Custom Trending

Custom Trends enables you to create personalized trend reports by combining questions and categories that matter most to your organization. This powerful feature helps you track specific metrics, combine similar questions, and monitor trends for particular groups over time.

What are Custom Trends?

Custom Trends are manually created trend reports that give you the flexibility to:

• Combine similar questions that differ slightly in wording but measure the same concept. 
• Create custom organizational metrics by combining multiple categories or questions
• Track metrics for specific groups without having to apply filters each time
  
  Note: Custom Trends can only be created using questions of the same type - either all Scale questions (1-5 rating) or all eNPS questions (-100 to 100 scale). You cannot mix question types in a single Custom Trend.
   

Common Use Cases

1. Combining similarly worded questions.  

Often, question wording varies slightly across surveys. For example:

• "How happy are you at work?" and "How happy are you at Hooli?"
• "I have consistent 1-on-1s with my manager" and "Manager and I have 1-on-1s regularly"

Custom Trends allows you to trend similar questions as a single metric.
 

2. Creating Custom Organizational Metrics

Build metrics that align with your organization's specific pillars:

• Engagement metric combining Attrition, Happiness, and DE&I categories
• Overall Manager Effectiveness can be tracked by combining manager feedback and communication questions

3. Tracking Specific Groups

Monitor trends for particular departments, locations, or other groups without repeatedly setting up filters.

Note: on How Data is Calculated: Each data point on your Custom Trend represents the aggregate of averages from included questions
 

Who Can Use Custom Trends?

• Super Admins, Admins, Group Admins can create, edit, view, and archive custom trends. 
• (Coming in January 2026) Managers can view custom trends. 
  • Prerequisite: Admins will need to enable the "Custom Trends" feature for Managers under the Platform Settings > Manager Settings page.

Creating a Custom Trend 

1. Search for Questions and Categories. 
   1. You have to choose whether you want to create a custom trend for Scale or the eNPS question. If you choose the Scale question:
      1. You can search by keywords in the question text  (separate multiple keywords with commas)
      2. Search by question categories in the dropdown menu
      3. Search for Outcome or Driver questions if you sent Key Driver Analysis-supported surveys before. If you choose the Outcome question type, you can choose the Outcome label to quickly query all Outcome questions from KDA-enabled surveys. For example, you want to create a custom trend for the Engagement Index. 
2. Customize the Survey Audience:
   1. Search across all surveys regardless of audience, OR
   2. Search for a specific audience group (e.g., Engineers across all company surveys)
3. Review and Select Results
   1. Review all questions that match your search criteria
   2. Each row represents a question from a specific survey
   3. Hand-select the questions you want to include in your trend. You can also select all by using the checkbox in the header row. 
4. Configure Trend Settings
   1. Give your Custom Trend a descriptive name
   2. Choose how future matching questions should be handled:
      1. Automatically update: New questions matching your criteria are automatically added
      2. Manual review: You'll review and approve new questions before they're added
5. Save Your Custom Trend 
   1. Once saved, your Custom Trend will appear in your trends list and begin tracking data according to your specifications.

Managing Custom Trends

Editing Custom Trends

Super Admins and Admins can edit existing Custom Trends at any time. Changes include:

• Modifying the trend name
• Adding or removing questions

• Changing between automatic and manual update mode. (Notes: When you edit update settings): 
  • Auto to Manual: New questions created after the edit will be added to your review queue
  • Manual to Auto: The review notification banner is no longer shown when there is a new question. Future questions will be automatically added

Archiving Custom Trends

You can archive Custom Trends that are no longer needed. Archived trends:

• Stop receiving updates
• No longer automatically adds new question data
• Remain viewable for historical reference

Best Practices

• Use descriptive names that clearly indicate what your Custom Trend measures
• Start with automatic updates and switch to manual review if you need more control
• Regularly review your Custom Trends to ensure they remain relevant
• Combine strategically - ensure questions truly measure the same concept before combining them

Need Help?

Custom Trends are a powerful feature that may require some learning. If you need assistance, contact your TINYpulse Customer Success Manager or submit a support ticket for technical assistance.