Surveys: setting up ratings in the signature

With a survey, your recipients rate their satisfaction with one click in the signature. Each level of the scale is a link of its own; there is no form inside the email. The click opens a thank-you page where the recipient confirms the rating and, if you allow it, leaves a comment.

Requirements

• Mail flow. The rating is inserted server side through the mail flow. It does not appear through the Outlook add-in alone, without the mail flow.
• Block editor. The "Rating" block is only available in the block editor for templates.
• Permissions. Anyone allowed to view templates can see surveys. Roles with the permission to create or edit templates can create and change them. Figures per employee have a separate permission, see below.

Overview

1. Create a survey: name, question, scale, thank-you page.
2. Add the "Rating" block to a signature template and connect it to the survey.
3. Assign the template through a rule.
4. Check results and notifications.

1. Create a survey

In the menu, open Signature › Surveys and click New survey.

In the Survey section:

Counted as positive: thumbs up, Yes, the top of three smileys, the top two of five smileys or stars, and 9 or 10 on the score. You set colours and size in the block of the template; they come from the brand kit.

Choosing a scale

The scale is set in the survey, not in the block. This keeps ratings from different templates comparable.

Thank-you page

This is the page the recipient sees after clicking. It sets no cookies, loads no third-party scripts and stores neither the recipient's address nor IP.

• Heading and Text, for example "Thank you for your feedback".
• Link to your privacy notice: mandatory. The thank-you page names your company as the controller and links to this notice. The address starts with http:// or https://.
• Logo: by default the logo from the brand kit. Alternatively an image from the library of the template editor.
• Allow comments: the recipient can leave a short comment on the thank-you page. Comments are deleted after 180 days, ratings after 400 days.

What is counted

• Only with exactly one external recipient: default. With several external recipients a rating could not be attributed to one person, so the block inserts no rating. When the switch is off, one rating per email counts.
• Results per employee: off by default, see Results per employee.

One rating counts per email. The recipient can change it within 24 hours. A rating only counts after confirmation on the thank-you page; requests from link scanners do not count.

Click Create survey. When the survey is created, Conbool sets up the first notification: for negative ratings, immediately, by email and bell to everyone with the permission to edit templates. You can change or delete it on the Notifications tab.

2. Add the "Rating" block to the template

1. Under Signature › Templates, open the signature template in the block editor.
2. Drag the Rating block to the desired position or click it.
3. On the right, under Type, choose Survey and then the survey you created. The block takes the scale from the survey.
4. Adjust colour and size if needed and save the template.

Under Type there is also Own links. Each symbol then points to an address you enter yourself, and Conbool counts nothing. For results in the portal, choose Survey.

If the selected survey is inactive, the block only appears in new emails again once the survey is active.

3. Assign a rule

The template with the block only takes effect once a rule assigns it. Under Signature › Routing you define which senders and recipients it applies to, see Rules and assignment. A separate rule for outgoing emails to external recipients and for a specific group, such as customer service, has proven useful.

For follow-up messages (replies, forwards) you can choose a custom layout without the rating in the rule, so that not every email in a long thread carries a rating.

4. Results

Open the survey and switch to the Results tab. At the top, choose the Period.

Below follow Trend, Distribution by level, the breakdown By template and By department, and the list of individual Ratings with filters by status, rating, template and department and a search in comments. Use Export as CSV to download the data.

• By department shows the sender's department at the time of sending. Figures only appear above a minimum number of counted ratings.
• Mark as invalid: a rating, such as an internal test, no longer counts. The reason is recorded with your name and the time in the audit log. The mark can be removed.
• Delete comment: the comment is permanently deleted; the rating remains.

What is stored: the level, the time, the comment and which employee sent the email. The recipient's address, IP and name are not stored.

5. Notifications

On a survey's Notifications tab, use Add rule to define who is informed and when. Rules that should apply to all surveys, such as a weekly report to management, are created on the Surveys page on the Notifications for all surveys tab.

What triggers it

• Negative rating
• Rating up to a level
• Detractor on the 0 to 10 score (0 to 6)
• New comment, optionally only with a negative rating
• Satisfaction drops below a value (last 7 days, from 10 ratings, at most one notification per day)
• Report with figures and comments (daily or weekly)

Only confirmed ratings count. Clicks from scanners and previews trigger no notification.

Who receives it

• All members with a specific permission
• Fixed addresses, at most 10
• A webhook for Microsoft Teams or another service (address starts with https://). For Teams: Workflows › "Post to a channel when a webhook request is received".
• The employee concerned, only with results per employee

When

• Immediately, hourly bundled, daily or weekly, with a time
• Quiet hours: anything that falls into them arrives bundled when they end. Optionally weekdays only.
• Cooldown: at most one immediate notification per rule within this time; further ones arrive bundled. 0 means no cooldown.

How

• Email, bell in the portal, webhook, also combined
• Turn Include comment off if comments should not appear in emails or in Teams

The notification names the survey, level, template, department, time and a link to the results, never data of the recipient of the original email. Use Send test notification to check a saved rule. If a notification type is turned off under Settings › Notifications, all matching rules stay silent.

Results per employee

Figures per sender are an evaluation of individual employees' performance and, in Germany, subject to co-determination under section 87(1) no. 6 of the Works Constitution Act (BetrVG). Only turn them on once the works council has agreed or a works agreement is in place.

• The Results per employee switch in the survey settings is off by default.
• Only someone with the permission View survey results per employee can change it. By default only the Owner role has this permission; it can be granted specifically in custom roles.
• The By employee section in the results only shows figures from five counted ratings per person. People below that are not listed.

Who learns what

With results per employee turned on, the survey settings define whether employees learn about their own ratings:

Optional: Show comments (never with the recipient's address), Compare with department (department mean without names, only with at least five employees with ratings) and Positive individual notifications only.

Turning off or deleting a survey

• Turn off (switch "Survey active"): new emails no longer carry a rating; existing figures are kept.
• Delete survey: all ratings, comments and notification rules of the survey are deleted. Blocks in templates using this survey no longer insert a rating.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the rating not appear in an email? Check whether the email went through the mail flow, whether it had exactly one external recipient, whether the survey is active and whether a rule assigns the template to this sender.

Why do the results show no ratings? Check the period and whether the survey is in an active template. Clicks without confirmation on the thank-you page are listed under "Not counted".

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