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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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Reminders for participants

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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Creator notifications

Windy keeps you updated on response progress via Slack — including first response alerts, daily summaries, and deadline notifications. You can disable these updates in your Pulse settings.