Distribution Reporting (CX)

Suite
Customer Experience
Product
Qualtrics
What's on this page
Attention: The XM Directory Respondent Funnel can accomplish the same analysis as distribution reporting with an easier setup. After August 31, 2022 users will not be able to add new data sources or create new dashboard pages from the Directory Respondent page template. Additionally, we are currently not enabling distribution reporting for any new customers at this time. Reach out to your Account Executive or Account Services if you don’t have access to the respondent funnel and are interested in this feature.

About Distribution Reporting

Distribution reporting enables users to report on response and completion rates over one or more surveys using any CX Dashboards widget. Additionally, the feature allows data from distributions to be filtered by embedded data stored in the contact list.

Qtip: If you have also purchased access to the Salesforce Extension, you can report on your Salesforce distributions with distribution reporting. This includes Salesforce emails triggered in the Tools and in the Workflows tab.
Qtip: Distribution data is only accessible for email distributions that are sent after you’ve set up distribution reporting. Distribution reporting will only report distribution data from the past 15 months. If you’d like to report distribution data older than this, you must export the data and import it as a dataset.
Attention: Distribution reporting will not pull in distributions that were sent via automations.

Setting Up Distribution Reporting

Attention: You can no longer set up distribution reporting for the first time. Use the improved XM Directory Respondent Funnel instead.

The distribution fieldset must be mapped before a dashboard can utilize distribution reporting.

Navigate to the dashboard settings.

Button that says Settings and has a gear icon
Button that says Settings and has a gear icon

In the Dashboard Data page, click on Add Source, hover over Distributions, and select the survey that contains the distribution on which you want to report.

image showing how to add a distribution data source
image showing how to add a distribution data source

If the distribution source is the first source added to the dashboard, it will automatically add 12 fields to the data mapping. If there is already a survey mapped alongside the new distribution source, you will need to manually add the following fields.

Manually Adding Distribution Data

Add at least five new fields by clicking Add Field in the bottom left corner. Required fields with their corresponding field types include:
image showing the necessary fields for distribution reporting
image showing the necessary fields for distribution reporting
  • Send Date (Date): The date that the distribution sent.
  • Survey Started (Number Set): The number of surveys responses that were started by clicking the survey link.
  • Survey Started Date (Date): The date a survey response started.
  • Survey Completed (Number Set): The number of completed survey responses that have been recorded. This does not include recorded incomplete responses.
  • Survey Completed Date (Date): The date that a survey response was recorded.
Locate the grey boxes that say Not Mapped under the distribution source. Click on a box associated with one of the newly added fields.
image showing how to map values for distribution reporting fields
image showing how to map values for distribution reporting fields
Select the corresponding distribution field from the Fields If not all fields appear, click Show All at the bottom of the menu.
Image showing the list of available distribution reporting fields
Image showing the list of available distribution reporting fields
Qtip: In addition to the five required fields, distribution reporting has 11 additional fields on which you can report: Survey ID, Distribution ID, Distribution Channel, Recipient ID, Address, First Name, Last Name, Bounced, Bounce Type, Opened, and Open Date.

Adding Embedded Data

Qtip: When mapping fields using embedded data, remember that special characters such as period (.) and hashtag (#) are unsupported. See Best Practices and Troubleshooting Embedded Data for more tips on setting embedded data values.

You can also add embedded data that is stored in the contact list associated with your distributions.

Click on Add Field.
image showing the add field button and showing how to map embedded data
image showing the add field button and showing how to map embedded data
Click on Not Mapped.
Click on Add Embedded Data.
In the popup that appears, type in the name of the embedded data field exactly as it appears in your contact list.
image showing the add embedded data pop up
image showing the add embedded data pop up
Click Save.

Distribution Reporting Fields

By default, there are 18 fields you can map. Each field’s meaning is listed with what field type you should map it as.

  • Address: Text Value. Email addresses of the contacts who received the email.
  • Bounce Type: When an email bounces, there are two types of bounce.
    Qtip: Hard and Soft bounces are meant to serve as estimates to get you started troubleshooting. They are reliant on signals sent by the recipient server, and are therefore only as precise as the message sent to Qualtrics.
    • Hard: The email or its domain doesn’t exist.
    • Soft: The mailbox is full, the message is too large, or the server you sent the distribution to is down.
    • Empty: Emails that did not bounce.
  • Bounced: Number Set. How many emails bounced.
  • Distribution ID: Text Value. The internal ID of the distribution you just mapped.
  • Distribution Channel: Text Set. How the distribution was sent. For example, email or SMS.
  • Distribution Type: Text Set. Includes invite, interactive, and SF Trigger (Salesforce trigger).
  • External Data Reference: This element allows you to see the External Data Reference field from the contact list. This can be useful if the contact list has been deleted.
  • First Name: Text Value. First names of the contacts who received the email.
  • Last Name: Text Value. Last names of the contacts who received the email.
  • Opened: Number Set. Whether an email was opened (1) or not (0).
    Qtip: Qualtrics uses a pixel embedded in the email to gauge when an email is opened. When the pixel is loaded, the email is marked as opened. The number of opened emails is approximate as it relies on the recipient’s email server automatically loading the pixel.
  • Open Date: Date. When the email was opened.
  • Recipient ID: Text Value. The internal IDs of the contacts who received the email.
  • Send Date: Date. The date that the distribution sent.
  • Survey Completed: Number Set. The number of survey responses that have been recorded. This does not include recorded incomplete responses or manually closed responses in progress.
  • Survey Completed Date (Date): The date that a survey response was recorded.
  • Survey ID: Text Value. The internal ID of the survey the distribution was sent out for.
  • Survey Started: Number Set. The number of surveys responses that were started by clicking the survey link.
  • Survey Started Date: Date. The date a survey response started.
Attention: Response rate and completion rate are not included as default fields. In order to add add these to your dashboard, follow the instructions in the next section!

Distribution Channel

Distribution Channel used to be called Distribution Type. If you are still seeing the wrong name with the wrong information on your dashboard and would like to change it, modify the field name in the data mapper.

image showing how to rename distribution channel
image showing how to rename distribution channel

Bounce Type & Distribution Type

If you do not have Bounce Type or Distribution Type in your dashboard, you will need to add a field. You may need to click Show All before they appear as an option. Set these fields to Text Set.

image showing how to map bounce type and distribution type
image showing how to map bounce type and distribution type

Response Rate & Completion Rate

Qtip: Response rate is calculated differently for the XM Respondent Funnel. See the XM Respondent Funnel page for details.

Before you can report on response rate and completion rate in your dashboard, you will need to add two custom metrics.

In the dashboard settings, click on the Custom metrics page.
in the custom metrics tab, creating a response rate metric
in the custom metrics tab, creating a response rate metric
Click Add custom metric.
Call it “Response Rate.”
Add the following equation: (Count) / (Count).
Qtip: To build the equation, click Metric, then the division symbol ( / ), and then Metric again.
Click the numerator.
filtering the numerator
filtering the numerator
Go to the Filters section.
Click Add Filter.
Hover over Text and select Survey Started.
filtering for survey started
filtering for survey started
Edit the filter to only include responses with a value of “Survey Started.”
choosing only survey started for the filter
choosing only survey started for the filter
Click Save.
Qtip: If desired, you can relabel your metrics by clicking on them and entering a new Label in the Source tab. For Response Rate, the equation is “Survey Started / Count”.
relabeling the response rate calculation
relabeling the response rate calculation
Similarly, create a second custom metric and call it “Completion Rate.”
creating a completion rate metric
creating a completion rate metric
Add the following equation: (Count) / (Count).
Click the numerator.
filtering the numerator
filtering the numerator
Go to the Filters section.
Click Add Filter.
Hover over Text and select Survey Completed.
filtering for survey completed
filtering for survey completed
Edit the filter so it only includes responses with “Complete” status.
filtering for survey completed
filtering for survey completed
Click Save.
Filter the denominator so it includes only responses where “Survey Started.”
filtering the denominator for survey started
filtering the denominator for survey started
Click Save.
Qtip: If desired, you can relabel your metrics by clicking on them and entering a new Label in the Source tab. For Completion Rate, the equation is “Survey Completed / Survey Started”.
relabeling the completion rate calculation
relabeling the completion rate calculation
Attention: Responses will only be recorded as “Survey Completed” if their progress is 100%.
Attention: If you are reporting on distributions and surveys in the same dashboard, you will need to add a filter for “Data Set Source” at the widget or page level to distinguish between distributions from different surveys.

Reporting on Distributions

Qtip: Don’t want to set up distribution reporting all by yourself? Check out our distribution page templates!

Now that you have your fields mapped, you can add them to widgets like any other field!

A dashboard reporting on distributions
A dashboard reporting on distributions
Qtip: For the fields Survey Started, Survey Completed, Opened, and Bounced, values will be either 0 or 1, where 0 is false and 1 is true. You can recode these fields as Text Sets and set the recode values to plain text to make your dashboard easier to understand.

Recode editor where the 0 and 1 are being defined as sensible labels like survey not completed and survey completed
Recode editor where the 0 and 1 are being defined as sensible labels like survey not completed and survey completed

Distribution Methods Available for Distribution Reporting

When analyzing your distribution reporting data, you may notice slight differences between the data displayed in your dashboard and other similar features in Qualtrics, such as the distribution statistics available for survey email invitations. These differences occur because of how distribution events are recorded in the various parts of the Qualtrics platform. For distribution reporting in CX Dashboards, responses will only appear when the response has both an associated Distribution ID and Recipient ID. This means the response has an identifiable contact it can be linked to as well as a unique distribution event in Qualtrics. Below is a table of each distribution method in Qualtrics and if their responses are available in distribution reporting.

Distribution Method Available in Distribution Reporting?
Email Invitation with Individual Link Yes
Email Reminder with Individual Link No
Email Invitation/Reminder with Anonymous Link No
Email Invitation/Reminder with Multiple Completes Link No
Personal Links No
Marketo Distributions No
SMS Invitations Yes
2-Way SMS Surveys Sent to a Contact List Yes
SMS Access Codes No
Anonymous Survey Link No
QR Codes No
Social Media Distributions No

Reporting Response Rates and Completion Rates as Percentages

When creating the response rate and completion rate custom metrics, these fields are generally reported as an exact number. However, you can report these values as percentages with just a few simple steps.

Create a number chart widget.
Click Add Metric.
Editing a Number Chart
Editing a Number Chart
 Select Count.
Editing the count in the widget editing pane to the right
Editing the count in the widget editing pane to the right
Change the Metric to “Response Rate” or “Completion Rate.”
Click Options.
Changing the number to a percentage
Changing the number to a percentage
Change the Format to Percent.

FAQs

What dashboard widgets can I use with my distribution data in CX Dashboards?

Does the response rate factor in bounced emails for my Distribution Reporting in CX Dashboards?

Is this feature compatible with data models?

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