. Think of them as your quick check-in tool — useful before a QBR, during budget planning, or anytime you need extra context.

From the Suppliers page

• Open the supplier. Scroll to Pulse Surveys. Click Send Survey.
• Choose the contract this survey will support, and click Select Contract.
• Contract owners are pre-selected, but you can add or remove people, or upload a CSV if usage spans multiple teams.
  • Note: recipients must already be Tropic users. If someone isn’t, add them first, then include them in your CSV.
• Set this Set your Start Date (defaults to today) and End Date (when the survey closes). You can extend the end date while it’s live, but once closed, the survey can’t be reopened.
• Add a short message in the Survey Description.
• Preview if you’d like, then click Send Survey.

If a survey is already scheduled or in progress for the same contract, you won’t be able to start another. Either wait for the current one to finish, or add your recipients to it.

From the Contracts page

• Open the contract you’re renewing and click Send Survey.

• Configure recipients, dates, and a short message.

• Send Survey. The results will live right on the contract record, so they’re easy to reference when you decide on renewal.

Survey questions

Tropic gives you a ready-to-use Pulse Survey template, so you don’t need to build one from scratch.

Navigate to Settings > Task Questionnaires and open Software Pulse Survey.

From here, you can toggle questions on or off to fit your needs.

• Example: if your team doesn’t care about an overall sentiment score, just switch that question off.

• When you turn a question off, it disappears from any survey that’s already scheduled or in progress, and won’t show in new surveys either.

You can also turn Notes off, but we recommend keeping them on. Comments give the context that powers AI summaries, themes, and quotes on the insights page.

The Survey Page

After sending your survey, the Pulse Survey page is where you track progress and manage it as responses come in.

From here, you can: 

• View Individual Responses to see each stakeholder’s answers to understand their perspective
• Close the survey early if you’ve already collected enough responses.
• Add Participants if you think you missed someone or more input is needed.
• Send Reminders to your stakeholders who haven’t filled out their survey yet.
• Adjust the End Date if you need to keep the survey open longer.
• Archive it once it’s finished so it’s out of your active view.

Pulse Survey Insights Page

Once responses start coming in, your results appear on the survey page. 

• Survey Results: a quick view of how your stakeholders rated the supplier, with comparisons to Tropic’s network average. Until responses start coming in, or if network data isn’t available yet, the score may show N/A. Results also highlight whether scores are trending higher or lower than your last survey.
• Business Goals: shows which goals your stakeholders think this supplier helps with, like saving costs, improving efficiency, or driving growth.
• Next Steps:

• View Alternate Suppliers: Powered by AI this alternative supplier suggestion opens the Supplier Intelligence page, to help guide your decision.
• Share Survey: Click on it to share your survey results to your internal stakeholders.
• Email Supplier: Use Tropic AI to draft an email to your supplier, tailored to your goals and based on stakeholder feedback from your Pulse Survey (e.g., renewal discussion, downgrade, cancellation). You can also add a follow-up meeting request.
  • In the Email Goal dropdown, choose what you want to accomplish, like asking for an upgrade, starting a renewal discussion, or requesting issue remediation.
  • Goals marked with a purple star are AI-suggested, based on your survey results.
• The draft email is editable, use it as a starting point and adjust if needed. Remember to add your name, and title, then copy and paste into your email.
• If you want AI to add a closing line proposing a meeting. toggle the Include request for follow-up meeting. 

Note: The Email Supplier option is only available for active contracts with renewal dates more than 90 days away.

• Key findings: At the end of each survey, AI groups responses into themes and presents them as key insights. This helps you quickly spot the main takeaways, such as positive feedback, recurring issues, or potential risks.
  • Each insight includes direct quotes from respondents so you can understand the context behind the trend. For example, if AI highlights “strong ROI,” you can expand the quotes to see what users actually said about value and performance.
  • AI also pulls negotiation talking points straight from the feedback. If many stakeholders complain about poor support or inconsistent uptime, those comments are highlighted for you to bring into supplier discussions. This way, you’re not just showing scores, you’re showing proof that strengthens your position.

Use these insights to understand whether a tool is critical, underused, or causing frustration. This context prepares you for renewal or negotiation with real evidence instead of assumptions. The same feedback can also guide contract length decisions. If responses are lukewarm, you may want a shorter renewal term. If a tool is rated critical and well-loved, a longer term could lock in savings.

Manage surveys in Supplier Intelligence

The Pulse Surveys tab in Supplier Intelligence is where all surveys across your suppliers are collected in one place. It gives you a high-level view of which suppliers have surveys in progress, which are complete, and how each supplier is scoring.

From here you can compare performance across suppliers, spot patterns, and identify where problems may be consistent.  

• Use the filter to focus on survey statuses or supplier 

• Check survey status at a glance
• Open any survey to review the full results and insights
• Check all of your archived surveys 

This makes it easier to see the big picture and use feedback to guide renewals and negotiations.

What to Keep in Mind

• Each contract can only have one survey active at a time. If a survey is already scheduled or in progress, you’ll need to wait until it’s closed before sending another.
• Surveys use a standard set of procurement questions. You can toggle questions on or off, but you can’t create your own custom questions (yet).
• Recipients must already be Tropic users. If someone isn’t in the system, add them first, then assign them to the survey.
• Once a survey closes, it cannot be reopened. You can extend the end date while it’s still open, but once closed, it’s final.
• From the Suppliers page, multiple surveys can run at the same time, but each survey must still tie to a contract.

FAQs / Troubleshooting

Setup & Configuration

Q: Do I need to set up anything before sending my first Pulse Survey?
A: No. Survey templates are pre-configured for your organization.

Q: Can I configure surveys to automatically send for all contracts?
A: Yes. Go to Settings > General Workflows > Pulse Survey to enable automatic deployment and adjust trigger timing.

Q: Can I change when automatic surveys are sent?
A: Yes. By default, surveys trigger 30 days before a renewal reminder. You can adjust this to any number of days.

Q: What if my contract doesn’t have a renewal reminder date set?
A: Automatic surveys won’t run. You’ll need to add a renewal reminder date or send the survey manually.

Q: Can I send surveys on a calendar date instead of based on renewals?
A: Not today.

Survey Access & Privacy

Q: Who can send surveys?
A: Any user with access to contract records can send manual surveys. Users with workflow settings access can enable automatic surveys.

Q: Who can view survey responses and insights?
A: Anyone with access to the associated contract, request, or supplier page. This follows existing platform permissions.

Q: Can recipients see survey results?
A: No. Recipients only complete their own survey. Results are limited to users with contract, request, or supplier access.

Q: Can organizations opt out of data being aggregated?
A: No. Each org’s survey data contributes to anonymized network insights.

Q: Can Pulse Surveys be added as a task type in other workflows?
A: No, they’re only available in the default workflow.

Q: What if my contract doesn’t have an owner assigned?
A: The task will be assigned to your organization’s fallback recipient (set in Admin settings).

Survey Creation & Distribution

Q: What if multiple people need to provide feedback on the same contract?
A: You can add as many recipients as needed.

Q: Can I send one survey for multiple contracts at once?
A: No. Each survey is tied to a single contract.

Q: Can I schedule a survey to send later?
A: Yes. Set a future start date, or send immediately.

Q: How long do recipients have to respond?
A: By default, 7 days. You can adjust this when creating the survey.

Q: What if someone doesn’t respond?
A: The survey closes on the end date whether responses are in or not. You can send reminders to encourage completion.

Q: Can I send a survey to people outside my org?
A: Not today. All recipients must have Tropic accounts. CSV upload lets you bulk add existing or new users.

Q: What if I need to add more recipients after sending?
A: You can add recipients to an active survey. They’ll get the invite immediately.

Q: What if I send it to the wrong people?
A: You can remove recipients up until the start date. After that, unwanted recipients should skip their task.

Q: What’s the max number of survey recipients?
A: Up to 1,000. Large lists process asynchronously to ensure delivery.

Survey Questions & Customization

Q: Can I create custom questions?
A: Not in the initial release. Only standard questions are available for now.

Q: What customization is available?
A: You can toggle questions on or off in Settings.

Q: Are comments required?
A: No. But they’re strongly recommended because they add context for AI insights.

Q: Can I change the rating scale?
A: No. The scale is standardized for consistent analysis.

Q: Can I edit the introductory message that goes with a survey?
A: Yes. You can customize the message sent with invitations.

Survey Responses & Completion

Q: Can respondents save progress and return later?
A: No. They must complete the survey in one sitting.

Q: Can respondents change their answers?
A: No. Once submitted, responses are locked.

Q: Can I see who has and hasn’t responded?
A: Yes. The results page shows completion status.

Q: Can I see individual responses?
A: Yes, if you have contract access.

Results & Analysis

Q: When are results available?
A: As soon as the first response comes in. Results and AI analysis update in real time.

Q: What data does AI use for recommendations?
A: A mix of sentiment, criticality, spend, usage, and budget data.

Q: Can I export results?
A: Not today.

Q: Can I see survey history for a contract?
A: Yes, through the contract record or supplier page.

Q: Why don’t I see network insights for some suppliers?
A: They’re only available for global suppliers. Org-specific suppliers don’t have network benchmarks.

Q: What’s the difference between archiving, closing, and canceling a survey?
A:

• Archive: removes from active lists and trend analysis
• Close: ends data collection but keeps results
• Cancel: prevents a scheduled survey from starting

Troubleshooting

Q: What if I toggle questions on/off during an active survey?
A: Future responses follow the updated set. Previous answers stay intact.

Q: What if AI recommendations don’t seem right?
A: Treat them as a guide. Use them with your business context and judgment.

Q: What happens if I upload a CSV with invalid emails?
A: The system flags them and won’t process them until fixed.

Q: Can I delete survey responses?
A: No. This preserves data integrity.

Q: Can I remove a survey from history?
A: Yes, archive it. Archived surveys don’t show in trends.