Interview deadlines and reconciling answers

Two tools for Topics that run interviews with several people: deadlines keep interviews on time, and Reconcile answers turns everyone's answers into one agreed answer per question.

Both are on the Topic's interviews view. See Running interviews for how Topics and interviews work.

Deadlines

Facilitators (the same people who can Bump an interview) can set:

• a Topic deadline, which applies to every interview in the Topic, and
• a Deadline on an interview group, which overrides the Topic deadline for that group's interviews.

Pick a date and time and press Set. Clear a deadline with Clear. Each unfinished interview shows a due chip: Due with a date, Due in Nh in the last 48 hours, Due now, or Late.

Automatic reminders

As a deadline approaches, LEMA Chat bumps each person who has not finished, the same way a manual Bump does (a notification for members, or the invite re-sent for people not yet in the workspace). Reminders go out at 48 hours, 24 hours and 2 hours before the deadline.

Only the most recent reminder point that has passed is sent. If you set a deadline one hour away, people get the 2-hour reminder only, not three at once.

At the deadline, each Facilitator who can see the Topic gets a summary of who is late. Each summary names only the people that Facilitator is allowed to see.

Automatic reminders do not use up your manual Bump; you can still bump someone yourself. A manual Bump is limited to one per person in 24 hours.

Reminders run only when the platform's reminder schedule is switched on. If none arrive, ask your Admin.

Reminders are sent on behalf of the person who set the deadline. If that person is no longer a Facilitator in the workspace, no reminders are sent.

Reconciling answers

When several people are interviewed in the same interview group, the same checklist question can get different answers. On the Topic's page, find the group and press Reconcile answers (Facilitators only) to review each question. Each one has a state:

• Unanswered: no one has answered it yet.
• Answered: anyone answered it, with one answer, or it was covered in an interview.
• Answers differ: two or more different answers. These stay highlighted until you decide.
• Decided: a Facilitator settled it.

For a question whose answers differ you can:

• Use this answer on one person's answer,
• Write decided answer, which starts from the most common answer, and Save decision,
• Ask the group: posts only the question to the group's discussion, never anyone's answer or name.

A decided question shows Decided: with the answer and who decided it. Reopen undoes the decision.

Privacy

Reconciling is a Facilitator view; members cannot open it. You only see answers from interviews you are allowed to see. A private (sealed) interview you cannot see is left out entirely, including from any counts. A decision is shown only to Facilitators who can see at least one of the interviews it was based on.