Blog Posts
November 11, 2024

How Rally for Teams makes Research scalable

Discover how Rally for Teams, the most powerful User Research CRM, is redefining scalable research for enterprises. This post explores how Rally’s latest release empowers teams to safely and efficiently connect with users at scale, with customized permissions, access controls, and streamlined workflows for cross-functional collaboration.

We built Rally to help teams easily connect with their users. Over the past 3 years, we’ve been fortunate to work with some of the largest enterprises in the world to help them solve their nitty gritty research recruitment challenges. We found that as we made recruiting users 10x easier for Research & ReOps teams, they wanted to enable more and more of their stakeholders - mainly Designers, PMs, and Marketers - to do the same. 

The main challenge - they didn’t want their stakeholders to have the same advanced access controls and permissions that they had. It carries too much risk to give everyone at the company unfettered access to the entire company database, research budgets, etc.

So, over the past 6 months, we’ve been working closely with our customers - old and new - to create a new paradigm for enabling large teams to connect with users safely and at scale.

Introducing Rally for Teamsthe next evolution of our Research Operations Platform, designed specifically to help teams of all shapes & sizes connect with their users. Here’s the story behind why we built it and what it means for our customers.

Why did we build Rally for Teams?

Rally’s mission is simple: to empower organizations to talk to their users safely and at scale. As companies of all sizes seek more customer insights to shape product decisions, they’ve been limited by a lack of tools that can handle the scale and security required for enterprise-level research. Rally for Teams directly tackles this gap.

“Today, companies of all sizes are recognizing the need to connect more closely with their customers. Just listen to CEOs across industries – the CEO of Discord recently shared on a podcast that they’re talking to more users to guide future decisions. By making research accessible across teams, Rally enables faster, better-informed product decisions for everyone.”

We built Rally for Teams because we believe that in order to find success in any industry, you need to talk to your users regularly. Everyone that needs to talk to users also needs access to high-quality research tools – without compromising on security or control.

“Most tools aren't built from the ground up for team collaboration in the way we as humans actually operate at work. And research is special because it's so inherently cross functional, often spanning multiple teams and studies at any given moment. We deeply considered that in designing how the software works, which I think will be a major component that differentiates us in the market.”

Here’s what inspired us:

Customer demand for democratization 🗣

Many Rally customers told us they wanted to make research accessible to more people in their organizations – but didn’t have the right tools to do it safely. With Rally for Team’s custom roles, segmentation, and access controls, more folks can contribute to research with the right guardrails in place. 

“As we talked to more of our customers on what was holding them back from bringing on more of their teammates who do research, we kept hearing time and time again that they wanted more control over permissions and access to sensitive customer data.”

Organizations are being forced to do more with less 📈

Enterprise-level UX Research is complex enough – then add on the fact that teams are being challenged to produce more insights with less resources. Rally for Teams allows you to reduce the administrative operations work so you and your team can truly focus on uncovering real user insights. 

Enabling safe and controlled Research 🦺

Rally for Teams introduces study templates, restricted populations, custom user roles and permissions, and a new navigation system to ensure even the most sensitive research is conducted smoothly and securely. It’s all about consistency, compliance, and keeping high-value participants happy. 

“It’s been exciting to see all the new use cases that Rally for Teams has unlocked for our customers. I love watching more stakeholders get direct access to their users for research. Rally is now the most scalable, flexible, and user-friendly User Research CRM out there – built to support teams of any size, including large enterprises.”

We used Rally to build Rally 

If you’ve been following us for some time now, you know that UX Research is at the core of our own product development strategy. It was critical for us to partner closely with our customers throughout the development of Rally for Teams. 

“We had 20+ feedback calls throughout the research and design phase of this project from customers to prospects in diverse industries. Nearly everything we decided to build was informed by customer signals. We had team members in Observer Rooms listening and discussing. We used Rally to build Rally.

Through countless research sessions, interviews, and feedback loops, we worked side by side with our customers to deeply understand the challenges they faced in scaling research operations within large organizations. By identifying the most critical pain points – like balancing access control with ease of use and enabling cross-functional teams to collaborate securely – we co-created a solution that directly addresses these issues. 

“We've collaborated closely with several customers to develop Rally for Teams. I'm incredibly proud of their enthusiasm for the product. Some have already begun strategizing how to mirror their organizational structure within Rally, planning which roles and teams to create.”
“This release gives us more control over roles, so new users won't be able to take certain actions until they have completed training and reviewed steps. This release also provides different levels of access so we can restrict who can provide incentives or use external panel features.”

How Rally for Teams addresses complex needs with customization and flexibility

Enterprise research has specific demands. Large teams require custom permissions, access control, and security layers that most tools weren’t designed to handle. Rally for Teams is different. It allows organizations to configure user roles, manage participant access, and set up clear, organized workflows across the company, so more people can get involved in research. 

This flexibility is essential for democratizing research, enabling more people to conduct studies independently and speeding up the research process.

“Our customers have given us a lot of signal that there’s a need for software to help them bring other teams into Rally. So they can scale research quality, efficiency, and impact. Whether it’s a growth team doing discovery, a design team testing prototypes, or senior leadership engaging with customers, Rally for Teams makes it vastly easier to manage research operations at scale.”

Features built to scale Research safely and efficiently

Here’s what Rally for Teams brings to the table:

  • Multi-team workspaces and granular access controls for managing access to participants and recruitment populations. 
  • Custom roles and permissions that ensure each team member has access to the right participant data and actions within the platform.
  • Templates for study setup and communication that speed up repetitive tasks, allowing research teams to focus on insights.
  • Participant segmentation and organized populations to keep recruitment accurate, compliant, and controlled.
  • Sign-up forms to streamline participant recruitment and invite participants to opt-in to research. 

These features empower organizations to scale research thoughtfully, balancing security with ease of use, even for newbies. 

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Rally for Teams in action 

Our customers have already seen the value of Rally for Teams in improving access and flexibility within their organizations:

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Rally for Teams also unlocks the ability for different departments to conduct research more independently. 

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Empowering every organization to conduct more, high quality Research

Our hope is that Rally for Teams will change the culture of research within companies, making Research accessible to everyone who needs it and creating a space where more teams can Rally around the user ;) . By fostering cross-functional engagement, Rally transforms research from a siloed task into a company-wide practice. 

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Rally for Teams is built for teams of all sizes, enabling people to get closer to their users and make informed decisions with confidence.

Be part of the future of ReOps 

Rally for Teams is here to help organizations of all sizes talk to their users safely, securely, and at scale. With powerful new tools, deep integrations, and robust governance, Rally for Teams is changing the game for research ops.

Discover how Rally for Teams can help your organization by contacting us or exploring the platform through our Demo Center.

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Spend more time researching with Rally

Rally’s User Research CRM enables you to do better research in less time. Find out how you can use Rally to allow non-researchers and important cross-functional partners to responsibly take part in User Research. Explore Rally now by setting up a demo.