Tips to help you plan your engagement:

• Ensure you comply with NSW Government standards and guidelines linked on this page.

• Understand the scope and context of the engagement. How much influence can participants have on the outcome? Be transparent about their level of influence.

• Plan your engagement with the audience in mind. Know who you need to reach and how.

• Plan your engagement with decision-makers, data and insights in mind. Refer to the data, insights and reporting page for guidance.

• Check if your team, agency or department has templates to support your engagement planning.

We have created some templates for guidance on ways to lay out your page:

• HYS consultation page - simple
• HYS consultation page - complex

Note: Social Pinpoint does not currently allow you to clone a whole page, so you will need to copy the relevant elements from these templates to your clipboard and drag them into a new project.

Other layouts

Your project may lend itself to a different layout. As long as it meets NSW Government branding and design guidelines, there is flexibility in page layout and the content and feedback tools you choose to use.

The Social Pinpoint demo site gives examples of a range of projects and feedback tools.

If you are unsure whether your page complies with NSW Government branding guidelines, please contact the DCS Have Your Say team.

Tips to help when setting up a project page:

• When launching a new project, ensure you allocate your project page to the correct 'Team' (ie. all Transport for NSW projects should be allocated to the 'Transport' team).

• Refer to the templates provided to guide your page layout.

• Ensure your consultation has the appropriate Privacy Collection Notice (PCN) on the page.

• Have you enabled the 'Project Follow' button in settings? This allows people to easily follow the project's progress and receive updates.

• Have you enabled the 'Project Translation' function in settings? This allows users to translate the page into 10 languages other than English.

• It's good practice to include a timeline and a 'who's listening' widget so people know where the project is up to and who they can contact.

• If you are using a participation tool that allows public feedback published on your page (e.g. visioner, gather etc.), who will moderate the content and how will this be done?

• Social Pinpoint integrates with a multilingual add-on (Localize Translation Management System) to translate content to 10 different languages.

• Localize uses leading machine translation engines such as Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and Amazon Translate to translate content and feedback tools on the page.

• The translation service does not extend to user-generated feedback (survey responses, ideas, social map posts, etc.)

• The add-on also allows manual control to edit translated content via the Localize interface (it is recommended to use qualified human translators for projects targeting specific language groups).

• Utilise Assisted Analysis Tool to identify the languages of the comments quickly.

• Plan for Translation: Have a plan in place for translating comments, especially if your audience is diverse and likely to use multiple languages. This might involve having a dedicated team or service for translation purposes. This may include setting aside financial resources.

• Read more about the multi-language capabilities of Social Pinpoint.

• The translation disclaimer informs the public about the limitations around machine translations.

• DCS data analytics and customer insights teams' survey design top tips.

• Social Pinpoint survey guidance (known as 'forms' in Social Pinpoint).

• Social Pinpoint participation tool comparison chart.

• Assign a moderator if you're using participation tools that display public-facing community input.

• Consider pre-moderated responses to manage risk around moderation.

• Learn more about moderation and read the moderation policy.

• If your topic is controversial, carefully consider the choice of participation tool and ensure you have assessed the risks.

Video resources

• Social Pinpoint community training recording of survey best practice.

Please ensure you follow your department's relevant approvals processes before publishing any content. If you're not sure what they are, speak with your manager or the key engagement contact for your department.

• Test, test, test your page and feedback tools on different devices and with different audiences (especially ones who have no background knowledge of the project).

• Ensure your page meets NSW Government standards and guidelines, is accurate, up-to-date, and fit for purpose.

• Request a tile on the Have Your Say central portal via the nsw.gov.au help hub.

• Ensure all approvals have been undertaken and documented.

• Ensure you have a communications plan in place to promote your consultation.

• Promote your consultation through paid/owned/earned media to reach your target audience.

• Refer to the NSW Government Owned Channel Directory to find comms channels to help promote your consultation.

• Engage trusted and influential stakeholders to amplify your consultation.

• Review metrics during the consultation so you can refine your promotional strategy as needed.

• Plan your consultation for periods of time when engagement will be high. Try to avoid periods such as seasonal/festive holidays.

Ensure your communications plan includes how you are going to keep stakeholders updated on your project's progress:

• Use content tools such as the Timeline and Newsfeed to update stakeholders on key consultation milestones.

• If your project has multiple phases, check out Social Pinpoint's guidance on managing multi-phase engagement.

• Close the loop after the consultation ends. Visit the data, insights and reporting back page for more information on closing the loop.