What it is
The Research Planner is the AI-powered way to start a test on Ideally. You tell it what you're trying to learn, in your own words, and it turns that into a structured, ready-to-review test.
It picks a research framework, drafts your questions, sets up your audience, and lays out a brief you can check before anything goes live.
Starting with your objective
There are two ways in.
Start with your thoughts. Describe what you want to learn in plain language - a product idea you're weighing up, a campaign you want to pressure-test, a question about your category. The Planner asks clarifying questions to sharpen the framing before it drafts anything, so the test it builds matches what you actually need.
Start with a brief. Already have a brief written up? Upload it (Word or Excel) and the Planner reads it, pulls out your objective and questions, and lifts any images in the document in as stimulus. It converts your file automatically, so there's no reformatting on your end.
How it builds your test
Once it understands your objective, the Planner assembles the test:
Framework. It selects the research framework that fits your goal, from concept and pricing tests through to creative and messaging. If your question is more open-ended, it uses a Discovery approach so you can explore without forcing a rigid structure.
Questionnaire. It writes the questions for you, combining the standard questions that come with your chosen framework with custom questions tailored to your brief.
Audience. Defaults to a category template to find category participators. Need something more specific? Set up a custom audience template your team can reuse. (Admins can create templates from the left-hand sidebar.)
Reviewing and refining
Nothing is locked in. Every part of the draft is yours to review and change before you launch.
Editing is inline - adjust a question, a field, or a setting directly, without having to re-prompt the chat. Where the Planner offers options, they're clickable, so refining the test is quick.
Sharing for approval
Need sign-off before you launch? Export your draft as a PDF or Word document and circulate the brief and full questionnaire for internal approval.
The export lays everything out clearly - objective up top, then your profile, audience, framework, and follow-up questions - so reviewers can see exactly what will run.
Help from our research team
The Planner is designed to be self-serve, but our research team is one click away. If something falls outside what the Planner can set up, or you'd like a researcher to weigh in, you can request support without leaving the builder.