Attributes

Attributes describe people using dimensions that matter in your organization: seniority, discipline, tenure, office location, work arrangement, or people responsibility.

Workspace admins define the attributes and their available values. Members complete their own work profile by selecting the attributes that applies to them. Session designers can then route people to different questions based on those values.

Attributes and groups

Use an attribute for a property of a person. Use a group for a unit people belong to.

For example, Seniority is usually an attribute because it is a lightweight profile value. Product Design may be a group if it needs owners, members, shared pages, and its own sessions.

An office can be either:

Use a group when the office needs a roster and shared context
Use an attribute when location is mainly a routing or reporting dimension

Create an attribute

Workspace admins manage attributes from Settings → Attributes.

Select New attribute.
Start from a template or create one from scratch.
Choose single-select or multi-select.
Add the values members can choose.
Decide whether the attribute is mandatory.

Templates include common dimensions such as People responsibility, Tenure, Discipline, Office / Location, Work arrangement, Seniority, Employment type, and Gender.

Keep one dimension per attribute. Create Seniority and Discipline separately instead of adding a combined option such as “Senior Product Designer.” The session designer can combine the two when needed.

Three to seven options are usually enough for a useful distinction without splitting people into very small segments.

Complete your work profile

Members select their own values when joining the workspace. Mandatory attributes must be completed before continuing; optional attributes can be skipped.

You can update your answers later from the Work profile section of your profile. If an admin adds a new mandatory attribute, Soma asks you to complete it on your next visit.

Your selections are visible to you and workspace admins. They are not a directory for browsing other members’ profiles.

Route a session by attribute

Add an Attribute route in the session_designer when different people should follow different conversation paths.

For each route:

Choose the attribute.
Select the values that match.
Connect the route to its next node.
Connect Else for everyone who does not match.

Use + And to combine another attribute, group, or category of work. For example, a route can match people who are Senior and in Product Design or Junior and in Engineering.

If a session needs an attribute a participant has not completed, Soma asks for it before the interview starts. A missing optional value can be skipped, in which case the participant follows the Else route.

Attribute values are captured when a participant enters a run. Updating a profile during an interview does not change that person’s route.

Edit or archive attributes

Admins can rename, reorder, add, or archive options. Attributes and options are archived rather than permanently deleted so earlier session results remain interpretable.

Renaming an option updates its label throughout the workspace. If a published session refers to an option that is later archived, affected participants follow Else.

Be cautious with sensitive dimensions. Only collect a value when the organization has a clear reason to use it, and include a neutral opt-out such as Prefer not to say where appropriate.

Current limits

Attribute definitions and answers are specific to each workspace.
Values are captured when a participant enters a session run.
Members can see their own values; workspace admins can see workspace members’ values.
Archived attributes and options remain available to historical results.

Session designer uses attributes to route participants, including combined conditions.
Groups represents roster-based units rather than member properties.
User settings contains the Work profile where members update their values.
Sessions captures attribute values for each participant when they enter a run.