Availability: Pro, and every trial.
On Pro you can clone any pulse (a core pulse, a library pulse, or one of your own) and edit the clone, build a pulse from scratch with your own questions and branching logic, or describe what you want to measure and start from a draft. The core pulses stay untouched (they're the baseline that comes with every plan) and your custom pulses have a list of their own, Custom pulses, under Measurement.
This article walks through the four common flows.
Clone before you editLink to this section
If you want a pulse that's "like the core one but with one extra question", always clone. The core pulse can't be edited: its locked questions keep your numbers comparable month to month.
Cloning is a one-click action: under Measurement, hit Clone to edit on the pulse you want to start from, on its row in Standard pulses or Pulse library. You'll be taken straight to the Pulse Builder with an editable copy, ready to tweak.
Flow 1: clone a core pulse and tweakLink to this section
Best for: "I want The AI Pulse plus one extra question about error rates" or "I want to soften the language in The AI Review."
- Measurement → Standard pulses or Pulse library → Clone to edit (on whichever pulse you want to start from)
- You're in the Builder on the clone. The breadcrumb at the top says "Cloned from The AI Pulse" so you know what you're working from.
- Change the name (it defaults to "The AI Pulse (copy)") to something specific, like "The AI Pulse (Engineering cut)".
- Add, remove, or reword questions. The cadence, subject type and tool assignment came along with the clone. Change any of them if you need to.
- Choose Create pulse to save it. The Active switch at the top decides whether it starts going out on its cadence: turn it off first if you want to keep working on it.
Once saved, the pulse sits on Custom pulses, tagged "Cloned from The AI Pulse", so you can always see where it came from.
Flow 2: build from scratchLink to this section
Best for: something none of the core pulses cover, like a short run of feedback on a specific tool's onboarding.
- Measurement → Custom pulses → Create a custom pulse
- The Builder opens empty. Start typing your first question at the top.
- Answer What is this pulse about? This is the choice to get right, and it's fixed once the pulse is created:
- One tool: the pulse goes to the people assigned that tool, and its answers feed that tool's numbers. Pick the tool below the question.
- The whole organisation: everyone gets it, whether or not they have an AI tool assigned, and nothing it collects is attributed to a tool.
- For each question, pick the answer type: single choice, multi-select, rating (1-5), free text, slider, number, NPS (0-10), yes/no (the primary branching type), or matrix.
- For each question, set a report category. This is what decides whether an answer becomes a chart or is only listed as it was given:
- Scale: a 0-100 gauge. Needs a short metric name, and on a single-choice question the options must run best first, because they're scored by position.
- Satisfaction, NPS, adoption, time impact: the headline tool metrics. Time impact needs a minutes value on every option or it reports nothing.
- Usage breakdown: a distribution chart of who picked what.
- Qualitative: free text, shown as written and grouped into themes.
- Exclude: recorded, kept off the dashboards. Right for context and routing questions.
- Under Delivery options, choose how often each person is asked.
- Choose Create pulse. Turn off Active first if it shouldn't start going out yet.
Flow 3: describe it, then edit the draftLink to this section
Best for: you know what you want to find out, and you'd rather not spend twenty minutes deciding whether question four is a slider or a rating.
- Measurement → Custom pulses → Describe the pulse you want
- Say what you want to measure, the way you'd say it to a colleague. A sentence or two is plenty: "whether the new notetaker is saving people time in meetings".
- Choose what the pulse is about: One tool, The whole organisation, or Not sure, suggest one.
- Draft the pulse. A few seconds later the Builder opens with the draft in it: a name, a description, the questions with their answer types, branching where it's needed, and a report category on every question.
- Change whatever you like, then save it.
Nothing is saved and nothing is sent until you say so. The draft arrives unsaved and switched off, in the same editor you'd have used anyway, and it goes out to your team only when you activate it.
Why it's worth using even if you enjoy writing pulses. The fiddly part of a pulse is the mapping underneath the questions. A scale question whose options run the wrong way round reports the exact opposite of the truth. A time-saved question with no minutes on its options reports nothing at all. Getting those right takes experience, and the draft brings it.
If it can't draft what you asked for, you'll see "We couldn't turn that into a pulse. Try describing what you want to measure in a sentence or two." That usually means the description was doing several jobs at once. Split it, or name the one thing you want to know.
If you don't see the card, drafting isn't available on your account right now. Everything else on this page still works: Create a custom pulse builds the same thing by hand.
Flow 4: add branching logicLink to this section
Best for: "only show question 3 if the answer to question 1 was 'yes'".
Every question in the Builder has a Flow (after this question) section at the bottom. That's where branching lives.
On a yes/no question:
- If answer is Yes → [pick the next question]
- If answer is No → [pick the next question]
- Leave either blank to end the pulse on that path
On a single-choice question:
- Each option gets its own "if this option → next question" row
- Plus a Default next at the bottom for answers with no explicit route
On any other question type:
- Just a single Next question → picker
Every way of answering follows the branching, so people only see the questions that apply to them.
What core pulses can and can't doLink to this section
When you open a core or library pulse in the Builder, the questions show as a read-only list with a note where the editor would be:
"Core pulse questions are fixed so results stay comparable across teams. Clone this pulse to build your own version."
Allowed: activate or pause, cadence, description, delivery window, header colour. On a one-off, the cadence controls are replaced by the Closing date and the % answered target. Not allowed: change questions, the name, or the tool assignment. Reports and plan rules recognise these pulses by name, so included and library pulses keep theirs. Nor can a pulse change what it's about after it's created: one tool stays one tool, the whole organisation stays the whole organisation, and a one-off stays a one-off. Cloning gives you a copy to set up differently.
The Clone to customise → button beside that note produces an editable custom copy in one click. That's the supported path for any change beyond the schedule.
Editing a custom pulse that already has answersLink to this section
The Builder shows an amber warning when you open a custom pulse that already has answers:
"Heads up. This pulse has N responses already. Adding, removing, or changing the meaning of questions can make it harder to compare new data with what you've already collected. Consider cloning instead…"
This is a soft guardrail, not a block. If you're making a minor wording tweak, proceed. If you're fundamentally changing what a question measures, clone the pulse, edit the clone, and pause the original. That way historical reports stay internally consistent, and new reports start fresh on the new version.
Pulse lifecycleLink to this section
- Paused. Saved with Active off, or paused later. Nothing goes out, and existing answers still show in Reports. Turn on Active, here or on its row in Custom pulses, to start it.
- Active. Going out on its cadence. On a one-off, everyone is being asked, once each.
- Closed. A one-off that has finished, because it reached its date, reached its target, or you closed it. Closed is a kind of paused, so everything below behaves the same. Reopen starts the asking again.
- Archived. Finished its run. A paused pulse with answers moves to Archived pulses, at the foot of its list: it stops delivering, and its answers stay readable in Reports. Restore it any time; it comes back paused.
- Deleted. Removed, along with every answer it collected. Copies stay in our database backups after that: the daily backups for seven days, and the copy we take before each release until that copy is deleted. Only a paused pulse with no answers can be deleted directly; anything with data is deleted from Archived pulses, at the foot of its list, after typing the pulse's name to confirm. (The three core pulses can be paused or archived but never deleted.)
Response rates on custom pulsesLink to this section
The same habits make custom pulses work:
- Keep it short. The AI Pulse is three or four questions, and that's a good length to aim for.
- Short pulses asked often give more reliable answers than one long one asked rarely. Short pulses on a frequent cadence keep the recall window small. Asking "did this tool save you time this week?" gets a far more reliable answer than asking once a quarter.
- Let people skip. People who can skip freely are more likely to answer when they choose to.
If a custom pulse's response rate is well below your AI Pulse's, check the extension rollout first, then its length and cadence. See Why is response rate low?
Deleting a custom pulseLink to this section
Pause the pulse first: an active pulse can't be removed. If it has never collected an answer, Delete removes it outright. If it has answers, Archive it instead; from Archived pulses, at the foot of Custom pulses, you can delete it for good, which removes the pulse and every answer it collected (you'll type the pulse's name to confirm, and reports for past periods will change). If you just want it out of the way with its history intact, leave it archived. That's what it's for. See the pulse library for the full lifecycle.
What custom pulses can't do yetLink to this section
Two things custom pulses can't do yet:
- Community templates. Ready-made pulses live in the pulse library, but there's no marketplace of pulses other customers have built for your industry yet.
- A/B testing a custom pulse. You can't split your team 50/50 onto two versions to compare wording. You'd need to create two pulses and assign them to different groups manually.
Tell us if you need either.
Something missing or out of date here? Tell us.