External Content Activity

This feature will be coming soon. Contact our Sales team at saleshelp@recollective.com to learn more.

The External Content Activity type allows researchers to upload and analyze research data captured outside of Recollective. Researchers can bring externally captured video and audio recordings—such as interviews, focus groups, and UX sessions—directly into the platform for review and AI-powered analysis.

By consolidating qualitative data in one place, researchers can leverage the full power of Recollective’s AI capabilities without managing insights across disconnected tools. This allows admins to transform their Recollective site into a centralized insights hub that supports the full research workflow, regardless of where the data originated.

Creating an External Content Activity

Analysts and Moderators can create an External Content Activity to house and manage their imported recordings. This activity type is only visible to admins and will not be displayed to participants.

To create a new External Content Activity, follow these steps:

📍 Go to the Activities tab of your Study

Click on Add Activity.
Select External Content from the Activity Type menu.
Enter an Activity Name.
Optional: Set Activity Dates.
1. Note: Unlike other Activity Types, dates are optional for External Content and are used primarily for organization and tracking.
Configure Activity Access to determine which Clients can view the uploaded content.
1. Note: By default, all clients will have read-only access to the activity unless otherwise configured.
Optional: Add a Description for other admins and clients to reference.
Click Next: Upload Content.

Uploading and Managing Files

Once the activity is created, admins can immediately begin uploading files. Files are managed within a centralized dashboard where their processing status and metadata are visible at a glance.

Uploading Content

Analysts and Moderators can upload files by dragging and dropping them into the activity or by browsing their local device.

The External Content Activity type supports video uploads in .mp4, .mov, and .m4v, and audio uploads in .mp3, .m4a, and .wav.

Each activity can host up to 500 files. Individual files may be up to 2 GB in size and 3 hours in length, with a maximum of ten total speakers per recording.

During the upload process, admins must provide the following information for each file:

Name: The identifier used for the file in the platform.
Language: The language spoken in the file (selected from your Study Languages).
Source Date: The original recording date which will be referenced by Ask AI.
Speakers: Indicate if the recording features Single (no host) or Multiple speakers.
Number of Hosts: The number of moderators or admins in the recording. The system defaults to Auto-Detect.

Note: Only the Name can be edited after the upload is complete.

If needed, admins will have the option to Cancel Upload, which will abandon all files in the current upload, or, use the Skip & remove option when uploading multiple files to cancel the upload of the current file and proceed to the next one.

Upon completion of the modal, admins will need to stay on the page until the Uploading phase is complete. Files will be ready to be viewed and analyzed once they reach the Completed status.

Viewing Recordings

To view a recording, simply click on the file card to open the File Details page. From here, admins can review the file’s upload information or view the recording in-platform using the integrated media player.

Admins can review the transcript in tandem with the uploaded media. This side-by-side layout allows for seamless playback management while following along in the transcript. To make analysis easier, the system identifies distinct speakers and assigns specific Roles to each, automatically organizing the resulting transcript by individual contributor:

Host: An identified speaker equivalent to an Admin. Contributions are not included in AI Summaries, Ask AI, or the Word Cloud.
Attendee: An identified speaker equivalent to a Participant. Contributions can be reviewed and analyzed using AI Summaries, Ask AI, and the Word Cloud.

Note: In multi-lingual studies, recording transcripts can be translated to any of the Study Languages set in the Study Settings. Admins can use the Language control at the bottom left of the screen, select their preferred Display Language, and toggle on “Translated responses”.

Interactive Transcript

Instant Playback: Clicking on a word in the transcript will instantly play the recording starting at the corresponding time stamp.

Transcript Editing: Transcript accuracy can vary based on sound quality and accent variations. Recollective provides you full control to improve the transcripts that are generated to ensure your word clouds are accurate. The transcript can be easily edited to match the speaker's dictation by simply double-clicking on a word.

While editing a word, the TAB key can be pressed to save the current edit and start the edit of the next word.
While editing a word, the SHIFT-TAB key can be pressed to save the current edit and start the edit of the previous word.

Rename Host and Participants: Admins have the ability to rename both hosts and attendees in the transcript for easier identification. Admins can manually edit speaker labels by clicking the dropdown next to their name. If no names are provided, the speaker will be given a generic label (ex. “Host 1”, “Attendee 2”, etc.).

Re-assign Roles: In this same dropdown, admins may also swap roles for a speaker if initially misidentified by the platform. Changing a speaker from a host to an attendee will make their contributions available in all AI outputs and Word Clouds. Conversely, changing an attendee to a host will remove them.

Re-assign Messages: Admins may also reassign messages in the transcript to the correct speaker to ensure transcripts accurately reflect who said what. Users may reassign an entire message or individual lines.

In-Platform Analysis

For every recording, Recollective automatically generates an AI Summary in addition to the associated transcript.

All transcribed speech from Attendees will be included in Ask AI for analysis. Content from External Content Activities will also be included in Word Clouds.

File Options and Downloading & Exporting

On the file details page, admins are presented with an Options menu offering additional actions.

Edit Properties: This action allows users to update the file properties provided during the initial upload process.
- Updating the Language, Source Date, Speakers, or Number of Hosts will trigger a re-transcription and undo any edits made to the transcript.
Re-Transcribe: This action will undo any edits made to the transcript and regenerate a new AI summary.
Delete: This action will delete the entire file and its data from the activity.

Each file in an External Content Activity offers the following export options:

Download (Recording file)
Export Transcript
- Export to HTML
- Export to Excel

These options are available from the File Details page under Options.

🗣️ Still have questions or want to leave feedback on how we can do better? Contact us at helpdesk@recollective.com.