Add a Supplemental Question
Add your own question to one or more Retain surveys.
Retain's built-in questions can't be changed, but you can add supplemental questions of your own to any survey.
They're called supplemental (not custom survey questions) because they sit on top of the standard survey instead of changing it — the built-in questions stay the same, which keeps your results comparable over time.
If you don't see the Supplemental Questions tab at all, contact support to have it turned on.
Note: Only Retain Administrators can add or change questions.
In the top menu, open settings, then surveys.
Open the Supplemental Questions tab.
Select Add Question.
Open Surveys and check every survey this question should appear on. You can choose more than one.
Choose a Question Type: Short Text, Long Text, Yes / No, or Likert Scale (5 Answer Options).
Type your question under Question Text (English). If your employees use Spanish, add the question under Question Text (Spanish) too.
You can also add a variable. Click the {ORGANIZATION_NAME} chip below the box to insert the token into your question text wherever your cursor is.
About Variables
{ORGANIZATION_NAME} is a placeholder that stands in for your organization's actual name. Instead of typing your company's name into the question, you drop in this token, and Retain fills in the real name automatically when the survey is shown. Clicking the {ORGANIZATION_NAME} chip below the box just inserts the token into your question text wherever your cursor is, so you don't have to type the curly braces yourself.
What the employee sees: Retain swaps the token for your organization's name. So if you write —
Have you made friends at {ORGANIZATION_NAME}?
— an employee at, say, Wayne Enterprises sees:
Have you made friends at Wayne Enterprises?
Three things worth knowing:
- It stays current. The name is pulled live, so if your organization's name ever changes in Retain, existing questions update to the new name on their own — you don't have to edit them.
- The Spanish field has the same
{ORGANIZATION_NAME}option, so you can use it in both languages. - It's optional. If you'd rather not include the name, just leave the token out and write the question plainly.
Check Required if employees must answer it, then select add.
Keep in Mind
- A new question applies to the next survey that goes out, not ones already in progress.
- Adding a Spanish version lets Spanish-speaking employees see the question in their own language.
To change or turn off a question later, see manage supplemental questions.