Skip to main content

Reviewing Diagnostic Findings and Reports

Learn how to read what a Diagnostic found, how to break the findings down by role, how findings become recommended actions and an executive report, and what you can export.

Platform access level: Org Admins and Managers. Arist enables Diagnostic for your organization before it appears in the sidebar.


After concluding interview collection, use Results to explore the findings, generate recommended actions, and prepare your report. This guide walks through those steps and explains how to download findings, recommendations, and transcripts.

To gather more input before reviewing the results, follow Collecting Diagnostic Interviews to reopen collection.


1. Review the findings and supporting evidence

the findings list on the Results tab, each finding with its severity and the evidence behind it

Open Results to review the findings produced from your interviews and organizational data. Select a finding to explore its conclusion and the evidence behind it.

The detail panel includes:

  • The finding: A short statement of the conclusion.

  • What we found: A fuller explanation of the finding.

  • Category: Whether the finding identifies a gap, a strength, or a theme.

  • Severity, when shown: Critical, significant, or moderate.

  • Proof: Sources and quotes that support the conclusion. Interview quotes are attributed by role, or by a general label when fewer than three interviewees share that role. For quotes in another language, an English translation appears beneath the original.

Use the cohort filter buttons at the top of Results to focus on a group. Each button uses the group’s role name. Some findings apply to a particular cohort; others have no cohort assigned.

The executive summary above the findings brings together the main conclusions. It requires at least three sources, counting interviews and organizational data together. Below that threshold, the card displays Not enough sources yet.

This summary reflects the available analysis. The executive summary in a generated report reflects the information available when that report was created.

Discuss findings in the project chat

Select findings from the list to bring them into the chat. A Discussing N findings bar shows how many findings are included in the conversation. Remove individual selections or select Clear to remove them all.

You can ask questions about the evidence or request changes, such as combining findings, removing a finding, or changing its severity.

If your request would replace existing findings, the chat asks you to confirm. Review the confirmation card, then select Confirm to proceed or Cancel to keep the current findings.

Note: The chat applies your request to the current findings, and analysis does not start over. If your request is only a wording edit, evidence, severity, cohort, and existing interventions stay, but the current report is removed. For any other finding change, interventions are removed, the report is removed, and the report card shows Unlocks after interventions.

To locate interview content, use Search interviews & quotes in the interviews table. The search matches interviewee names and quote text.

Download an individual finding

a finding's detail panel open beside the findings list on the Results tab, with its download menu open and circled, showing PDF, Word and Markdown above the Download button

Open the finding’s detail panel and use its download menu to choose PDF, Word, or Markdown.

For formats that need to be generated, the selected option displays Preparing… and the other options remain unavailable until preparation finishes. If an export fails, a message identifies the format that could not be generated.


2. Explore findings by cohort

the Results tab filtered to one cohort, with the impact map and results chart redrawn for that group alone

Use the project chat to ask about a specific cohort. For example, you could ask, “What are the top themes among managers?”

A cohort view can include the number of interviewees, a breakdown of call statuses, and the topics raised by that group.

Cohort breakdowns remain available when interviewee names are not collected. The cohort comes from the link or phone number used to join the interview, so you can compare groups without collecting individual names.

Interviews excluded from analysis are also excluded from cohort and finding totals. This keeps the breakdown aligned with the evidence used in the analysis.

Use your cohort names when asking questions so the chat can focus on the group you want to explore.


3. Generate recommended actions

the Results tab of a project whose findings are ready, with the executive summary, impact map, results chart and findings list, and Generate interventions circled in the top bar

Once the findings are ready, select Generate interventions or ask the project chat to generate interventions.

the Interventions card with its count, each intervention numbered under its group heading with its priority, the findings it addresses, its audience and its format

Each intervention recommends an action and connects it to the findings it addresses. Review those connections to understand why an action was proposed and which issues it is intended to help resolve.

Interventions may be classified as Live only, Process change, or Talent. A Talent recommendation can appear when the project was set up to inform hiring or promotion decisions and the evidence supports that recommendation. These classifications reflect the project’s setup and analysis.

If the findings change beyond a wording-only edit, existing interventions are removed, and they do not regenerate automatically. Select Generate interventions when it appears again so interventions are rebuilt from the updated findings; a wording-only edit keeps the existing interventions.

You can download the interventions from the download menu on the interventions card in the project chat:

  • PDF: A PDF version of the interventions.

  • Word: An editable .docx file.

  • Markdown: A text file with Markdown formatting.

Word and PDF display Preparing… while the file is generated. The other format options remain unavailable during preparation.


4. Generate and review your report

Report generation becomes available after interventions have been generated. Until then, the report card displays Unlocks after interventions.

Start report generation to choose the findings, report type, layout, and intended audience.

the Generate report dialog open over the Results tab, with How it presents and its Slides option, the default layout, circled below the findings and report type choices

Choose the findings to include

In Findings to include, every finding starts selected. Clear the selection for any finding you want to leave out, and star the findings you want the report to lead with.

Select at least two findings to continue. Removing a finding from the selection also removes its star.

For guidance on choosing what to emphasize and framing the results for relevant stakeholders, see Best Practices for Running a Diagnostic.

Select the report type

Under What the report should be, choose the format that fits your purpose:

Report type

What it includes

Full report

An executive summary, methodology, findings with supporting evidence, and recommendations.

Findings readout

Findings and their supporting evidence, without recommendations.

One-pager

A cover, executive summary, findings at a glance, and next steps.

Under How it presents, choose Document or Slides. Slides is selected by default.

Use Who it is written for to describe the intended audience in up to 280 characters. This adjusts the report’s language for that audience while preserving the findings.

If you chose Capability study during setup, the report can include a capability matrix showing current and needed capabilities across roles.

Check the generated report

Review the report before sharing it, including the evidence behind its conclusions and recommendations.

When provided, the cover includes your project’s Objective, the Decision the report will inform, and the Stakes, which describe why that decision matters. Fields without information are left out.

These values come from the project's setup. Existing reports keep the information used when they were generated.

a generated report open over the Results tab, with the Unverified against the evidence note circled above the executive summary, and the flagged root cause claim, underlined and tagged Unverified, below it

A passage labeled Unverified against the evidence has been flagged by the report’s evidence check. The label appears in both the on-screen report and the exported PDF. Review the marked passage against its sources before relying on it.

Where the report includes a phased action plan, it groups recommendations by actions that can begin immediately, work that follows, and longer-term structural changes.

Regenerate or download the report

When regenerating a report, the previous findings selection, stars, report type, and audience description carry over. The layout returns to Slides, so select Document again if that is the layout you want.

Select Export report on the report card to download the generated report. After you open it with View report, you can also use Download PDF. The Word and Markdown download options available for findings and interventions do not apply to the report itself.

Version history lists previous reports with the newest first. Entries show the date and time, with finding and intervention counts on downloadable versions. Failed versions are marked accordingly, and older files may no longer be available to download.


5. Export interview transcripts

the Results tab scrolled past the interventions and the report card to the Individual interviews table, with the table's heading and the download control beside it circled, and each interview's cohort, date, themes, status and duration below

Use Export all transcripts in the interviews table to download the project’s transcripts as a workbook.

The workbook includes:

  • An interview summary, including whether each interview was excluded from analysis.

  • Full transcripts.

  • Structured answers.

  • A response summary.

  • An information sheet explaining the export.

The export control is unavailable while another export is running or when there are no interviews to export.

To download one interview, open its individual view and use the download control once a nonempty transcript has loaded.

Check your team and download access

To access a bulk transcript export, your active team must match the team that owns the Diagnostic. This requirement also applies to Org Admins. Selecting the organization’s root team does not grant access to exports belonging to other teams.

If transcript downloads are disabled for your organization, both the bulk and individual download controls are hidden. This does not affect viewing or downloading reports.

For anonymous interviews, name, email, and phone fields are blank in the export. The spoken transcript text remains included.

Important: Review transcript content before sharing it and limit access to the appropriate audience. An interviewee may mention identifying information in their spoken answers even when identity fields are blank. For your organization’s responsibilities when using Diagnostic, see New User Onboarding for Running a Diagnostic.


6. Use the results to plan what happens next

one intervention opened, with its target audience, scope, format, rationale and success metric, and the findings it addresses listed at the bottom

Use the findings and their supporting evidence to review the recommended actions with relevant stakeholders. Where a phased plan is included, use it to discuss what can begin immediately and what requires more preparation.

Interviewees do not automatically receive access to the findings or report through their interview. Plan how to share an appropriate summary and follow up as actions progress.

The Best Practices guide covers agreeing on actions, assigning responsibility, and showing interviewees how their input contributed to the outcome.


Related articles

Note: Need help at any point? Reach out to your Arist Customer Success contact, or email [email protected].

Did this answer your question?