Debriefs and what you learned
After every event somebody writes up what went wrong and what to change. It gets emailed around, read once, and never opened again while the next event at the same building is being planned. Debriefs in Herding Cats close that loop: the answers come back as a document, and the ones about the building get pinned to the venue or hotel, where next year’s team will actually see them.
This is part of the Debriefs & Surveys module. If you do not see Surveys in your menu, the FAQ explains where modules are switched on.
Send a debrief
- Build the template once
Go to Surveys → Templates. A template is the set of questions you ask after every event, grouped into sections — Client & Event Services, Travel & Logistics, and so on — each with a default owner. If you already have a debrief as a Word, Excel or PDF file, press Import and it is turned into sections and questions for you to review.
- Create it from the event
Open the event and press its Debrief tab. Under Debrief settings, pick the template (or create one right there), choose whether to schedule the send or do it yourself, and press Create draft (or Create & schedule). Everyone staffed on the event is a recipient; you can fine-tune the list on the debrief’s own page.
- Send it after the event
The draft lives under Surveys → Sent debriefs. Open it and press Send to recipients. Staff answer it from their portal under Debriefs.
- Watch it come in
The debrief’s page shows who has submitted. Send reminder nudges the stragglers; Close ends it.
Read it as a document
At the bottom of a sent debrief, switch the toggle from Responses to Document. Instead of one card per question, you get the debrief the way it used to be written: sections in order, each with an owner, every question with its answers under it.
- Owned by — hand a section to a person. They get an Acknowledge section button and can leave a short note, the way the old paper version was initialled in red.
- Reply under any item posts an inline reply with your initials and the time.
- Print / PDF gives you the whole thing as a page you can save or send.
Pin what you learned to the venue or hotel
This is the part a spreadsheet cannot do.
Under every written answer in the Document view there is a quiet Pin to venue or Pin to hotel link — one for each building the event used that is in your directory. Press it, trim the answer down to the fact worth remembering (up to 600 characters), and pin.
Many debriefs end with a section called something like Venue specific topics to include in next year’s brief. On a section whose title reads that way you get Pin all to venue. It lists every written answer in the section, already ticked — untick the ones that were only about this weekend, tidy the rest, and pin them together. Anything already on the card is skipped, not doubled.
Where it shows up next time
A pinned answer becomes a memory on that venue or hotel, and it follows the building rather than the event:
| Where | What you see |
|---|---|
| The event’s Venue tab | A What we learned here card under the venue’s standing warning, newest first, each line saying From the {event} debrief · {date} |
| The event’s Hotel & Rooming tab | The same card for the hotel, in the top section next to the contract |
| Company → Venues or Hotels, then click a record | The building’s own page, with the card and an Add a note button for things nobody wrote in a debrief |
| The next event’s Overview | One line under the At-a-Glance tiles: 3 things we learned here last time — a link straight to the card |
| The assistant | Ask it about an event and it quotes what earlier debriefs pinned to the venue and hotel |
The directory record’s own Notes field is the standing warning — parking garage clears 6’8" — and it shows as an amber banner on every event at that building. Memories are the ledger underneath it: many short facts, each dated and attributed, accumulating one event at a time.
Retire a note
When a memory stops being true — the venue rebuilt the loading dock — press the ✕ beside it and confirm. It leaves the card but is not deleted: the record keeps who retired it and when. Deleting the debrief it came from does not remove it either; the learning outlives the survey.
Feedback on the positions people worked
In a template, each question has This question is about. Pick a position, for example Stage Manager for How did the stage run?, and the answers show on the staff profile of whoever worked that position at the event. Only admins and coordinators see them, and the profile never shows who wrote an answer. When several people shared the position, such as three judges, the profile says it’s about the position, not about them alone. See Staff profiles: experience and feedback.