Tracking feedback over time (Evolution)
See how themes, sentiment, and volume change across weeks, months, quarters, or the phases you name yourself.
Every feedback group has one timeline. By default that timeline is a single period: every response is analysed together as one all-time picture. Tracking feedback over time divides the same timeline into periods (weeks, months, quarters, a custom number of days, or named phases such as Pre-season and Launch weekend), each with its own full analysis, so you can watch how themes, sentiment, and volume change from one period to the next.
You choose how a group handles time when you create it, and you can switch a group to tracking over time (or back to one all-time analysis) at any point. Your raw feedback is never touched by these switches; only the analysis output changes shape.
For the container that holds the data, see Feedback Groups. For survey lifecycle and recurring programmes, see Managing Surveys.
Choosing how feedback is grouped over time
Whether you set it at creation, when you enable tracking, or later from the periods manager, the choice is always the same picker, titled How should feedback be grouped over time?. It offers two strategies:
Automatic periods: Best for continuous tracking and regular reporting. Pick a cadence: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Every N days. For Every N days you enter the length (between 1 and 365 days).
Named phases: Best for launches, events, campaigns, seasons, or research waves. You define the phases yourself as a list of names and boundary dates. Only phases after the first need a date: each boundary starts the new phase and ends the previous one the day before. The last phase stays open until you start the next one, so a season can be chaptered as it happens.
With named phases, use + Add a period to add rows (up to the maximum shown in the editor), and the timeline preview shows each phase's date range with the last one marked open. Phases can be planned ahead: a phase whose date has not arrived yet stays hidden on the timeline until it starts.
Turning it on
Choose at group creation
When you create a feedback group, the dialog asks How will this group collect feedback?:
Static: A fixed set of feedback, analyzed as one batch. Best for one-off surveys, file imports, or closed studies.
Ongoing: Feedback keeps arriving. Group it into time periods and watch themes and sentiment evolve from one period to the next. Choosing Ongoing reveals the grouping picker described above, right in the creation dialog.
Enable it on an existing group
A group that is analysed as one period shows a single Overall chip on the timeline bar at the top of its page, with a dashed Track feedback over time button next to it. Click that button (or pick Track feedback over time from the group's three-dot settings menu) to open the setup wizard. Read-only members see the note All feedback analyzed as one period instead of the button.
The setup wizard
The wizard is titled Track feedback over time and shows Step X of 3.
Group feedback over time
Each period gets its own analysis so changes are easy to compare. Pick Automatic periods and a cadence, or Named phases and your first phases.
Once BAI Analytics knows how far back your data goes, the step estimates the result: With this choice you'll get about N periods. If that number is high, it suggests a coarser unit (monthly or quarterly) for a smoother chart. This is only a hint; you can keep a fine granularity if you want it.
Place your existing feedback on the timeline
Shown when the group already contains responses. Some historical rows may not carry a date of their own, so you choose the best available one:
Use each source's import date: Best when sources were added at different times. Existing responses inherit the date their source was imported.
Treat all existing feedback as today: Best when historical timing does not matter. Existing responses stay together in the current period or phase.
This only affects how historical feedback is grouped. You can always re-import a file with real per-row dates later.
Right after you confirm, the group shows Preparing historical periods… while every existing answer is stamped with a date so it lands in the right period. This usually takes a few minutes for large groups; the timeline appears once it is done.
Reading your timeline
The timeline bar
The bar pinned at the top of the group page is titled Evolution over time. It shows one bar per period, with empty stretches drawn as gaps rather than zeros. Hover a bar for its response count; click it to open that period's own analysis. The Overall chip at the left returns you to the cross-period view, and Details expands the selected period's summary (response count, sources analysed, sentiment split).
Each period can carry one of these states:
Live: this period is not over yet, so the count will keep growing.
Analyzing: analysis is in progress.
New data, stale: analysed before, but new data has arrived since.
Too few responses: below the threshold for a meaningful analysis.
Looks stuck, click to retry: no progress for over 5 minutes. The analysis is recovered automatically shortly, or click to retry.
Archived: an older or superseded period.
When any period has new data since its last analysis, the bar shows a Needs refresh badge. Drill into the period to refresh the affected sources.
Naming a period
Periods are labelled by their dates (for example Aug 4 – 10, 2026), and named phases show the name you gave them. You can give any period a friendlier name: open its Details, click the pencil next to the period label, type the name, and press Enter (Escape cancels; clearing the field goes back to the dates). The name is purely a label: it does not re-run anything, and it appears wherever the period does, from chart tooltips to report headings, where the date range stays visible alongside it.
Starting the next phase
On a group with named phases, writers get a Start next phase button on the timeline bar. It opens a two-field dialog: an optional name and a start date (today by default). The current phase closes on that date and the new one begins. If you backdate the boundary into a phase that was already analysed, that phase is marked for a refresh. The button is hidden while a future phase is already planned.
The Overall view
With no period selected, the page rolls the whole timeline up:
Across all sources: grouped themes and Custom Monitoring for the group, built from every analysed period. On a tracked group, the grouped themes are clustered once for the whole series and each period shows its share of that same set, so a theme keeps the same name from one period to the next and matches what you see on Overall.
Metrics over time: your evolution views (see below), starting with Sentiment over time.
Per source: the Sources in this group panel lists every source with its all-time response count. Click a source to see which periods it appears in and open one of them.
Inside a period, the same layout applies to that period only, and Per source becomes Sources in this period, where each source is analysed and opened on its own.
Evolution views
An evolution view plots one metric per period: pick a source (or All sources), pick what to plot, and it charts across your timeline. Add one from the dashed Add evolution view tile under Metrics over time.
What you can plot
Overall sentiment: the same rollup as the default chart, for one source or the whole group.
Response volume: how many responses each period received.
NPS question: the NPS score per period (promoters minus detractors, -100 to 100).
Scale question: the average score per period, on the question's own range.
Choice question: the share of respondents picking an option, per period.
Monitor mentions: how many comments matched a Custom Monitoring monitor, per period, shown as a Count or as % of responses.
How they behave
The creation dialog shows a live Preview as you make choices, so you see the chart before saving.
Cards show the latest value and its change vs previous period; clicking a point on the chart opens that period's analysis.
Split by a metadata or choice question to plot the top segments as separate lines (answer-backed metrics).
Bounded metrics (sentiment, NPS, percentages, scale averages) get an Auto / Full toggle for the Y-axis scale. Auto zooms the axis to the data range so real movement is visible, while keeping a minimum span so small jitter never looks dramatic; Full shows the metric's whole scale. Counts always keep their zero baseline.
Drag the grip handle to reorder cards, and set each view to Half width or Full width.
Periods with no data show as gaps, never as fabricated zeros; low-sample points are marked as such.
Views are shared with everyone in the group (read-only members see them without editing), up to 10 per group.
Values are computed from your raw responses on demand: adding a view runs no analysis and spends no AI allowance, and views survive a change of grouping.
If you set up period-close reports (see below), each email includes a table of every view's closed-period value and its change versus the previous period.
Running and managing periods
Analysing a period
New data triggers analysis automatically as it arrives, so a period's themes and sentiment stay current without anyone clicking anything. Grouped themes and AI insights are also prepared in the background as soon as a period's sources finish, so opening a period does not start a wait. Use the manual controls when you want to force a specific scope right now, for example right after a bulk import.
Each source in a period is analysed separately. The Sources in this period panel shows every source with its state (Not analyzed, Analyzing, Analyzed, New data, Too few responses, Archived) and a per-source Analyze or Re-analyze action. Click Analyze whole period to run everything at once. This opens Analyze this period, where you choose the scope:
Stale and not-yet-analyzed: sources with new data and sources never analysed for this period.
Only not-yet-analyzed: sources that have never been analysed for this period.
Only stale: sources analysed before that have new data since.
Runs happen in the background and may take a few minutes, so you can keep working. Only one period per feedback group is analysed at a time.
Managing sources
Click Manage sources on the timeline bar (or in the group header) to open the Sources drawer: Add, connect, or configure sources for this feedback group. Changes apply across every period.
Adding a source. On an empty group the drawer opens with an Add a source grid; once the group has sources it folds into a compact row of pills. The five actions open the matching workflow directly: Create survey, Upload file (CSV, XLSX, JSON and more), Add connector, Web & social, and AI Visibility. A source type that is not enabled for your organisation is shown greyed out as Not enabled; contact the BAI Analytics team to have it switched on.
What is already there. Sources are listed in two sections, each with its own search box:
Active sources: Continuously feeding this group. Published surveys, syncing connectors, and scheduled agents.
One-time data: File imports and closed surveys.
Each row shows the source type, its response count and, where relevant, last sync or next run. Click a row to open it: on a tracked group this opens a period picker listing every period the source has responses in, with per-period counts and analysis state, so you can jump straight to the right analysis (the calendar icon, View analyses by period, does the same). Rows with nothing to open yet (drafts, sources without responses, or a source whose detail line reads Not analyzed yet) stay inert. The row menu also lets you Share, Download responses (Excel), Close survey, Pause syncing / Pause scraper, Fetch now, or Delete source.
Historical files. Use Upload one-time data to layer past files into the group; every row is dated from its own date column when the file has one. The upload wizard also reminds you which language the group's AI summaries are generated in (AI summaries for this group will be generated in French, for example) with a change link, so you can correct it before the analysis runs.
Connectors and agents. When you connect a native integration (Zendesk, Jira, and other connectors) to a tracked group, BAI Analytics leads with continuous syncing so the connector keeps feeding future periods; the Import without syncing link is there if a one-time backfill is genuinely all you need. Web & social and AI Visibility agents created from a tracked group default to a schedule Synced to this group's periods: new posts are fetched regularly and each period is completed right after it closes (or, with named phases, right after you start the next one). A Customize schedule link restores the manual pickers. See Social Listening.
A source keeps feeding later periods for as long as it keeps producing new data: a connector or agent on a continuous sync, or a survey that is still published and collecting responses.
Sources removed from the group appear under View detached sources. From there each one can be restored with Add back, or removed for good with Delete permanently, behind its own confirmation, since that deletes the source's data rather than just unlinking it.
Feedback group settings
The three-dot menu on the timeline bar holds the settings that change what the dashboard computes. Each entry shows its current value underneath it:
Analysis output language: the one language every AI output for this group is written in (insights, summaries, themes, and answers), so analysis never mixes languages across periods. A new group starts in the language your interface was set to when you created it. Changing it regenerates the group's analysis in the new language; raw data is untouched.
Personal data redaction (organisation admins only): whether this group follows the Organization default or a Custom override for removing personal information from feedback as it arrives. See Feedback Groups for how the override works.
Periods and phases: the current grouping (for example Monthly or Named phases) and the manager to change it. See below.
Switch to one all-time analysis: turn tracking off for this group. See below.
Report settings that used to sit in this menu now live under Reports on the group page, where their effect is: automatic period-close reports and report source weighting. See Reports.
Periods and phases
Periods and phases opens one manager for everything about how the group's feedback is divided over time. A group on named phases opens on its phase timeline, where you can rename phases, move boundaries that have not started yet, or plan the next ones; a Change how feedback is grouped link switches to the grouping picker. A group on automatic periods opens on the picker directly, with named phases as one of its options.
Before you save, the manager tells you exactly what the change will do:
Names only: renaming a phase does not re-run any analysis.
Existing analyses are preserved: you are only changing phases that have not started yet.
Analyses of the changed phases will be reset: you moved a boundary that has already started, so its feedback is regrouped and analysed again. Raw feedback is kept.
Current period analyses will be archived: changing the grouping strategy or cadence archives the analyses of the current periods and builds new ones. Raw feedback is kept.
Automatic reports follow the new periods, and agents scheduled to match the periods are rescheduled. If a shorter period would make a saved report's send delay impossible, the manager stops and offers Reset delay and continue, so no report silently stops sending.
Switch to one all-time analysis
Choosing Switch to one all-time analysis opens a confirmation:
Feedback keeps arriving and your sources stay connected. The separate period analyses are archived and one all-time analysis is restored. No feedback is deleted.
Click Switch to all-time to confirm. The timeline bar goes back to the single Overall chip, with Track feedback over time one click away if you change your mind. Any automatic period reports are paused and stay saved under Reports; they resume when you turn tracking back on.
Automatic period reports
Rather than a fixed daily/weekly/monthly schedule, a period-close report ties the email to the tracking cadence itself: each time a period closes, a report covering it is added to Reports and emailed to the recipients you choose. With named phases, the recap goes out when you start the next phase.
Set them up from the group's Reports panel, under the Period-close reports tab (Set up period-close report). Each rule can be scoped to specific sources and given a Send delay after period end, useful if you want late-arriving data to settle before the report goes out. If a closed period had no new feedback, recipients get a short notice instead of an empty report, so the cadence stays predictable either way. Reports created this way carry an Automatic badge in the reports list. The full walkthrough is in Reports.
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