Lists are an extremely useful tool for internal organization. They’re only visible to those signed into the backend of your EMS. (That is, unless you opt to show the audience a list of responses by creating a list embed). They can help everyone on your team sort through responses and keep track of your production cycle. Here are some ways to use lists to organize your production process. 

Note: A response can live in as many lists as you’d like.

The more responses you get over time, the harder it is to keep track of responses you really like. Lists are here to help you file responses. You can start by creating a generic “favorites” list for adding good questions you want to consider answering later. Individual reporters can make their own favorites list, too (E.g., Mark's Favorites, Metro Desk Favorites).

Lists are extremely useful to organize workflow if you plan to use Hearken throughout your newsroom. You can create a list to bookmark responses for a particular topic, section or beat (E.g., Politics Responses, Education Responses, Sports Responses). You can create a list specifically with responses that you want a particular reporter or certain team to know about. Then, any time you add a response to that list, they can tailor their email settings or Slack settings to be notified. Or, you can give reporters and editors a login to the backend so they can assemble lists for themselves (E.g. Sarah's Responses, Responses for Leo).

When you first set out to make a voting round, it can be difficult to narrow down your options to the right amount (3-4 responses) out of all your submissions. We recommend creating a list for each voting round (E.g., November Voting Round, Environment Round). Then, assemble a group of possible responses. You can also share the list with your colleagues and work together to narrow it down to the best handful of responses for a voting round. Learn more about how to curate voting rounds.

Your newsroom might choose to use Hearken for a special series or investigation. In that case you could create a list for the series and add responses that your reporters can use to inform the trajectory of their reporting. (E.g., Mental Health Series, Water Quality Series, etc.)

First, know that a new list is automatically created whenever you create a new form embed. But you can also create new lists at any time: 

To make a new list manually, head to the Lists page on your backend site and click the New List button in the upper right corner.

Enter a name for your list and click Create List:

Now this list will appear within your EMS's Lists page. You can view your list by clicking on it. Change its name by hovering your cursor over the list and clicking the Edit icon. Or you can archive a list when you’re done with it. Hover your cursor over the list and clicking the Archive icon. (Responses in archived lists are still accessible everywhere else.)

You can add responses to your list from any page that displays responses, including the Dashboard and Responses pages. To add a response to a list, hover your cursor over the response and select the Quick Edit icon.

The Quick Edit icon will open a small window where you can edit a response's basic information and add it to a list or voting round.

Note: Lists will not show up as an option until you create one. So if you do not see lists on the Quick Edit menu, you must first create a list.

To add this response to a list, click into the Quick Edit window and check the box next to the name of your desired list, then hit Save. You can also add a response to a list from within the response's full Edit page. 

Once you’ve added responses to your list, view the entire list by navigating back to the Lists page and clicking on it.

Like with adding responses, you can remove a response from a list on any page that displays responses, including the Dashboard and Responses pages. To remove a response from a list, hover your cursor over the response and click on the Quick Edit icon.

Near the bottom of the Quick Edit window, you can see what lists your response currently belongs to. To remove the response from that list, uncheck the box next to the list’s name and hit Save.

When audience members submit their responses, they are required to include their email address so that you can contact them about their response. There is an Export button on the upper right hand corner of the Responses page of your backend. It allows you to export every response and respondent-email in bulk.

But, if you ever want to segment out your question-askers into different groups for different kinds of email outreach, you can also use lists as a tool to filter your exports. You can create lists to segment out different groups of respondents and then export emails only for that list. 

This feature can be useful if you report the answer to a question about a topic that different people asked multiple times. You might want to email all those question-askers to let them know the story is finished. In that case, you could add every version of that response to a distinct topic list, and then export that list's emails in a filtered CSV. 

You can also take advantage of this feature for promoting newsroom events. If you're hosting an event on public transit, you might want to send an invitation to every audience member who's submitted a question about public transit to your newsroom. You could create a list for that segment of your audience and then export their emails to send them an invitation in bulk. 

To export your responses and emails by segment, simply create a list and add the relevant responses to it. Once you're finished, navigate to the page for that list and click the Export button in the upper right hand corner. This same process will also work for statuses.

If you have further questions about Lists, get in touch via Intercom or email: support@wearehearken.com