How to use Polly as a Fully Managed Whistle Blowing solution?

This article will show you how to utilize your Polly subscription to implement a fully managed whistle blowing solution for your organization.

Your Polly Enterprise plan comes with a lot of featured packed in. One of those is to use Polly to implement a multi-channel whistleblowing solution that complies with EU regulations and provides a central database of all logged grievances.

 

Features included:

• End to End Anonymity
• Privacy and Security (Polly is SOC 2 and GDPR compliant, all data is encrypted in transit and at rest, regular security audits and pen-tests are conducted by third party firms)
• Allow employees to make submissions through Slack, Web, Email or Phone.
• Option to respond to a submission privately and anonymously
• Enhanced reporting and exports functionality available for all submissions made.

 

How do I setup Polly's Whistleblowing Solution through:

• Slack
• Web Link
• Email
• Phone
  
  
  

Whistleblowing Solution - Slack:

To activate Polly's whistleblowing solution for Slack, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Polly Web App and click on the Q&A section on the left
2. Click on the "+ Create" button located at the top of the page to access the creation dialogue screen. Your first step is to fill in the title field; write Whistle Blowing Submission Box and an optional message to introduce this to your audience.
   
   
3. Under Audience Interactivity choose Slack Channel + Link. This will create the Whistleblowing submission box in a Slack channel and also generate a web link for it.
4. In the Choose your audience field, select the Slack channel where you want this to appear.
5. Keep Moderation and Anonymity checked and uncheck the Upvoting option.
6. Click on Advanced Settings and under the Alias field, write an appropriate name, this will be what appears as the "author name" of the whistleblowing submission box.
   
   
   
   
7. Click on Next to access further configuration settings. Here you can add multiple collaborators from your team who can monitor the submissions coming in. 
8. Here is what the rest of the options do:
   1. Text Replies: Allows moderators to send a private reply to the person who has made the submission.
   2. Submission Notifications: Notifies the author and the collaborators of new submissions instantly via Slack notifications.
   3. Upvoting: This is only needed for public submissions and should be turned off for this use case as all submissions will be anonymous.
   4. Anonymity: Allows people submitting concerns to do so anonymously.Ç
      
      
      
      
9. Clicking Next will take you to the Audience Settings modal. From the link options select Protected Link and disable the QR code option. A protected link ensures only people from your workspace can access the whistleblowing submission box.
   
   
   
   
10. The last settings screen gives you to two deployment options - you can opt to deploy it immediately by clicking Send Now or you have the option to set it to become active at a future date/time. On this screen you will also be able to set a timeline to disable the submission box. If you want to keep it always open, you can put in a longer time period like 52 weeks.
11. When you are ready, click the blue Send Q&A button and thats it, your Whistleblowing Submission Box is now active/scheduled depending on what options you selected.
    
    
    

       

 

Slack Audience View:

This is what your audience will see once the whistleblowing box is active:

 

They will click on New Submission which will open a submission modal. They will click on Submit Anonymously and type in their concern. Once submitted they will get a confirmation screen. Multiple submissions can be made by the same individual.

       

          

Whistleblowing Solution - Web:

If you want a web only solution, Polly gives you the flexibility to do that too.

1. You will follow all of the steps listed above for the Slack solution except under the Audience Interactivity section you will select the Share a Link option instead of the channel one.
2. Next, you will select the Protected Link option so that only people from your organization can access the link (they will have to login with their Slack credentials).
3. Copy the generated link for distribution.
4. Follow the rest of the creation steps listed under the Slack solution.

Web Audience View:

This is what your audience on the web will see once the whistleblowing box is active:

They will click on Submit a Question which will open the new submission screen. They will click on Submit Anonymously and type in their concern. Once submitted they will see a confirmation message. Multiple submissions can be made by the same individual.

 

The Control Panel (For Slack and Web submissions):

All submissions made from Slack and/or Web will land in the control panel, this is where the author and collaborators can review and respond to submissions. To access the control panel, go to your Q&A page on the Web Dashboard and click on the relevant Polly.

 

As this is a whistleblowing submission box please make sure you do not click on Make Public otherwise the relevant submission will be visible to everyone in the channel/web link.
Private Replies: You can send a private reply to the respondent by clicking on the Reply button. You have the option to reply as yourself or to use the Alias you selected at the time of creation. Multiple replies can be sent to keep the response aware of the progress of their complaint.

Archive: Once a complaint has been dealt with and the process completed, you can click on Archive to move it out of the Review tab. If the complaint needs to be re-opened later, you can always move it back to review by accessing it from the Archived tab.

Reporting: Clicking on the Reports link on the left hand menu in the control panel will give you access to Polly's Robust reporting. You can export data in to CSV or in to individual image files.

Whistleblowing Solution - Email:

As part of your Enterprise plan Polly can provide you with a monitored inbox dedicated to receive Whistleblowing complaints.

Whistleblowing Solution - Phone:

Polly also provides a dedicated phone line to receive whistleblowing complaints. These can be routed to a pre-set voicemail with an automated setup to forward to an email of your choice.