Creating Custom Surveys Using the Question Bank

Prosper's Question Bank lets you build custom surveys from a library of questions developed by people scientists and linked to measurement pillars. This means even your custom surveys feed directly into overall score and focus-area tracking in the Management Dashboard — giving you the flexibility of a custom survey with the rigour of validated questions.

Who this is for: Administrators and approved Managers

Read time: 6 minutes

Why use the Question Bank?

Building a survey from scratch risks asking questions that are leading, ambiguous, or impossible to benchmark. The Question Bank avoids this:

Scientifically developed. Every question is written by people scientists for clarity and validity.
Mapped to measurement pillars. Each rated question links to a pillar, so responses contribute to your overall scores and focus areas in the Management Dashboard.
Flexible. Mix Question Bank questions with your own custom questions to tailor the survey to your needs.

Prerequisites

You must be an Administrator or approved Manager with survey access.
The Surveys & Happiness module must be enabled for your organisation.

Part 1 — Building custom surveys in the Question Bank

Step 1 — Open the Question Bank

From the Prosper main menu, navigate to Surveys & Happiness, select Question Bank, and select Get Started.

Step 2 — Set title, description, and anonymity

Populate the Survey Title and Survey Description, and specify Anonymity.

Anonymity: All surveys default to anonymous. To turn anonymity off, switch the toggle off.

Step 3 — Choose a topic

Select a topic to browse the related questions in the Question Bank.

Step 4 — Select a question and add it

Select a question.
Choose Add to Survey.

The question will auto-populate in the survey with its associated measurement pillars.

Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to add more questions from the Question Bank to your survey.

Step 5 — Choose recipients

Scroll down to Choose Recipients. As with all Prosper surveys, you can send to all employees, specific individuals, or filtered groups (by Team, User Role, Job Role, Location, Gender, or Age).

Step 6 — Send the survey

Select Send Survey. A confirmation will appear — confirm to distribute the survey to your chosen recipients.

Part 2 — Adding custom questions

You can supplement Question Bank questions with your own. Note that custom questions you write yourself aren't mapped to measurement pillars, so they won't contribute to pillar scoring — but they're ideal for organisation-specific topics.

Step 1 — Add a custom question

Select + Add Question.

Step 2 — Write the question and select an answer type

Populate your survey Question Text and select the appropriate Answer Type.

Step 3 — Choose recipients

Scroll down to Choose Recipients and select your audience.

Step 4 — Send the survey

Select Send Survey to distribute.

Tip: Combine the two. A strong custom survey often uses Question Bank questions for the pillar-tracked metrics and a couple of custom questions for context specific to your business — for example, a recent change or initiative.

Part 3 — Deleting a question

To remove a question from your survey, navigate to the trashcan icon and select Delete.

Note: Deleting a Question Bank question removes its contribution to the associated measurement pillar for this survey. If you want consistent pillar tracking over time, keep pillar-mapped questions in place.

Part 4 — Survey notifications and reminders

All Prosper surveys follow the same cadence for notifications, ensuring consistent and timely communication.

Activation: When a survey is activated, an initial notification is sent via email — and SMS as well, if the recipient has a mobile phone number in the employee profile.
First reminder: Sent three days after the activation date (email and SMS).
Second and final reminder: Sent five days after activation (email and SMS).

Weekend deferral: If any reminder is scheduled to fall on a weekend, it will automatically be deferred to the next business day to maintain optimal delivery and visibility.

Tips and best practices

Lead with the Question Bank. Pillar-mapped questions are what power the Management Dashboard. Build your survey's backbone from the Question Bank, then add custom questions for colour.
Keep surveys focused. A shorter, well-targeted survey usually achieves a higher completion rate than a long one. Resist the urge to add every interesting question.
Cover a balanced set of pillars. If you want a rounded view of employee experience, draw questions from across several pillars rather than concentrating on one.
Default to anonymous for sensitive topics. Anonymity drives honesty. Only turn it off when you have a clear reason and respondents understand their answers will be attributed.
Time your activation mid-week. Because of the reminder cadence and weekend deferral, a mid-week activation generally achieves the best visibility.
Preview before sending. Walk through the survey as a respondent to check flow, wording, and that custom questions read clearly alongside Question Bank questions.

Troubleshooting

I can't see the Question Bank option.
Confirm the Surveys & Happiness module is enabled and that you have Administrator or approved Manager access.

A question I added isn't contributing to a pillar score.
Only Question Bank rated questions are mapped to measurement pillars. Custom questions you write yourself won't contribute to pillar scoring — they're for capturing additional, organisation-specific feedback.

Recipients say they didn't receive the survey.
Confirm the survey was sent (not left unsent), check the recipient was included in your selection or filters, and verify their email address in Prosper. Recipients who haven't opted in to SMS receive email notifications only.

A reminder didn't go out when I expected.
Reminders are sent three and five days after activation, but any reminder falling on a weekend is deferred to the next business day — so the actual date may be later than the exact day count.

I turned off anonymity by mistake.
Anonymity must be set before activating a survey. Once a survey starts to record responses, anonymity cannot be revoked.

Can I reuse a custom survey I've built?
Custom surveys are easy to repeat — just clone the survey. Surveys can be cloned from either Active or Complete status.