X4 | Badge of the Month | March 2026

Get XM Expert certified! 
Making the investment to get certified, and stay that way, is a good way to ensure you know all the little nuances (even the ones you might not be leveraging today, but could in future) as well as stay abreast of the little nitty things that change as the platform is enhanced… so you’re less likely to find yourself on the wrong side of “oh wait it doesn’t work that way anymore”

Best Practice: Always test your survey multiple times (covering all possibilities) before launching—especially when scripting and complex logic are involved.

Make sure to gather all dashboard requirements upfront, as complex dashboards may require adjustments to embedded data or survey question design. Planning ahead helps avoid rework and ensures smoother reporting later.

I agree.  Very helpful tips and insights

Best practice: I use the below check list before running all my surveys (I use Qualtrics for academic research):

• Include attention check
• Check images size should be within 100kb
• Check monetary denomination alligns with your participants
• Ensure Force response for all questions
• Ensure correct coding for all answer options
• Run pilot
• Clear all data and Rrset all counts to zero

Share What You're Experimenting With
One of my initial experiments post-Qualtrics implementation was to find a way to send leaver checklists to our people who were leaving the company. At the time, a limitation was that our HRIS could only send notifications once a termination was approved, which didn’t happen until a few days before a person’s last day. 

This wasn’t ideal as we wanted to person to get the checklist as soon as HR confirmed their were leaving. Using a combination of Qualtrics workflows and pulling workflow data from our HRIS, I was able to provide Qualtrics with a list of those who were leaving as soon as HR approved, which was weeks before they left. 

A perfect use case for both a leaving checklist and an exit survey. 😃

Three best practices I’ve been following over the last couple of years:

1. Basecamp Learning – I make it a point to go through Basecamp courses regularly and try to learn as much as I can from them. It has really helped me strengthen my fundamentals.
2. XM Community – Whenever I face an issue, the first place I check is the XM Community. Most of the time, I either find a direct solution or at least get a direction that helps me figure it out. 
3. Learning from Surveys – Earlier, I used to ignore feedback surveys, but now I actively take as many as I can across different platforms. It gives great insights into how surveys are designed, which I then try to apply in my own work.

Also, if you get a chance, do attend X4. There’s a lot to learn from it and it’s a great experience overall. I’m personally looking forward to attending it someday.

​@bench, this sounds like a powerful use case that many working in HR would want to know more about! Consider creating a post about your strategy and implementation 💡

Share What You're Experimenting With

We learned last week from another PSE user that you can set up a “backway in” for students who can’t find their personalized emailed link! We have two surveys coming up soon where we will try the authenticator using their student ID.

If you are helping others (new to Qualtrics) to build a rather complex survey, check with them on how the survey should be presented first through a call or face-to-face meeting.

It may smoothen the building/tweaking process and save quite a lot of time and effort between the back-and-forth email conversation.

I have found that engaging early and often to collaborate on the build helps prevent issues down the line. Qualtrics is much easier when you get it right the first time rather than trying to modify an existing project when scope or needs change. 

Totally agree. Also be aware that building a dashboard is not an easy task. It takes time and careful attention to the details of your data!

Hi Everyone, 

I am new to the community, and for this to be my 1st monthly topic has been extremely helpful, I intend to soak up all your thoughts and tips! 

Best Practice Tip: Whilst I am new to the Qualtrics space, I am no stranger to learning new things. I guess my tip for anyone else who is new to this space would be to take the time to explore the community, read what other people are doing and saying. I can already see that this space is a gold mine for information and I intend on slapping on some denim overall and going gold panning quite often! 

Recommend a Basecamp Course: Might be cliche, but the Qualtrics Planform Essentials course I did yesterday was the perfect introduction. It was well paced and I didn’t find myself overwhelmed by information. The best part was the background on good survey planning and the process of Insight > Impact > Action.

Looking forward to continuing my learning journey, and if you see my like/reply to a post from a few years ago, I promise it’s not because I am stalking your feed ;)

Share What You're Experimenting With

Generating custom QR codes with Encrypted Embedded Data

We have been using Qualtrics as a custom link generator for a few of our projects where we want to have staff create custom survey links on-the-fly. They typically gather patient information, create a custom survey link for that patient, and have all of the patient information encrypted. 

More recently one of our data architects upgraded our link generator process to also generate custom QR codes that can be immediately scanned (and still pass all the patient information through securely). So in this use case, we have a check-out desk staff enter a patient identifier into the Qualtrics-based link generator, then a list of recent appointments for that patient populate a dropdown list (using the auto-complete feature associated with a supplemental data source of recent appointments, which is updated daily via API). Then they hit submit and the next page shows a QR code that they can scan on a clinic iPad and hand over to the family to complete. The link in the QR code includes the encrypted patient/appointment information, which is then loaded in as embedded data in the survey.