What is it?
Within your application, you have the option to collect the opinion(s) of numerous individuals via defined rating criteria. You can then use the average of such ratings in the different visualizations to compare all content elements according to these rating criteria. This should help you to prioritize your future activities more effectively and faster.
You can also dive deep into the individual evaluations per content element and compare the ratings based on the different contexts of evaluators. Rating criteria are a specific set of attributes and, therefore, need to be configured differently than the other available field types.
In the following article, read about how to (and use the links for direct navigation)
- Add and edit rating criteria,
- Use rating criteria in the modules/visualizations,
- Using multiple contexts or adjusting the context for rating comparison,
- How to configure a rating group,
- Aggregate and weight ratings, and
- Rating Permissions
How does it work?
First navigate to an entity for which you want to define rating criteria, i.e., via the Settings Wheel > Entity Configuration > Entity Configuration. Click on the edit icon of the respective entity and activate the rating module on the page you landed.
The option "context rating" will help you to compare the ratings coming from different business unit groups in the rating analysis tab. If you do not want this, you can turn off this option and switch to standard. By standard, every new rating will overwrite the existing rating value.
For adjusting the business unit, please reach out to your Account Manager.
When the rating configuration is enabled on an entity, you can choose between context rating and standard rating. Context rating can be performed for multiple contexts, while standard rating is performed irrespective of the context. You can switch the configuration as long as there are no ratings performed in any of the elements of the respective entity. Once the ratings have been performed, the switching from context to standard, or standard to context cannot be made.
Add and edit rating criteria
To configure your rating criteria, choose an entity and click on the Rating Configuration icon or the tab "rating configuration" if you are already in the specific configuration sheet of an entity.
The Rating Configuration page for the particular entity type will open in the same tab.
To enable the import of decimal rating values into the ITONICS system, you can check the "Decimal Rating Import" checkbox. This will allow you to import more granular ratings in the form of decimal values in between ranges, which are then mapped to the respective rating values of the existing rating criteria. An example would the mapping of the decimal value 0.7 to the existing value medium of a specific rating criteria Business Relevance.
Suppose you have specific rating criteria in mind that you want to use to evaluate your trends, companies, technologies, or any other type of entity. In this case, you can add it by clicking the Add Rating button. You will see a new form with the Rating info and Range info tabs.
In the Rating Info tab, you can specify:
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Whether the rating criteria Is Inverse: For some rating criteria, it makes sense to invert their visualization. For example, for the Time to Market rating criteria, it makes sense to display the lowest value (0-2 years) as the ring closest to the center of the Radar.
Note: If you select Is Inverse, the actual values will not be inverted. Only the visualization of the rating criteria will be inverted in visualizations like the Radar or the Matrix. The rating sliders in the rating popups or rating filters will not change.
- The Average Type of how the results are being measured: Mean
- Slider label.
- Tooltip (when someone hovers over this rating criteria, a text box will display information relating to the rating).
When ready, click the Range Info tab to define more details:
- Number of ranges - choose between two to six ranges.
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For each selected range, define a name, color, and shape.
When deciding on colors for selected ranges, think of what type of action they would represent for that particular rating criteria. For example, the "very high" range in the "Strategic Fit" criteria can be marked in green color suggesting a considerable opportunity. The same "very high" range in the "Need for Action" criteria can be marked in red, showing the urgency for action.
Remember to fill in all the obligatory fields (*). When ready, click the Save button to add the new rating.
If you want to edit any existing rating criteria, click on the pen icon on the rating configuration page. Click on the trash icon if you want to delete the rating criteria permanently. Please note that this will also delete all ratings that have been entered by your users with regard to the criterion.
If you want to change the order of the displayed rating criteria, use the cross in the first column and drag-drop the criteria down- or upwards.
Using rating criteria in the modules/visualizations
After creating your rating criteria and activating a module, you can define how the criteria should be reflected visually. You can configure the default view specifically for the radar, matrix, and board visualization. For each module, you will find a specific configuration page, such as the radar configuration page.
Please note that it is also possible to define any dropdown value as a "rating criteria". This basically means that you can also select dropdown values as a graphical representation, e.g., by distance, color, or size in the radar. Yet, the dropdown criteria and their values will not be reflected in the rating analysis tab. To use a dropdown field as rating criteria, navigate to the dropdown field in the field manager and check the box "Rating Criteria?" then. Afterward, you can also select such a dropdown field within your visualization configuration page.
Using multiple contexts or adjusting the context for rating comparison
With the release of version 3.11., you can now also choose multiple fields as a context rating option. A context reflects a rating value based on the situation the evaluating users are coming from. This helps, for instance, to compare the perspectives of your sales versus product department.
To do so, please go to the Settings Wheel > User Configuration > User Configuration. You can now add a new field or choose an existing one with the field type List Field. Choose dropdown or searchable dropdown as field type renderer and activate the context field. Save the user context field.
Afterward, please go back to your entity and activate the context rating.
The results can then be analyzed in the rating analysis tab.
How to configure a rating group
A rating group can help you to cluster multiple rating criteria.
Rating groups can be used to contextualize ratings and are needed if you want to make use of the Workflow Rating Trigger Type. Rating groups can also be used in different Workflow phases (in the screenshot Validation Phase) (1). Rating Groups can be placed almost anywhere on the Element Detail page or in different tabs.
Once you have configured two or more rating criteria for an Element, you can make use of the Group Fields feature and configure a Group Field as a Rating Field Group (2). In the Rating Options (3) sections, you can add multiple rating criteria that should be part of the rating group. In the Dragzone (4), you can change the order of the selected rating criteria with drag-and-drop.
Aggregate and weight ratings
Sometimes you may want to aggregate your ratings for one group, using one aggregation label. In addition to the aggregation feature that weights all rating criteria equally (by 1), it is sometimes necessary to put more importance on certain rating criteria. For this, you can use the weighting of rating criteria feature.
Being in the Group Field Configuration (see section above), you have to check the checkbox Aggregate this Rating Group. (1) Once checked, you can configure the Rating Aggregation Label (2) and the different step Options (3), including colors and shapes, which will be used for example, on the Radar.
Once you have configured the aggregated rating for your group, you can apply the different weights for each criterion in use. Next to the rating criteria titles in the Dragzone, you can type in any positive natural number (4).
The weighting will then be used to calculate the aggregated average.
An exemplar use case for this feature is described in: Inherit aggregated (rating) values from multiple child elements on one parent element.
Note: The number of steps of the Aggregated Label must be equal to the maximum number of steps of the rating criteria used for aggregation. Example: There are 3 evaluation criteria. The evaluation criterion with the most rating steps has 6 rating steps. Then the aggregated label must also be configured with 6 steps.
Rating Permissions
The ability to rate content elements, see average ratings, filter for ratings, show/hide user counters for ratings, or analyze ratings can be configured and assigned to certain user roles. Navigate to the Entity-specific Permission Configuration in the Element Configuration. Search in the list for the rating permissions and assign/remove the different user roles.
If you make use of the workflow configuration, it is also possible to use the rating permission functionality per content element. This means that per content element, the permission to rate can be shared individually.
It is also possible for roles with permission to rate to share such permission with other users who do not have this permission yet. Therefore, the respective users will find the option to provide permission on an element detail page.