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Creating a Screening Survey

A screening survey collects stakeholder votes on whether each topic in your Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) is material. You build it in the Survey module and link it to a DMA analysis. The results appear on each topic's Evidence panel tab, where they help you choose the topic's materiality path: top-down (concluded at topic level) or bottom-up (concluded by assessing the topic's IROs).

The screening survey comes after topic screening. It doesn't change a topic's Included or Excluded status, and it doesn't conclude materiality on its own. All DMA clients have access to the Survey module.

Why this matters

  • Base each topic's materiality path on stakeholder input, not judgment alone
  • See the results on the topic itself, with no results file to download or upload
  • Compare votes by stakeholder group or country when you collect those details
  • Keep individual answers private, since results always show in aggregate

Before you start

  • You need an existing DMA analysis. The survey links to that analysis.
  • Complete topic screening first, so you know which topics move forward. See Using the Topic Screening to identify relevant topics.
  • Follow this order: topic screening, then the screening survey, then each topic's materiality path.

How to create a screening survey

Step-by-step
  1. In the left-side menu, open Survey. The All surveys tab opens.
  2. Click New survey.
    Screenshot 2026-09-25 at 5.06.38 PM
  3. Select the screening survey option. 
    Screenshot 2026-09-25 at 5.09.15 PM
  4. In the Type of survey tab, under Double Materiality, select your analysis from the Double Materiality Analysis dropdown.
  5. Under Topics included, choose which topics go into the survey. See Choosing which topics to include below.
  6. Set up the rest of the survey:
    - General survey content: upload your logo, edit or translate the intro text, final page text and navigation buttons, and add your privacy policy link.
    - Respondent groupings: optionally collect each respondent's location or stakeholder role. See Collecting respondent details below.
    - Survey questions: tailor the question wording, add explainer text boxes, and add up to five open questions at the end.
    - Survey end details: the start and end dates appear here once you activate and end the survey.
    - Outbound email: send customized emails through Datamaran's servers, or send them yourself.
    - List of recipients: download the template, add each recipient's name and email (both required), and upload it. Remove any hyperlinks from the file first, as they cause upload errors. You can add recipients after activation.
  7. Click Preview to check the survey as respondents will see it.
  8. Click Activate.
  9. Send the survey. See Sending out your Datamaran survey.

Note: Once activated, the survey can't be edited.

Choosing which topics to include

Under Topics included, select one of two options:

  • By score: includes only topics scoring at or above the Minimum score (a value between 0 and 1). Use Score based on to choose which topic score to compare:
    • Max score: the higher of the topic's financial and impact scores
    • Financial score: the financial score only
    • Impact score: the impact score only
  • Select manually: choose the topics yourself from the Topics list.

To match the survey to your DMA's topic screening cap, select By score and tick Use Topic screening. The Minimum score updates to the cap set in your DMA. 

The Topics field lists the selected topics and shows how many are included.

Note: Use Topic screening applies the cap only. It doesn't follow topics you manually included or excluded in Topic Screening.

If you manually included or excluded topics during topic screening, use Select manually so the survey matches your Included topics. An Excluded topic can still go into the survey if you want to validate the exclusion. A topic left out of the survey shows this on its Evidence panel card.

Collecting respondent details

If you collect stakeholder role or location in Respondent groupings, the Evidence panel shows results By group and By country. This means one survey can cover several audiences, without sending a separate survey to each. 

If the survey includes an explainer question, the comments respondents leave on a topic also appear on that topic's Evidence panel card.

Tracking and ending your survey

  1. Check progress on the All surveys tab: number of responses, response percentage, and last modified date.
  2. To close the survey, click End Survey. You can reopen it later if needed.

For more options, such as reminders, duplicating, or reopening a survey, see Managing your survey in Datamaran.

Viewing your results

The results appear on each topic in your DMA:

  1. Open your DMA.
  2. Go to Topic Lens.
  3. Click a topic's score bar in the tornado chart.
  4. In the side panel, click the Evidence panel tab.

The Stakeholder survey card shows how respondents voted, the response rate, and any group, country or comment breakdowns. For a full description of the card, see Using the Evidence panel to choose a topic's materiality path.

Tip: You can still download the results file from the All surveys tab, for example to share it outside Datamaran.

Notes on how this feature is designed

  • Only screening surveys appear on the Evidence panel tab. Issue prioritization surveys don't. Their results are added to a Stakeholder Analysis instead, see Integrating your survey results into your analysis.
  • The survey informs the materiality path. It doesn't set the path, change a topic's Included or Excluded status, or change IRO scores.
  • The top-down path can only conclude a topic material. If most respondents vote not material, the topic goes bottom-up, or back to topic screening if it should be excluded.
  • The survey links to the analysis and its results show on the analysis's latest version. 
  • Screening surveys are optional. You can choose either materiality path with or without survey results.