Mango Signal FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Mango Signal.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Mango Signal Overview.
Setup
Do I need other apps running before Mango Signal shows data?
Yes. Mango Signal reads signals from the other apps your business already runs. Eight apps feed the engagement score today: Surveys, Shift Feedback, Leader Rounds, Recognitions, Performance, Communications, Ideas, and Ballots. Mango Signal works with whatever subset you have enabled — even one is enough to produce a score. Time & Attendance, Leave Management, and Frontline Execution also ingest signals (visible in the Signals tab, export and the API) but do not factor into the score.
How do I backfill historical signals when we first turn on Mango Signal?
Open Settings and click Backfill last 90 days. The system scans the last 90 days of Surveys, Recognitions, Performance, Communications, Shift Feedback, Attendance, Leave, Ideas, Ballots, Leader Rounds and Frontline Execution activity and creates signals from it. The backfill is idempotent — running it again does not create duplicates. Signals will start appearing within a few minutes, and the engagement score recomputes on the next nightly run or on-demand from the dashboard.
Permissions and access
Who can see what in Mango Signal?
Mango Signal has three access tiers:
- All employees see the Dashboard (engagement score, top themes, their own open actions), the What Changed tab (completed close-the-loop actions), and the Actions tab (the actions they own or are assigned).
- Managers (Manager or above, or an app admin) see every action, and also the Impact and Analytics tabs.
- Administrators (Admin or above, or an app admin) also see the Signals tab (raw per-employee signal data) and the Settings tab. An administrator can give specific groups the Signals tab too.
On a phone, the dashboard shows the engagement score, top themes, and the user’s open actions, and an action’s owner or assignee can mark it in progress or complete it there.
Who can browse the raw per-employee signal data?
By default, only business administrators and Mango Signal app admins. An administrator can add specific groups (for example People Ops) under Who can read individual signal detail? in Settings; that one grant covers the Signals tab, the CSV/XLSX export, and the raw-signal API feed. Every other surface — the dashboard, themes, risk segments, and the AI assistant — aggregates data to the company, a location, or a segment. Individual employee sentiment is never surfaced outside those three.
Day-to-day
How is the engagement health score calculated?
The score is a weighted average of normalized signals over the configured window (default 30 days). Five signal types contribute:
- Sentiment — 40%
- Recognition — 20%
- Performance — 15%
- Engagement — 15%
- Themes — 10%
The result is a number between 0 and 1, where higher means healthier. Scores are computed for the company as a whole and for every location and segment.
How often does the score update?
The system recomputes scores nightly at approximately 02:30 UTC. If no cached score exists yet (for example, right after enabling the app), the dashboard computes one on demand from the current signals so it never shows blank.
What triggers a risk alert email, and who receives it?
When a location’s or segment’s engagement score drops below the configured Risk alert threshold (default 0.4 on a 0–1 scale), the nightly computation sends one email and in-app notification naming every segment that slipped. It goes to the group chosen under Settings > Route risk alerts to this group (only the managers, admins and app admins in that group receive it) or, with no group chosen, to this app’s designated app admins — falling back to every company admin when none are designated. To prevent repeated alerts about the same persistent risk, each recipient is re-alerted at most once every 7 days while the same segments stay at risk (a change in which segments are at risk can alert again the next day). Admins can adjust the threshold under Settings > Risk alert threshold — a higher threshold flags more segments.
What happens when an action is marked complete?
Three things happen in sequence:
- A baseline engagement score is captured for the action’s scope — the score over the 30 days before completion.
- A “you said, we did” update goes to the people the action is about: a company-scoped action goes out as a company Broadcast; an action with no scope is posted to the Communications feed for everyone; a location action is posted to the Communications feed for the people at that location and the locations under it; a segment action is posted only if whoever completes it ticks Also post this update to everyone. The people whose feedback the action was raised from also receive an email.
- A follow-up measurement runs after 30 days to compare the post-action score against the baseline and report the delta.
This entire flow is gated by the Close-the-loop setting. Disabling it still lets people complete actions — it suppresses the update, the emails and the impact measurement; the action still appears in What Changed.
How does the AI assistant work, and can it change data?
The Mango Signal assistant appears in Ask AI when the Mango Signal AI assistant setting is turned on (it is on by default). It has seven read tools (engagement score, themes, risk segments, recommendations, action list, action detail, impact summary) and two write tools (create action, update action status). Every write requires the user to confirm before it takes effect. Manager-tier data stays gated to managers and admins even inside the assistant.
How do I turn on the weekly engagement digest?
Go to Settings and enable Weekly engagement digest email. The digest is off by default. When enabled, every Monday managers and admins — plus anyone who owns or is assigned an open action — receive an email summarizing the company engagement score, the trend versus the previous week, the top three themes over the last 30 days, and their own open and overdue action counts. Only manager-tier readers also see the number of at-risk segments. If nothing happened in the past week and the reader has no open actions, the digest is skipped.
When something looks wrong
The dashboard shows no data even though we use Surveys and Recognitions — why?
Two common causes:
- No backfill. Mango Signal only ingests signals going forward from the moment it is enabled. Historical data from before enablement does not appear automatically. Click Backfill last 90 days in Settings to scan the last 90 days.
- No scored signal types. The upstream data may have been ingested but under a signal type that does not contribute to the score. Only sentiment, recognition, performance, engagement, and theme types factor into the engagement score.
Someone says they stopped receiving risk alert emails — what should I check?
Check these in order:
- Settings > Risk alerts and Engagement health score — if either is off, no risk alerts are sent.
- Route risk alerts to this group — a chosen group receives the alerts instead of this app’s admins, and only its managers, admins and app admins get them; with no group, they go to designated app admins, or to every company admin if none are designated.
- Risk alert threshold — if it was lowered, fewer segments qualify as at-risk.
- 7-day dedup window — while the same segments stay at risk, each recipient is re-alerted at most once every 7 days.
- Notification preferences — the person may have opted out of the “Mango Signal” notification category in their personal notification settings.
An action’s impact shows “inconclusive” — what does that mean?
The post-action measurement requires at least 5 signals in the action’s scope during the 30-day measurement window, from enough people to clear the anonymity floor. If fewer arrived, there is not enough data to compute a reliable comparison and the result is marked inconclusive. This typically happens for narrowly scoped actions (a single small location or segment) where signal volume is low.
Why can’t I see the Impact or Analytics tab?
The Impact and Analytics tabs are visible only to managers (Manager role or above) and Mango Signal app admins. Every employee sees the Dashboard, the What Changed tab, and the Actions tab, which lists the actions they own or are assigned. Ask your administrator if you need manager-level access to Mango Signal.
Can my manager see my individual survey responses through Mango Signal?
No. The dashboards, analytics, and AI assistant always aggregate data to the company, a location, or a segment. Individual employee feedback is never surfaced. The only exception is the Signals view and its export, which show raw signal records and are restricted to administrators (and any group an administrator grants access to).
Why are some locations or segments not showing up in the risk segments panel?
The Minimum group size for reporting setting (default 5) sets a floor on the number of signals a location or segment must have before it appears in the risk panel. Groups with fewer signals than this are excluded entirely to protect anonymity. The floor can’t be set below your company-wide smallest group (5 unless raised under Retention & Legal Holds), so small groups stay hidden by design; raising the setting (up to 50) hides more of them.
Licensing and limits
Does Mango Signal require a licence?
Yes. Mango Signal requires a licence and is disabled by default. An administrator enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps. It is not bundled into any operational suite — it is a standalone premium add-on.
What are the configurable settings and their allowed ranges?
All settings are under the Settings tab (admin access required):
| Setting | Default | Allowed range |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement health score | On | On / Off |
| Risk alerts | On | On / Off |
| Close-the-loop “you said, we did” flow | On | On / Off |
| Weekly engagement digest email | Off | On / Off |
| Action reminders (due soon and overdue) | On | On / Off |
| AI theme extraction (nightly) | On | On / Off |
| AI-written action recommendations | On | On / Off |
| Mango Signal AI assistant in Ask AI | On | On / Off |
| Engagement score window (days) | 30 | 1–365 |
| Risk alert threshold (0–1, higher = more alerts) | 0.4 | 0.0–1.0 |
| Minimum group size for reporting | 5 | Company-wide smallest group (5 or more)–50 |
| Route risk alerts to this group | None (this app’s admins) | One notification group |
| Who can read individual signal detail? | Admins only | Admins only / Admins plus specific groups |
More help
- Mango Signal Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Mango Signal questions from these articles.