What are Properties?

Properties are fields that store important data associated with a person and their research activity. This data contributes to each person's person profile.

Rally offers a variety of Out-the-Box Properties, but you also have the flexibility to create custom properties according to your needs.

Where does property data come from?

Property data can originate from various sources, such as:

Screener or survey question responses
Participation history in studies, signup forms, and research activities
Data sync integrations (Salesforce, Snowflake, and BigQuery)
CSV file imports
Manual data entry

How can I leverage properties?

Filter and sort for a specific target audience when adding participants to a study.
Create segments that dynamically update groups of people in a population to easily and repeatedly target specific demographics of participants for research.
Apply custom governance rules to automatically update participants' contact status, ensure compliance, and prevent users from over-contacting participants.
Auto-sync property data from Rally back into Snowflake to collaborate with CX.

Property Types

Rally supports the following property types to decide what type of data you'll collect:

Text	Open-ended responses, company names, addresses, job titles, or any free-form text
Number	Numeric data like age, years of experience, usage counts, or any quantitative metrics. Max 16 characters.
Date	Birth dates, signup dates, last login dates, or any time-based information
Boolean	Yes/no questions, true/false statements, or binary choices
Single-select	When participants should choose only one option from a predefined list (Ex: job role, primary product used, geographic region)
Multi-select	When participants can choose multiple options from a list (Ex: "Select all products you use," interests, skills)

Property type is fixed after creation and cannot be changed into a different type.

Property Characteristics

Properties Characteristics allow you to mark certain data as a unique identifier or mask protected information. Learn more below.

Unique

When the Unique characteristic is enabled, the content of the property can appear only once. This is useful for usernames or custom identifiers, and for companies where participant emails are unavailable or not the preferred unique user identifier.

The Unique characteristic can only be set during property creation, and cannot be removed after property creation.
Rally only allows "Text" property types to be unique.
You can have up to 10 unique properties in one workspace.

💡 Email outreach in Rally is only possible if track or store email addresses.

Learn more about the benefits of using unique properties.

PII

When PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is enabled, the content of the property is masked for Observers and Developers to protect participants.

PHI

When PHI (Protected Health Information) is enabled, the content of the property is masked for Observers and Developers to protect participants.

These users won’t be able to read, filter, or sort these properties. Protected Health Information (PHI) is a subset of PII that specifically pertains to any health information linked to an individual's medical history, diagnosis, treatment, or payment for healthcare services. This could include medical records, lab results, insurance information, and even conversations about health conditions.

Rally is in compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule for properties marked as PHI, and keeps audit logs for when these properties are read, updated, or deleted. Rally has signed BAAs with all third-party integrations & vendors that process PHI.

Contact Rally to unlock PHI masking for your workspace.

When properties are marked as PII or PHI, we show the property name but disable the ability to filter by them if the user does not have the permission to view PII properties or to view PHI properties.

Property Groups

Property Groups allow you to organize related properties and control which teams can see and use them. They’re especially helpful in shared workspaces where different teams work with different populations or types of data.

By grouping properties and applying population-based access, you can reduce clutter in filters and ensure teams only see fields that are relevant to their research.

To learn how to create and manage Property Groups, see our Property Groups article.

Create and Edit Properties

Creating and editing existing properties can both be done from the Settings > Properties page:

In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll to the bottom to select Properties.

Creating and managing properties requires the "Create and modify properties" permission. This includes the Rally default roles Admin and Ops Manager.

Viewing properties requires the "View properties" permission. This includes all Rally default roles except for Observer.

Creating new properties

In Settings > Properties page, select the Property Group you want to add the property to and click the + New property button on the top-right of the page.
Select the appropriate property Type
Enter the desired property Name. Keep it clear and concise for easy recognition.
Enter a property Description to help provide additional context about the use of the property.
Select any required property Characteristics:
- Unique: For Text property types, you can optionally make this property "Unique", meaning that the content of the property can only appear once (such as usernames, user IDs, or custom identifiers. Unique can only be set during property creation, and cannot be removed after property creation.
- PII: When PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is enabled, the content of this property is masked for Observers and Developers.
- PHI: When PHI (Protected Health Information) is enabled, the content of this property is masked for Observers and Developers to protect Participants.
Depending on the Property Type you select, there may be additional options to set.
- Text: Optionally, set a Default Value. Records without a value for this Property will receive the default value.
- Number: Choose a Display as option (Number, Percentage, Money). Optionally, set a Default Value. Records without a value for this Property will receive the default value.
- Date: Choose a Display as option to display your date as a date (MM/DD/YYYY) or Relative.
- Checkbox: Optionally, set a Default Value as "Checked or "Unchecked". Records without a value for this property will receive the default value.
- Single-Select & Multi-Select:
  - Provide options for participants to select from.
  - Select the 3 dots ... to the right of an option to select a Color to display for each option in Rally or to Remove an option.
  - Select + Add new option to add more options.
  - Select + Bulk add new options to create multiple options simultaneously by pasting comma-separated values or by typing and pressing enter.
After entering all the necessary information and confirming everything is correct, select New Property to save.

Editing existing properties

Existing properties can be modified on the Settings > Properties page by clicking the three dots (...) next to any existing property and selecting Edit.

This will open the Update Property side panel where can you edit the following fields:

Name
Description
Property Group
Characteristics: Enable or disable PII or PHI masking.
Options: For Single-Select or Multi-Select property types, optionally edit the included options, or select the three dots ... next to an option to Remove or update the associated color coding.

Once you've made your changes, select Update Property.

When editing properties, there are a few things to note:

Properties with the Unique characteristic enabled during creation can not be made non-unique.
Out-the-Box Properties are core, pre-defined Properties that cannot have their default configuration edited and contribute to building comprehensive Person Profiles with values that are automatically updated by research engagement.

Updating Property Data

A person's property data can be updated in multiple ways.

Learn more about each method and leveraging them in Import and Update Property Data for Participants.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm adding new properties to Rally and am not sure which property type to use. Are some more easily searchable when we're looking for specific participants?

Multi-select and single-select type properties are easier to search, using pre-defined options to view and select from when filtering, and are shown as color-coded pills. Filtering by multi- or single-select properties allows you to easily select multiple options from the dropdown.
Text type properties are more flexible and open ended, and allow participants to provide more varied responses, such as their company name or favorite book. Filtering on text properties requires you to type in the specific response you're searching for, rather than showing you the complete set of options for easy selection, and requires you to know and type in each option manually.