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Key Concepts In NEXT

Use this page when you want a clear definition of the core concepts that shape how data is organized and analyzed in NEXT.

These concepts work together in a logical flow. A teamspace holds the work, data subscriptions bring source data in, recordings preserve that source context, highlights capture the key evidence, tags add structure, clusters group related evidence into larger themes, and chat helps you analyze everything in context.

Teamspace​

A teamspace is the main workspace in NEXT.

It is the place where your team collaborates on recordings, highlights, tags, clusters, chats, and settings. Most day-to-day work in NEXT happens inside one teamspace, which gives your team a shared place to organize customer evidence around a product area, research stream, or business unit.

Use a teamspace when you need to:

  • Keep one team’s research and feedback work in a shared workspace
  • Separate different products, business areas, or research programs
  • Maintain a shared tag system, cluster library, and chat context

Data Subscription​

A data subscription is the rule that brings source data into a teamspace on an ongoing basis.

In practice, a data subscription usually works through an integration to an external system such as Gong, Zendesk, Zoom, or HubSpot. It defines what NEXT should keep importing so your team does not need to upload every source item manually.

Use a data subscription when you need to:

  • Keep a stream of customer calls, tickets, or responses flowing into NEXT
  • Define which source data belongs in a specific teamspace
  • Reduce manual import work for recurring research or feedback sources

Recordings​

Recordings are the source objects in NEXT.

A recording can be audio, video, or text-based source material such as an interview, sales call, support conversation, survey response, or other customer artifact. Recordings preserve the original context and are often the starting point for transcription, review, and highlight creation.

Use recordings when you need to:

  • Store the original source material in one place
  • Review a conversation or response in full context
  • Generate, edit, or validate highlights from source evidence
  • Start from raw customer material before it is organized further

Highlights​

Highlights are the atomic unit of insight in NEXT.

A highlight is a specific piece of evidence extracted from a recording or created manually from source material. It usually includes selected transcript text, source context, and a title. Highlights can also carry tags, which makes them easier to search, filter, compare, and reuse later.

Use highlights when you need to:

  • Review what customers actually said
  • Capture the most important moments from a longer recording
  • Tag evidence by theme, workflow, customer segment, or product area
  • Start chat from a narrow and explicit set of source evidence

Tags​

Tags are lightweight labels applied to recordings and highlights.

They give your team a shared taxonomy for organizing evidence by topic, product area, workflow, sentiment, customer segment, or any other dimension that matters to your analysis. Tags are faster and lighter than clusters, which makes them useful for first-pass organization and filtering.

Use tags when you need to:

  • Label evidence across many recordings or highlights quickly
  • Make libraries easier to search and filter later
  • Create a shared language for recurring themes across the teamspace
  • Prepare evidence for deeper analysis, reporting, or clustering

Clusters​

Clusters are collections of related highlights organized around one larger topic.

Use a cluster when a single tag is not enough and your team wants a clearer package of evidence, such as a finding, pain point, hypothesis, journey stage, or work item. A cluster gives that topic a name, context, and supporting highlights that can keep growing over time.

Use clusters when you need to:

  • Bring several related highlights into one shared theme
  • Build up evidence for an insight your team wants to revisit
  • Share a topic with more context than a single highlight can provide
  • Track how an important theme evolves as new highlights arrive

Chat​

Chat is the AI analysis workspace in NEXT.

Use chat to ask questions about your teamspace data, summarize patterns, compare themes, or go deeper on a topic you already see in the evidence. Chat can work from a broad teamspace question or from a narrower context such as selected highlights, selected recordings, or clusters.

Use chat when you need to:

  • Summarize a set of highlights or recordings
  • Compare patterns across a topic, segment, or timeframe
  • Turn structured evidence into a clearer answer or recommendation
  • Follow up on a cluster or question without starting analysis from scratch

How They Work Together​

In most teams, the workflow looks like this:

  1. Create a teamspace for the work your team wants to organize together.
  2. Bring source data in with a data subscription or manual upload.
  3. Review recordings and create or refine highlights.
  4. Apply tags so the evidence is easier to organize and find again.
  5. Group the most important related highlights into clusters.
  6. Use chat to summarize, compare, challenge, or extend what those highlights and clusters suggest.

Which One Should I Start With?​

  • Start with teamspace when you are setting up where the work should live.
  • Start with data subscription when you want source data to keep arriving automatically.
  • Start with recordings when you want to inspect the source material itself.
  • Start with highlights when you want to inspect or curate key evidence.
  • Start with tags when you need lightweight structure across many items.
  • Start with clusters when you already know the larger theme you want to build around.
  • Start with chat when you have a question and want NEXT to help you discover or explain the answer.

FAQ​

Q: What is the difference between a teamspace and a data subscription?​

A teamspace is the workspace where your team does the analysis. A data subscription is one of the ways source data gets into that workspace.

Q: What is the difference between recordings and highlights?​

Recordings are the full source objects. Highlights are the smaller evidence units extracted from those recordings or created from source material.

Q: Should I use tags or clusters to organize feedback?​

Use tags for lightweight labeling and filtering. Use clusters when you want to turn several related highlights into one bigger theme or work item.

Q: When should I use chat instead of opening the highlights or clusters library?​

Use chat when your main goal is analysis or synthesis. Use the libraries when your main goal is reviewing, organizing, or curating the evidence itself.

Q: Can chat use highlights as evidence?​

Yes. Highlights are one of the main evidence layers chat uses, especially when you start from selected highlights or a focused slice of feedback.