Make sense of Insights
Insights is the part of the console you read rather than work. It tells you how a cohort is travelling, so you can point limited support at the place that needs it before anyone raises a hand. This guide walks through how to read it well and, just as important, what it will never tell you.
The skill here is restraint. Insights surfaces a lot of context, but most weeks it is informing you, not asking you to act. Learning to read the shape across weeks, and to leave a quiet week alone, is what keeps your attention sharp for the slides that actually matter.
Insights never identifies, names, or ranks an individual student. It is aggregate only, and any group too small to be safely aggregated is suppressed rather than shown. It points you at a cohort or a campus, not a person. Helping a specific student happens on a different surface: from a help request in the inbox, or from the audited Needs attention list in Students, which reads students' own check-ins and logs every open. Insights itself never draws that individual out: in this report the reasons behind the mood are cohort totals only, with no drill-down to a name. (A student's own reason is visible on their profile, which is audited on every open. See what's weighing on students.)
Walk through it
- Read the Pulse for direction of travel
Open Pulse. It shows how a cohort feels, drawn from the weekly check-in, week by week. Read the curve, not a single number: one quiet week is noise, a two-week slide across the cohort is a signal. Watch the response count too. If sentiment looks flat but fewer students are answering, the people dropping out of the data may be the ones struggling most.
- Read the why behind the mood
Further down the Pulse report, what's weighing on students puts a reason behind the number (belonging, money, academics) as a cohort total, and the shape of the six weeks lays those concerns out week by week so you can see when each peaks. This is what turns "a lot of them are wobbling" into a decision about what to publish and when.
- Understand the privacy line before you read anything into it
Pulse is aggregate only. It hides any breakdown with fewer than five students behind it. A suppressed cell is the system working, not data missing. If you need a read on a small group, widen the slice until enough students sit behind it rather than treating the blank as a gap to fill.
- Let 'Where to look this week' point you at a group
Near the top of Pulse, this panel does one narrow job: it names the group (a campus, a degree, or first-in-family students) with the highest share of students saying they are wobbling or need a hand this week, next to the cohort figure so you can see how far above the room it sits. It is a prompt to look, never a prediction: it points at a group, never a person, and it does not and cannot tell you who will leave (First Six sees no enrolment, grades, or withdrawals). It obeys the same five-student floor, so a group is only ever named once enough of it has checked in. Most weeks it will say nothing stands out, which is a good sign, not a fault.
- Decide where to direct support this week
Turn the picture into one decision. A cohort drifting in Pulse might warrant a briefing, an event, or a closer look at what is going on that week. Pick the one or two places that need you, and let the steady weeks pass.
- Export when you need it on paper
When the story has to travel to leadership or your IR team, export the data as CSV, or pull the board-ready Support for Students report. The export carries the week-by-week history, so it shows trajectory rather than a single snapshot. The same "read the curve" principle, applied to the people you report to.
Quick checklist
Common questions
Can I use Insights to find which students are struggling?
Not from Insights itself: it is aggregate only and never names or ranks individuals, and the reasons behind the mood stay anonymous. Finding a specific student happens elsewhere in the console: they reach you through a help request in the inbox, or they surface in the audited Needs attention list in Students, which reads the check-ins they have already shared and records every time you open it.
Why is part of my cohort showing no numbers?
Because fewer than five students sit behind that slice, so Pulse suppresses the breakdown. Widen the filter until enough students are behind it, and the numbers reappear.
Does 'Where to look this week' predict who is going to drop out?
No. It is a descriptive read of what a group said this week, not a forecast. It names a group with an above-cohort share of students wobbling or asking for a hand, so you know where to aim support, and it points at the group, never a named student. First Six cannot see enrolment, grades, or withdrawals, so it does not and will not put a risk score on anyone. Treat it as a prompt to look, then use your judgment.
Pulse looks flat but fewer students are responding. What does that tell me?
Watch it closely. A falling response count can matter as much as the sentiment itself, because the students who stop answering may be the ones struggling most. A flat line over a shrinking sample is not the same as a flat line over a steady one.
Related
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