Who can see survey responses

"Who can actually see my answers?" is the question every employee asks before they respond honestly, and it's the question every People leader has to be able to answer with confidence. The good news is that CultureMonkey doesn't leave this to policy or good intentions. Access to survey responses is enforced in the product itself, by role, and layered on top of anonymity protections that no role can override.

This guide is the definitive, role-by-role answer. It covers exactly which roles can view reports and feedback, how a Sub Admin's and a Manager's access is scoped to a slice of the organization, what nobody (not even a Super Admin) can see on an anonymous survey, and how guest share links fit into the picture without weakening any of it.

Two layers: role access and anonymity

Before the roles, it helps to see the two separate protections at work, because people often conflate them.

• Role access decides whose data and which features a person can reach. A Manager can't open another team's report no matter how large it is. A Sub Admin can't open the account-wide feedback inbox. This is enforced by the platform's permission model, checked on every request.
• Anonymity thresholds decide whether a given result is safe to show at all. Even a Super Admin, who can reach every report, sees a blank cell where a group is too small. This is enforced on the data before it renders.

Both layers apply at once. A Manager first has to be allowed to see their team (role access), and then the team has to be large enough to display (anonymity). Remove either condition and the result stays hidden. Everything below is about the first layer; the second is covered in How anonymity works (technical).

Super Admin: sees everything (that meets the threshold)

A Super Admin is the highest level of access. A Super Admin has full access to every survey, report and setting in the account. For survey responses, a Super Admin can:

• View all reports across the entire organization, with no team or location limit.
• View all feedback, including the full feedback inbox, starred feedback, and the feedback summary.
• See participation and demographic breakdowns account-wide.
• Generate the shareable report URL (the guest link), which scoped roles cannot.

The one thing a Super Admin still cannot do is break anonymity. On an anonymous survey, a Super Admin sees pooled scores and comments, never a name attached to a specific answer, and never a group that falls below the minimum-response threshold. Reach is account-wide; the anonymity floor is absolute.

Because a Super Admin can see results for every team and location, keep the number of Super Admins small. This is the role that has the broadest window into your people's sentiment. For everyone else, a scoped role is safer.

Sub Admin: scoped reports, but no feedback inbox

A Sub Admin is a scoped administrator. They can view reports, but only for the slice of the organization you assign them (their teams, locations, business units, and custom attributes). This is the role for a regional HR partner or a divisional lead who should own engagement for part of the company.

For survey responses, a Sub Admin can:

• View the reports panel and dashboard cards for their assigned scope.
• See scores, trends, eNPS, driver breakdowns, and participation for the employees within their scope.
• Share reports within their scope.

A Sub Admin cannot:

• View the account-wide feedback inbox. A Sub Admin cannot reach the open-comment inbox; it is not part of their world. (They can still open comment-level views that live inside a report they're allowed to see.)
• View all reports account-wide, only the reports for their scope.
• Generate the org-level shareable URL, because that link exposes an organization-level report beyond their scope.
• See snapshots or manager buckets.

Manager: their own team, feedback included

A Manager sees engagement results for their own reporting line, the people who report to them directly and indirectly, based on your org structure. Managers get a purpose-built Manager dashboard focused on their team, with a distinct, team-scoped set of views.

For survey responses, a Manager can:

• See their Manager dashboard and the reports panel for their team.
• View feedback from their reportees, the open comments their own people left.
• Create and view actions for their team.

A Manager cannot:

• See all feedback account-wide. A Manager can see their own team's feedback, but not the account-wide feedback inbox, starred feedback, or the feedback summary. Their feedback view is bounded by their reporting line.
• See other teams' reports, the org-level dashboard, or the account-wide reports panel.
• Generate a shareable link (share report is denied to Managers), or see snapshots and manager buckets.

A person only becomes eligible for Manager access once at least 3 people report to them. Below that threshold, manager access can't be switched on, which is itself an anonymity safeguard: it stops a "manager" of one or two people from having a window into a group small enough to identify.

Report Viewer: dashboards only, read-only

The Report Viewer (shown in the product as the "Report View" role) is the most limited login role. It's designed for a stakeholder, an executive sponsor, a works-council representative, or an external consultant, who needs to see results but should never act on them.

For survey responses, a Report Viewer can:

• View dashboard cards for their assigned scope.

A Report Viewer cannot open the reports panel, the feedback inbox, actions, employees, settings, or the shareable URL. It's deliberately read-only and narrow. Like a Sub Admin, a Report Viewer is invited with a defined scope, so they only see results relevant to them.

Employee: only their own responses

Everyone in your organization is an Employee, and the vast majority will only ever be Employees. An Employee receives and answers surveys, and has no access to dashboards, reports, or feedback. They can see their own submitted responses and whatever results you deliberately choose to share back with them, and nothing else. Answering a survey never grants any visibility into anyone else's answers.

The permission model at a glance

The table summarizes the default behavior of each login role for viewing responses. Account settings can adjust some capabilities (for example, survey creation), but the visibility columns below reflect the core ability model.

Notice the last row: no role can see an individual's answer on an anonymous survey. That's the anonymity layer overriding role reach, and it's the same for everyone.

What nobody can see on an anonymous survey

This is the reassurance that matters most, so it deserves to be stated plainly. On an anonymous survey:

• No name is ever attached to an answer. Not for a Super Admin, not for a Manager, not for anyone. Identities are masked in the data itself, so there's no column to reveal and no report that "unlocks" a respondent.
• Small groups stay hidden. Any team, location, attribute, or combination of them that falls below the minimum-response threshold is suppressed, on screen and in exports, regardless of who's viewing. See How anonymity works (technical).
• Comments can't be traced. Open-text feedback appears as pooled comments without an author. Trying to stack narrow filters to guess who wrote something is exactly what combination-based anonymity is built to prevent.

The distinction to keep in mind is between an anonymous and an identified survey. On an identified survey (an onboarding check-in or exit interview, for example), responses are tied to the person by design, so the relevant admin or manager can follow up personally. That's a deliberate mode, and employees should be told which mode they're in before they answer. For how to set this, see the survey anonymity settings.

app.culturemonkey.io/reports

How guest and share links fit in

Sometimes the person who needs to see a result doesn't have (and doesn't need) a login: a board member, an external consultant, a parent-company partner. Guest report access solves this with a single shareable link that opens one specific report, read-only, in a browser, with no sign-in.

The important points for "who can see responses":

• The link is the guest access. There's no separate guest account. Each report carries a long, random access key, and the shareable link is your report address with that key in it. Anyone holding the link can view that one report.
• Only Super Admins can generate it. Creating the shareable URL is restricted to Super Admins in the ability model, because the link exposes an organization-level report. Managers, Sub Admins, and Report Viewers cannot hand out a guest link, which stops a narrower role from sharing a wider view than they should.
• Anonymity still applies, fully. A guest sees the same suppressed cells and hidden small-group results that a logged-in admin sees. The thresholds are applied to the data before it renders, so being external never lets a guest "see around" anonymity.
• It's view-only. A guest can browse the report but can't act on feedback, create actions, or export. There's no route from the guest view into the rest of your account.

Because the link is the only key, treat it like a password: send it privately to a named person, and revoke access by turning off sharing when it's no longer needed. For the full walkthrough, see Grant guest report access and Share a report via link.

A worked example

Say your annual engagement survey has just closed, and you want to reason about who sees what.

• Priya (Super Admin, Head of People) opens the org-wide report and sees every team's scores, the full feedback inbox, and the eNPS trend. A three-person team's cell is still blank for her, because it's below the anonymity threshold. She generates a guest link to send the board a read-only summary.
• Marco (Sub Admin, EMEA HR) is scoped to the EMEA locations. He sees reports and dashboards for EMEA employees only, and his reports for other regions simply don't exist in his view. He has no feedback inbox, and no Share button on the org report.
• Lena (Manager, Engineering team of 12) opens her Manager dashboard and sees her team's pooled scores and her reportees' anonymous comments. She can't see the Design team next door, and she can't generate a share link.
• Sam (Report Viewer, external consultant) sees the dashboard cards for the scope you gave him, read-only. No feedback, no actions, no reports panel.
• Every other employee sees only their own submitted answers, nothing else.

Five people, five different windows, one consistent anonymity floor underneath all of them.

Frequently asked questions

Can an admin see how I personally answered an anonymous survey?

No. On an anonymous survey, identities are masked in the data itself. No role, including Super Admin, can attach your name to a specific rating or comment. Results are only ever shown pooled, and only once a group is large enough to meet the anonymity threshold.

Can my manager see my individual comments?

A Manager sees their team's feedback pooled together and anonymized, not a list of who wrote what. If the team is below the minimum-response threshold, the comments are withheld entirely. Manager access also requires at least 3 reportees, which is itself an anonymity safeguard.

Why can a Sub Admin see reports but not the feedback inbox?

The two are governed separately. In the permission model a Sub Admin is granted the reports panel for their scope but explicitly denied the account-wide feedback inbox. If a customer needs someone to work the feedback inbox for a team, that's a Manager's remit (for their own team) or a Super Admin's (account-wide).

Does sharing a report link let more people see responses?

It lets whoever holds the link view that one report, read-only, with anonymity fully applied. It doesn't grant any wider scope, and only Super Admins can create the link in the first place. Revoke it by turning off sharing.

Can a Report Viewer open comments or feedback?

No. A Report Viewer is read-only dashboard cards for their scope. They can't open the feedback inbox, the reports panel, or actions. It's the most limited login role by design.

What's the difference between an anonymous and identified survey for visibility?

On an anonymous survey, no answer is ever tied to a name. On an identified survey, responses are linked to the respondent on purpose, so the relevant admin or manager can follow up, which is why identified surveys are used for onboarding or exit check-ins. Employees should always be told which mode a survey uses before they answer.

Where to go next

• Tune what managers see: Control what managers can see
• Understand every role: Understanding roles in CultureMonkey
• Go deeper on the mechanics: How anonymity works (technical)