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Attributes and Segments

This article covers the basics of Eletive attributes and segments, and then guides you through how to create and manage them. 

 

Target audience: Administrators

What are attributes and segments?

In Eletive, attributes and segments define how your organization and reports are structured. 

- An attribute (field) is a category used to group users based on a shared characteristic. Examples include Department, Location, Manager, or Gender.

- A segment (field value) is a group within that category — in other words, the specific value used for reporting. For example, within the attribute Department, segments could be HR, IT, and Production.

Each user can belong to only one segment per attribute (with exception for Users type attributes), but can belong to multiple attributes at the same time. For instance, a user can belong to Department: HR, Location: Sweden, and Manager: Lisa Andersson.

Why are attributes and segments important?

Attributes and segments determine how your survey results are grouped and displayed in reports.
For example, if you have the attribute Department, Eletive will automatically create one report for each department segment (HR, IT, Production, etc.).
This allows you to compare engagement and insights between groups.

 

Standard vs Custom attributes/segments

Eletive includes a set of Standard attributes that are automatically available in all accounts — for example Employment type, Gender, Manager, Date of Birth, Termination date, and Country.

These attributes serve as a helpful starting point when setting up your organization in Eletive.
They provide examples of common ways to group users and help you kickstart your reporting structure without starting from scratch.

If an attribute or segment is standard, you’ll see a “Standard” label next to its name.
If any of the standard attributes are not relevant for your organization, you can simply remove, rename or deactivate them under Settings → Attributes to keep your structure clean and focused.

In addition to the standard ones, you can create Custom attributes and segments that reflect your unique organizational setup — for example Division, Office, Team, or Region.
Custom attributes give you full flexibility to define how your reports should be grouped and viewed, ensuring that your insights align with your actual organizational structure and follow-up process.

attribute standard_custom

standard attribute

Attribute types

There are 4 different attributes types, and each type responds to different data types. Select attribute type based on the that matches the data that will be added. If utilizing standard attributes and segments the type is automatically selected. 

Choices

The Choice attribute accepts text values. It is typically used to model organizational structures such as countries, departments, units, groups, or teams.

Dates

The date attribute accepts date values in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Common examples include Employment date, Termination date, and Date of birth.

Users are grouped into segments based on time intervals or ranges, such as “Employment date: 0–3 months”. You can adjust these intervals to match your needs. By default, date attributes create ranges based on past dates, but you can also include future dates by enabling the “Segment on future dates” option.

Numbers

The numbers attribute accepts numeric values. Users are grouped into segments based on value ranges, which you can configure to fit your needs. For example, you can use this for Salary to define different salary range segments.

Users

The Users attribute links one user to another user profile in the plattform, typically their manager. It is designed for organizations that use manager–employee relationships instead of, or alongside, Choice attributes or fixed departments and teams.

Typically, it is used when each employee in your data has a unique manager/person linked to them (for example, from Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Microsoft Azure Active Directory). In Eletive, users and answers are then connected to a specific manager/user (such as “Lisa”) rather than to an organizational department segment like “HR”.

When you use this attribute type, reporting hierarchies are automatically created and kept up to date. Manager access is also managed automatically, so each manager can see all segments that belong to them, as well as all segments below them in the hierarchy.

attribute type user

Managers/users that have other users connected to them will have two segments, one "All" and one "Direct" segment. Read more about the difference between the All and Direct segments here.

Create a Standard attribute

To add a new standard attribute

  1. Click on Settings in the side bar
  2. Click on Attributes
  3. Click the "Add attribute" button
  4. Select "Standard attribute"
  5. Select which standard attribute you wish to create. Only the available standard attributes will be shown
  6. Under the "Segments section" that appears after selecting an attribute in step 5, select which standard segments you wish to include
  7. Press the "Create" button

Create a Custom attribute

To add a new custom attribute

  1. Click on Settings in the side bar
  2. Click on Attributes
  3. Click the "Add attribute" button
  4. Click on "Custom attribute"
  5. Select one attribute type
  6. Enter the name of the attribute
  7. Click the "Create" button

Manage attributes

To edit the name on an attribute

  1. Choose the attribute you want to change the name of
  2. Click on the edit icon 
  3. Change the name of the attribute and click on Save

To remove an attribute

  1. Select the Attribute you want to remove
  2. Click on the “Delete” button

Convert a Custom attribute to a Standard attribute

If you have a custom attribute that corresponds to one of the standard attributes, you can convert it to a standard attribute. 

  1. Choose the attribute you want to convert to a standard attribute
  2. Click on the "edit" icon
  3. Select "Convert to standard attribute"
  4. If you want to keep the current attribute and segments names, enable the switch called "Keep attribute and segment name". 
  5. Select the standard attribute
  6. Map which current segment that belongs to which standard segment
  7. Once finished, press "Convert to standard attribute"

Manage segments

To add a segment manually  

  1. Click on Settings in the side bar
  2. Click on the Attributes tab
  3. Click on one of the attributes
  4. Click "Add segment"
  5. Select "Standard segment" or "Custom segment"
    • For "Standard segment" select one of the predefined segments
    • For "Custom segment" enter your segment name in the text field
  6. Press "Create segment"

To edit a segment

  1. Click on the attributes
  2. Click on the three dots in the Actions column 
  3. Go to "Edit"
  4. Change the name of the segment and click on Save
  5. Optional: add aliases. Read more about this here: Segment Aliases 

To remove a segment

  1. Click on one of the attributes
  2. Click on the trash icon next to the segment you want to remove

Add segment by mass edit

    Segments are automatically added if they do not exist when uploading a file with users.

    Change a user’s attribute or segment

    1. Click on Settings in the side bar
    2. Click on Users
    3. Select the employee you want to edit
    4. Under the Attributes heading, find the right attribute you want to edit and select a new segment