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Pulse surveys help you quickly gather targeted insights from your team. They’re lightweight, fast to create, and delivered directly in Slack by Windy. Anyone in your company — team members, admins, or HR admins — can create a Pulse, with visibility controls that determine who each person can send to.

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What Pulses are

A Pulse is a short survey that helps you understand how your team is doing right now.
You can use Pulses to ask about anything, but we have a few presets in there to help jog your memory:
  • Motivation
  • Blockers
  • AI usage
  • Workplace needs
  • All-hands feedback
  • Off-site feedback
  • Improvement opportunities
Windy generates a discussion guide for you based on your chosen topic, which you can edit before sending.

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Who can send Pulses

Everyone in Windmill can create a Pulse:
  • Team members
  • Admins
  • HR admins
Permissions determine who you can send it to — specific people, groups, or entire teams.

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Creating a Pulse

1

Go to Pulses

Open the Pulses section in the Windmill Dashboard. Pulses now live outside of routines.
2

Click Create Pulse

Start a new Pulse survey.
3

Choose your motivation

Describe why you’re running the Pulse. This helps Windy generate the right discussion guide.
4

Select a template or idea

Choose from ideas like AI usage, blockers, office needs, or improvement opportunities.
5

Review and edit the questions

Windy generates a discussion guide. Edit any question to match what you want to learn.
6

Choose your audience

Select specific people, teams, or groups.
7

Choose named or anonymous responses

Decide whether respondents will be identified or anonymized.
8

Name your Pulse

The name appears in Slack and in your reporting.
After saving, the Pulse is created — but not yet sent.

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Sending or scheduling a Pulse

Once your Pulse is ready, choose how you want Windy to deliver it.

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Send now

Windy immediately sends the survey to your selected audience in Slack.

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Schedule for later

Schedule the Pulse to send:
  • On a recurring basis (weekly, monthly, etc.)
  • Based on a specific calendar event
  • On a one-time date and time
Scheduling is ideal for team health checks or ongoing feedback cycles.

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Send a test

Send the Pulse only to yourself in Slack.
This lets you preview the full flow before delivering it to others.
Tests do not notify or involve the audience you selected.

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What happens after you send a Pulse

Windy delivers the Pulse directly in Slack.
Responses come back in real time and appear on the Pulse results page in the Dashboard. Pulse responses feed into:
  • 1:1 context
  • Recaps
  • Performance packets
  • Team insights
This helps teams surface issues quickly and act on them without running a full survey cycle.

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Reminders and nudges

Windy automatically reminds participants who haven’t responded to a Pulse, helping you get better response rates without manual follow-up.

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Automatic reminders

Participants who haven’t responded can receive up to two automatic reminders — but only if the Pulse has a deadline set. No deadline means no automatic reminders.

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First reminder

Sent 2 days after the participant receives the Pulse. Windy sends a gentle nudge like:
“Jim, Pam would love your input on this. Please leave your thoughts when you get a chance.”
This reminder only sends if the deadline is more than 2 days out. A short Pulse (like a 3-hour or 1-day deadline) skips the first reminder entirely and only sends the deadline reminder.

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Deadline reminder

Sent within 12 hours of the deadline. Windy lets them know time is running out:
“Jim, this chat expires in 3 hours. Would love to get your thoughts when you have a second.”
For short Pulses, this may be the only reminder participants receive.

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Manual nudges

You can also manually nudge non-responders at any time. When Windy notifies you about response progress, you can choose to nudge all non-responders or select specific people.
To prevent notification fatigue, Windy waits at least 15 minutes between nudges to the same person.

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Notifications

Windy keeps the Pulse creator informed about response progress through Slack notifications. These are separate from the reminders participants receive — they’re updates just for you.

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First response alert

As soon as the first person responds to your Pulse, Windy sends you an immediate notification. This lets you know the Pulse is live and people are engaging.

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Daily response updates

After the first response, Windy sends you daily updates showing how many people have responded and who still hasn’t. If new responses come in during the day, Windy includes those counts so you can track momentum.

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Deadline passed

Once your Pulse’s deadline passes, Windy sends a final summary with the total response count and a link to the generated report.

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Disabling notifications

You can turn off creator notifications in your Pulse settings if you don’t want progress updates.

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Live response streaming

Live response streaming posts Pulse responses to a Slack channel in real time — as each person completes the survey, their answers appear in a dedicated thread.

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How it works

When you enable live response streaming, Windy posts an announcement to your chosen Slack channel when the first response comes in. Each subsequent response is added to the same thread, along with a running progress count (e.g., “3/10 responded (30%)”). Each response in the thread includes the respondent’s name and their full answers, formatted for easy reading.

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Setting it up

Select a Slack channel for live response streaming when creating or editing your Pulse. Windy needs to be a member of the channel to post responses.
Live response streaming is only available for named Pulses. If your Pulse is set to anonymous, this option won’t be available — respondent identity is protected.