• When you implement a new feature in Qualtrics, how do you train other employees to use it? What has worked for you, and what hasn’t?

In essence, using a Train the Trainer approach – I make sure I am in the webinars. reading the emails and news releases from XM, and that I keep up with what is happening on the boards.

Originally, I had planned to offer a three-part training series (beginner users, advanced users, and open office hours).  I think going over updates could have been worked into the top of the open office hours or perhaps all three.   

Writing my own help guides and videos have not been successful.  Changes to the platform lead the guides to be obsolete as soon as I finish them, and there are so many different types of learning materials already available from Qualtrics (videos, guides, boards, etc.) that it didn’t make sense for me to reinvent the wheel.  I’ve started referring people to those existing resources or resources specific to the topic they’re interested in. 

• What are the main obstacles you face when providing training? Are users excited to adopt new features, or are they resistant  to learning another work process?

Time – For myself, finding the time to create the trainings and for others, finding the time to attend the trainings.  Everyone on campus is busy and has multiple roles.  A lot of times I do more one on one trainings as they are requested or I am the one designing/launching surveys on behalf of the programs.

Structure – Internally it’s not clear who owns the platform on campus (originally it was purchased by the College of Business but is used campus wide) and admin responsibilities are shared among a couple of people.  I wish the roles were more defined to make it clear who is responsible for what because I was concerned about inadvertently stepping on someone else’s turf so to speak with my trainings, but that’s something that we need to figure out in our organization.   

• How do you provide ongoing support for the new feature? Do you direct users to Qualtrics support, compile helpful resources internally, or something else?

Currently we can submit tickets to our IT department, or I will get emails directly and then I navigate Qualtrics support on behalf of the user (more this method for new features).  We have a basic license, if that makes a difference. 

• What could we provide to make this process easier for you? Do you have ideas about what content formats would be most effective? 

Perhaps a way to flag or easily identify the communications that come out regarding updates or new available features.  I get so many emails from XM that I almost at times need to triage them and it can be shockingly easy to miss the most important ones.  Just yesterday I personally forwarded the message on changes to limits for the higher ed accounts to my other admin just to be sure they saw it.     

• When you implement a new feature in Qualtrics, how do you train other employees to use it? 
  At the moment, Qualtrics surveys are built by a handful (4 - 5) of people so I’ve organised meetings to chat through requirements and training whenever this comes up. 
   
• What are the main obstacles you face when providing training? 
  The main obstacles are trying to understand the features as super admins first. We don’t have much trouble with user capability due to the small population of users building surveys.
   
• How do you provide ongoing support for the new feature? 
  I direct users to use Qualtrics support. It’s a great tool and the support agents are very helpful. Qualtric’s KBAs are also generally up to date and relevant.
   
• What could we provide to make this process easier for you? 
  Keep up the efficacy of the Qualtrics ticketing platform and make sure to keep your KBAs up to date (e.g updates are needed around the data model pages, the successor to data mapper). It that doesn’t happen, it starts to crumble really quickly. 

​@bench I second the support team, they are fantastic.

​@pamelalbeck Thanks so much for your response! My name is Kat, I’m a Digital Program Manager here at Qualtrics. My team is currently working on developing some content to make these tasks easier for people like you, and your feedback is SO helpful!

• Writing my own help guides and videos have not been successful.  Changes to the platform lead the guides to be obsolete as soon as I finish them, and there are so many different types of learning materials already available from Qualtrics (videos, guides, boards, etc.) that it didn’t make sense for me to reinvent the wheel.

You’re not the first person we’ve heard this from -- the platform is constantly changing, and it can be tough for people to keep diy content up to date. But, we understand the need for up-to-date content to be available to train people at scale. This is definitely something we’re considering as we develop our content strategy.

• Time – For myself, finding the time to create the trainings and for others, finding the time to attend the trainings.

One of our top goals with our digital initiatives is to save time. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of the work yourself (scheduling sessions around busy schedules, one-on-one training, etc). While I don’t love to hear that you’re putting in so much manual effort, it is great to hear this feedback since it supports our thinking that on-demand, accessible, and scalable content is what we should be investing in!

I am also interested in what you’re saying about making important updates stand out in your inbox. While my team doesn’t necessarily own the communications you’re talking about, we can start to think of some ways we can potentially mitigate this problem in our work. 

Thanks again for all your insights! We really appreciate this kind of feedback to help us design our projects to meet the needs of real users. 

​@bench Thanks for leaving this comment! My name is Kat, I’m a Digital Program Manager here at Qualtrics. Your feedback here is really useful as we design our program strategy for the future. 

• The main obstacles are trying to understand the features as super admins first. We don’t have much trouble with user capability due to the small population of users building surveys.

This is completely understandable -- it’s difficult to provide training on a feature you might not fully understand yourself. This is a problem we are trying to solve with our digital initiatives in 2026!

• I direct users to use Qualtrics support. It’s a great tool and the support agents are very helpful. Qualtric’s KBAs are also generally up to date and relevant.

As a former Quni product specialist and Enterprise Support specialist, I love to hear this positive feedback. Our support teams work hard to help out, and it’s always a good feeling to hear that we’re making an impact! I’m glad the team has continued to help support you and your team. 

Thanks again for leaving this comment. We really appreciate your engagement!

In my experience, one of the best ways to share new features and provide training to fellow techs and analysts has been to build demos projects/worklfows/dashboards in our sandbox environment.

Obviously, this is a time consuming process and we must select only the most relevant/innovative features to demo, but it allows everyone to make copies and quickly jump in to experience and customize the new features.

​@vgayraud Thanks for your comment! I definitely see the value in having a sandbox setup ready to go, and especially in having it available for people to copy and play around with as they learn. I’m sure this is a great way to get people familiar with a feature, but costs you a lot of time personally. Our team really appreciates this insight into how you’re currently tackling this problem, and we will keep your obstacles in mind as we develop our content strategy moving forward!

In my organization, within the team, we have a weekly meeting in which each team member presents any new use case, any custom or complex project they’re working on, or any new feature update or development made on the Qualtrics platform.

I believe having such a forum strengthens the team, increases awareness of the team’s collective potential, and keeps everyone updated with the latest advancements and product updates.

​@gPandey_715 Thanks for your comment! I like the weekly meeting structure you described; it sounds like it fosters a lot of collaboration between your team members. This also seems like a great way to help people learn how to use features they may not be familiar with. A live peer-to-peer structure creates an environment where people can feel free to explore the platform, ask questions, and discover new functionality. We appreciate your insight here!