How does the Text Analysis Tool work?

The Text Analysis Tool generates an AI summary of residents' open-ended survey responses on the Community Views platform. This article explains which comments feed a summary, why two summaries of the same responses can differ, and how residents' personal information is handled – for anyone quoting a summary in a report, and for privacy officers asking how free text is managed.

Note: The Text Analysis Tool is available to signed-in authorised users only. Where an organisation's Community Views platform is publicly available, open text responses are hidden from anonymous visitors.

Key concepts

What the tool produces

The tool is available for all open-ended questions, including your organisation's custom questions. Clicking the blue 'Summarise filtered comments' button generates a summary of key themes, a description of each theme and example quotes from responses. The original comments stay fully visible on the same page, below the summary.

How comments are selected

A summary draws on up to 500 comments, chosen at random from whatever you have filtered. Where fewer than 500 comments match your filters, the tool summarises all of them. This means that for larger response sets, the summary covers a random selection of comments, not every comment.

Why two summaries can differ

Summaries are not reproducible. Each click of 'Summarise filtered comments' takes a fresh random draw of comments, so running the tool twice on the same filtered set can produce different summaries. If you quote a summary in a report, keep a copy at the time – re-running the tool later won't recreate it.

How residents' words are protected

At .id, we moderate open text responses both manually and using an automated tool before the data is loaded into the Community Views platform. We remove profanities, inappropriate or abusive language, discriminatory or hateful content, personal attacks and personally identifiable information. Names and email addresses are collected in the survey but are used purely to administer the prize draw, and are stored on our network – no personally identifiable information on respondents is uploaded to the Community Views platform.

Where to find the Text Analysis Tool in Community Views

Open-ended responses sit either within a topic tile alongside charted results, reached through 'View all comments', or in their own tile – such as the Ideas tile, which holds responses to the standard question 'What could be done to improve the quality of life for people in your local area?'. You can filter by age group, gender, local area (your neighbourhood, ward or community of interest) and keyword before summarising, and re-clicking 'Summarise filtered comments' regenerates the summary from the filtered set only.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Does the summary cover every comment?

A: Not always. It draws on up to 500 comments chosen at random from your filtered set. Where fewer than 500 comments match, all of them are summarised; where more match, the summary covers a random selection.

Q: Why did I get a different summary the second time I ran it?

A: Each summary is a fresh random draw from the filtered comments, so repeat runs on the same filters can produce different results. Save a copy of any summary you intend to quote.

Q: Is residents' personal information visible in the tool?

A: No. Personally identifiable information is removed during moderation before responses are loaded onto the Community Views platform. Names and email addresses collected in the survey are used purely to administer the prize draw and are stored on .id's network, not uploaded to the platform.

Q: Why can't I see the Text Analysis Tool on our Community Views platform?

A: The tool is shown to signed-in authorised users only. Where an organisation's Community Views platform is publicly available, open text responses are hidden from visitors, so you'll need to sign in with an authorised account.

Q: Can I use it on our custom questions?

A: Yes. The tool appears on custom open-ended questions.