Handbook
Domain Model
A named capability model, such as Core Leadership, Engineering Leadership, or a tenant framework. A framework is versioned and may include constructs from multiple sources.
Updated
Entity overview
Stable measurement entities
Framework
A named capability model, such as Core Leadership, Engineering Leadership, or a tenant framework. A framework is versioned and may include constructs from multiple sources.
Construct
A relatively stable concept to measure, such as priority clarity, feedback receptivity, delivery-system improvement, psychological safety, or technology economics.
Required fields:
construct_idframework_idnamedefinitionparent_construct_id, optionalevidence_typesownerstatusversion
Question Family
The stable semantic intent of a question across cadence and relationship variants.
Examples:
leadership.feedback.closes_loopengineering.delivery.removes_dependenciesteam.health.sustainable_workload
A family owns comparability rules, supported evidence types, and links to PDP templates.
Question Variant
The exact text, scale, observation window, respondent relationship, and language used in a survey.
A variant is immutable after it receives a response. Editing creates a new version.
Composition entities
Question Bundle
A related group of questions with selection behavior:
atomic: all items must fit or none are selectedsplittable: select betweenmin_pickandmax_pickordered: selected items retain sequencemutually_exclusive: only one child branch may be selectedbranching: a screening answer activates follow-up items
Question Pack
A curated program unit containing anchors, rotation pools, bundles, respondent routing, cadence defaults, and quotas.
Pack Assignment
A tenant-specific attachment of a pack to people, roles, teams, locations, or attributes. An assignment may override cadence, quota, channels, and enabled modules without altering the source pack.
Scheduling and delivery entities
Schedule Policy
Defines when survey windows are created:
- cadence unit and interval
- tenant timezone
- fiscal or calendar period rules
- due day and response window
- quiet periods and holidays
- pause rules
- channel and reminder behavior
Survey Window
A time-bound opportunity created by a schedule for a population. A window may produce one survey instance per subject/respondent relationship.
Survey Instance
The assembled questionnaire delivered to one respondent about one subject or team for one window.
Survey Item
A frozen copy of a question variant and relevant metadata at assembly time. Historical surveys remain interpretable even if the library changes later.
Exposure and coverage entities
Exposure Event
Recorded when a question is presented, answered, skipped, expired, or withdrawn. It supports cooldown, fatigue, and audit calculations.
Recommended scope key:
tenant + subject + respondent + relationship + question_family
A tenant may choose a broader scope, such as subject-only, but broad scope reduces repeated observations from different raters.
Coverage Cycle
Tracks whether each eligible family or bundle in a rotation pool has been presented. A new cycle starts only under an explicit policy:
- all required units covered
- pack version changed materially
- admin reset
- configured time boundary
Coverage does not reset merely because a question receives a new wording version.
Development entities
PDP Goal
Fields should include:
- goal title and description
- linked constructs and question families
- owner, supporters, and coach
- baseline date
- target behavior and evidence
- milestones and target date
- state: draft, active, paused, completed, abandoned
- review cadence
- visibility and permissions
PDP Question Override
A time-bounded policy that changes a question family’s normal recurrence for a subject or respondent group.
Supported modes:
replace_skip_periodsmin_skip_periodsmax_skip_periodsforce_next_oncesuppress_until_milestone
Import entities
External Import
Stores source vendor, file, hash, import timestamp, parser version, consent basis, and mapping status.
External Observation
Stores a raw item or competency observation with source scale, respondent group, time, text, and mapping confidence. It is not a native response and is not inserted into native trend calculations unless an explicit bridge has been approved.
Commercial and operational entities
Entitlement
A commercial allowance or limit, for example:
- allowed cadences
- maximum active schedules
- custom question count
- custom pack count
- PDP goals per subject
- 360 cycles per year
- history period
- integrations
- data residency
Feature Flag
An engineering release or experiment control. It must not be used as the billing source of truth.
Tenant Policy
A customer configuration within their entitlement, such as a weekly cadence, anonymity threshold of four, or 24-month response retention.
Invariants
- A published question variant with responses is immutable.
- Every response points to a frozen survey item and source variant version.
- A question cannot be selected when its applicability or observation-window rules fail.
- A PDP override cannot bypass legal suppression, tenant pause, or the absolute fatigue safety cap.
- Mandatory overflow is visible and resolved explicitly.
- Imported observations retain their original scale and source.
- Aggregates below the anonymity threshold are suppressed or rolled up.
- Data retention deletion and exposure cooldown are separate processes and tables.