# What is Pristo CX?

Pristo CX is a customer-experience survey platform. Learn how accounts, programs, questionnaires, populations, distributions and responses fit together.

Pristo CX is a customer-experience survey platform. You build questionnaires, send them to your customers by SMS, email or a link, and read the answers as responses, dashboards and alerts. All of this happens in the Pristo CX app, inside a program of your organization's account.

![An account contains programs. Each program has questionnaires and a population. A distribution sends a questionnaire to the contacts in the population, the answers come back as responses, and dashboards show the responses.](https://docs.pristo.io/_astro/program-structure.light.CclHKuAo.svg)

## How the pieces fit

| Concept | What it is |
|---|---|
| Account | Your organization's subscription to Pristo CX. An account holds the users, the [billing](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/account/billing) and one or more programs. |
| Program | A workspace inside the account with its own questionnaires, population, distributions, dashboards and alerts. The header of the app shows the program you are working in. |
| Questionnaire | The survey that respondents answer on a phone or a computer, without a Pristo account. You build it in the [form builder](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/form-builder/overview), publish it, and then share its link or send it with a distribution. |
| Response | One respondent's answers to a questionnaire. Every response belongs to one questionnaire, and you see it under **Responses**. |

A user can work in several programs, and can belong to more than one account. The program switcher in the header moves you between programs; see [Navigate the app](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/get-started/navigate-the-app).

## Population: contacts, attributes and activities

A program's population holds the people you survey.

- A contact is one person. Each contact needs a unique identifier and an email address or phone number.
- Contact attributes are extra fields on a contact, such as city or customer tier. Distributions can use them to choose who gets a survey. See [Contact attributes](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/populations/contact-attributes).
- An activity is an event recorded for a contact, such as a purchase or a service visit. Each activity has an event type.

You add contacts and activities by importing an Excel or CSV file of up to 10 MB, as described in [Import contacts](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/populations/import-contacts) and [Import activities](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/populations/import-activities), and your own systems can send activities through the [Pristo API](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/api). The **Population** tab is not available on the Free plan. Read more in the [populations overview](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/populations/overview).

## Distributions

A distribution sends a questionnaire to contacts in the program's population by SMS or email. You can use two types:

- **One-time Delivery** sends the questionnaire to the chosen contacts once.
- **Event-Based Questionnaire** sends after an activity is recorded for a contact, for example 10 minutes after a purchase that your system reports through the API.

The editor also shows **Ongoing/Periodic Questionnaire**, which is not available yet. See [ongoing and periodic distributions](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/distributions/ongoing-periodic) for the alternatives.

You do not need a distribution to collect responses. Every published questionnaire also has a public link, a QR code and an embed code; see [Share a questionnaire](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/questionnaires/share-a-questionnaire). Read more in the [distributions overview](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/distributions/overview).

## Dashboards and alerts

Responses feed two places where you follow up on feedback:

- Dashboards are pages of widgets that show scores such as NPS, counts and breakdowns of your responses. Program admins [build and publish them](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/dashboards/create-a-dashboard) and [choose which program users can open them](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/dashboards/share-a-dashboard). Each program also has the built-in **Distributions Report**; see [Built-in reports](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/dashboards/built-in-reports). See the [dashboards overview](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/dashboards/overview).
- Alerts come from rules under **Alert configurations**. When a response matches a rule, for example a low score, an alert for it shows up under **Alerts**. Your team sets each alert to **Open**, **In progress** or **Closed** and adds notes. A rule can also email chosen users. See [Set up alerts](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/alerts/configure-alerts) and [Handle alerts](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/alerts/handle-alerts).

On the Pro plan, **Insights** uses AI to add sentiment and categories to open-text answers. See the [Insights overview](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/insights/overview).

## Who can do what

Every user has a role. An account admin manages users, billing and every program. A program admin manages the programs an account admin gives them. A program user views responses, the population and the dashboards shared with them, and handles alerts. See [roles and permissions](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/users/roles-and-permissions) for the full list.

## Related

- [Navigate the Pristo CX app](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/get-started/navigate-the-app)
- [Create and send your first questionnaire](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/get-started/first-questionnaire)
- [Create a questionnaire](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/questionnaires/create-a-questionnaire)
- [Roles and permissions](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/users/roles-and-permissions)
- [Glossary](https://docs.pristo.io/cx/glossary)