Waves

A reporting wave is one analysis cycle in a Storyline. On the cadence you choose, Conveo takes the interviews from that time window and runs a full analysis over them — producing that wave’s insights, updating your metrics, and writing a report. Then it starts the next wave. Waves are what make a Storyline continuous. A regular study is analyzed once and then it’s done. A Storyline instead keeps producing a fresh read on a schedule, and — crucially — connects each wave to the ones before it, so you get a moving picture rather than a series of disconnected snapshots.

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Why waves are different from re-running a study

You could imagine getting the same effect by duplicating a study every month and analyzing each copy. Waves are better in two ways:

• Nothing to re-launch. Interviews keep flowing into the live program; Conveo cuts them into waves and analyzes each one automatically.
• Findings are connected across waves. Conveo recognizes when this wave’s finding is the same story as a previous wave’s and links them, so you can see how it emerged and changed. A pile of separate monthly studies can’t tell you that. (See Insights for how threading works.)

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The lifecycle of a wave

Each wave moves through three phases: Once a wave closes, its results are fixed — it’s a permanent record of what the data said during that window. New interviews count toward the next wave, not a past one, so history never shifts under you.

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Recruitment vs. reporting

A Storyline has two independent rhythms:

• Recruitment — how participants arrive. This can be continuous (a steady stream all the time) or batched on a cadence (a fresh group each period).
• Reporting — how often Conveo analyzes and publishes. This is the wave cadence, and it’s what the timeline is built around.

The two don’t have to match: you can recruit continuously but report monthly, for example.

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Choosing a cadence

Pick a reporting cadence that matches how fast your topic actually moves and how many interviews you gather:

• Weekly / biweekly — fast-moving topics with steady interview volume, where you want to catch shifts quickly.
• Monthly — the common default: enough interviews per wave for confident findings, frequent enough to stay current.
• Quarterly — slower-moving or lower-volume programs, or when you only need a periodic strategic read.

Each wave is labeled by its period so the timeline reads naturally — for example “Apr 2026” for a monthly cadence, “Jan 1 – Jan 8, 2026” for a weekly one, or “2026 Q1” for a quarterly one.