Setting up the portal

The portal editor decides what participants see and what happens to their recording. Open “Portal editor” in the project sidebar. Your changes save by themselves. For a first session, three things are worth five minutes: the “Language”, the “Page title” with its “Page content”, and the “Key terms”.

“Show preview” opens a “Live preview” of the real start page next to the settings. Press “Refresh” in the preview to see your latest changes. The QR code and the link are not here. They are on the project’s “Overview”, in the “Take part” card.

With the “Observer” role you can read the settings and not change them.

“Basic settings”#

“Language”#

Choose from English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Ukrainian and Czech.

• It is the language the portal opens in, and the language of summaries and generated titles.
• The language is part of the share link and of the QR code. If you change it, share the link again: a code you printed earlier still opens the portal in the old language.
• For transcription it is a hint. dembrane writes down what is spoken, also when people switch language, and uses the hint when the audio leaves room for doubt.
• A Ukrainian or Czech portal shows the tutorial and privacy cards in English.

“Ask for name?” and “Ask for email?”#

“Ask for name?” is on in a new project. A participant then has to fill in “Session name” before recording. Tell people what to enter: a table number or a group name works as well as a person’s name. With the name off and no tags, the portal has nothing to ask and starts the conversation right after the cards.

With “Ask for email?” on, the thank you page asks “Do you want to stay in the loop?” and people can leave one or more addresses. You see them in “Edit conversation” under “Participant email”, behind “Show”.

“Legal basis”#

This sets the legal basis under the GDPR for the personal data in this project, and with it the privacy card.

A project uses the workspace’s default unless a workspace admin presses “Override for this project”. With no default anywhere, “Client-managed” applies. “Consent” needs a “Privacy policy URL”. Only workspace admins can change the legal basis, and the editor adds a warning worth following: “Only change this setting in consultation with the responsible person(s) for data protection within your organisation.” More in data ownership and compliance.

“Select tutorial”#

For a room of first-time users, “Advanced” says what you would otherwise have to say yourself.

“Tags”#

Type a tag and press “Add tag”. Separate several with commas to add them in one go. Drag tags to put them in order. Participants pick from them on the start screen, and you can filter the conversation list and group the Monitor by tag. A tag for each table or each session is a good start.

Deleting a tag removes it from the conversations that carry it.

“Participant features”#

“Explore” (Beta)#

Switch on “Enable Explore” and participants get a button labelled “ECHO” while they record. After 60 seconds of recording they can ask dembrane for a written reply that helps them go deeper. A language model writes it from what they said so far, your project context and summaries of the project’s other conversations. Recording continues in the meantime. After a reply, Explore is unavailable for 2 minutes.

“Mode” sets the kind of reply: “Default”, “Brainstorm ideas” or “Custom”. “Custom” adds a “Reply prompt” in which you describe the reply you want.

“Verify” (Beta)#

Switch on “Enable Verify” and participants can turn what they said into a short written outcome, revise it and approve it. It sits behind the same “ECHO” button.

• “Verify topics”: tick the topics participants can choose from. At least one stays ticked. The built-in topics are “What we actually agreed on”, “Hidden gems”, “Painful truths”, “Breakthrough moments”, “What we think should happen” and “Moments we agreed to disagree”.
• “Add topic” makes a topic of your own, with a label and a prompt for the language model.
• “Remind users to verify before finishing” asks people who have not verified yet to verify or skip when they press “Finish”.

You see approved outcomes only. They are on the conversation’s page under “Outcomes”, and dembrane uses them when it writes the summary. The participant’s side is in refining and verifying.

“Report notifications”#

“Enable report notifications” appears when “Ask for email?” is on. With it on, the thank you page tells participants they only get a message when you make a report, and that they can opt out. The email itself goes out when you publish a report. See reports.

“Portal content”#

Put your question in “Page content”. It stays on the screen while people talk, and dembrane reads the title and the content when it writes summaries.

In the thank you text, {{CONVERSATION_ID}} and {{PROJECT_ID}} are replaced by the real values. That helps when you link to a follow-up form.

“Show the invitation” is on by default. On the free plan you cannot switch it off: “Switching it off comes with a paid plan.”

“Advanced settings”#

“Key terms”#

The names, places, organisations and jargon you expect to hear. Press Enter after each term. Key terms tell transcription how to spell words it does not know, and they also reach summaries and Explore replies. Fill them in before the session: they apply to audio transcribed from then on.

“Anonymize transcripts” (Beta)#

With “Enable transcript anonymization” on, new transcripts have personal information (names, emails, phone numbers, addresses) replaced with placeholders such as <redacted_name>.

• For an anonymised conversation you cannot play the audio, download the audio or retranscribe.
• Participants are told on the recording screen that the transcript is anonymised and that the host cannot listen to the recording.
• Names you listed as key terms are replaced too.
• It cannot be undone for conversations that were already processed. Switch it on before the session starts.

“Auto-generate titles” (Beta)#

Gives each conversation a short title about its topic once the summary is written. The name the participant entered is kept separately. With the switch on, dembrane also gives the conversation up to three of the project’s existing tags. “Custom title prompt” lets you steer how titles are written.

A good first setup#

1. Set the “Language” to the one people will speak.
2. Write a “Page title” and put your question in “Page content”.
3. Add your “Key terms”.
4. Leave “Ask for name?” on and tell people what to enter.
5. Add a tag for each table or session if you want to compare them later.
6. Open the preview, read it as a participant would, then share the code from “Overview”.

Related#

• Collecting conversations: sharing the portal and briefing participants.
• Creating a project: the settings a new project starts with.
• Transcripts & conversations: tags, titles and outcomes in the dashboard.
• The portal editor: the feature reference.
• The participant portal: what participants go through.
• Data ownership and compliance: legal basis and anonymisation.