Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Peakon
Last Updated: 2026-10-02
Open-Ended Questions

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions are standalone text-based questions that enable you to collect qualitative feedback without a 0-10 rating scale. They display at the end of a survey, after all score-based questions.
Open-ended questions are a distinct feature from the optional comment box that displays below standard score-based driver questions. Deactivating open-ended questions does not turn off or disable the optional comment fields on standard score-based questions.

Overview and Differences

  • Open-Ended Questions:
     Independent survey items configured without a 0-10 scale. Employees respond using free text only. Because they carry no numerical score, adding or removing open-ended questions does not impact historical driver or engagement scores.
  • Score-Based Question Comments:
     Optional text fields provided alongside standard rating questions (0-10 scale) allowing employees to provide additional context for their scores.

Survey Configuration and Frequency

You can switch open-ended questions on or off on survey schedules alongside the Engagement and Values question sets. This enables you to run standalone targeted surveys or run qualitative questions at customized cadences (Example:
Monthly, Quarterly, Only Once,
 or
Always
). To ensure a specific open-ended question displays in an upcoming survey round, set its frequency to
Always
. Change the frequency or deactivate the question before the next round as needed.

Use Cases

  • Company Events and All-Hands Q&A
    : Gather questions prior to an all-hands meeting (Example:
    What would you like to ask executive leadership during the next company meeting?
    ).
  • General Feedback
    : Seek broad sentiment across the organization (Example:
    What is on your mind right now that you would like to share with us?
    ).
  • Policy and Local Initiatives
    : Gather feedback on regional initiatives or policy updates (Example:
    Do you have questions regarding the updated leave policy?
    ).
  • Complementary Onboarding and Offboarding Feedback
    : Collect qualitative insights targeted to specific tenure segments (Example:
    What was your favorite part of onboarding?
    ).

Recommendations

  • Limit the number of open-ended questions in a single survey round to prevent survey fatigue.
  • Phrase questions to invite constructive qualitative feedback rather than simple yes/no responses.

Limitations

  • Display Order
    : Open-ended questions always display at the end of the survey. You cannot customize the sequence of individual open-ended questions relative to one another.
  • Question-Level Access
    : Manager access to open-ended questions is configured globally; you cannot adjust access permissions on a per-question basis.
  • Visibility Thresholds
    : Open-ended questions comply with overall comment visibility threshold settings rather than dedicated question-level thresholds. A segment must meet the comment visibility threshold before comments become visible.