What is it?
To explore unrelated and related content elements visually, you should use the Network Graph.
The ITONICS Network Graph enables you to get an overview of the relationships between different elements in one place. You can now identify hot topics within your innovation platform, explore hidden gems and connect the missing dots.
Note that the default number of elements displayed on the Network Graph is up to 300 elements, however, on request this number can be increased to up to 500. In this case, please contact your Customer Innovation Success Manager.
How does it work?
Go to the main menu and Click on Network Graph to open it. Once opened, you will see a space filled with different dots. Each of the dots represents a content element. If your application consists of different content categories (and your Application Owner has assigned different colors to them), the color of each content element indicates to what category they belong. Furthermore, lines between content elements indicate that a relationship between such elements has been created.
This way, you can easily see how many projects are, for instance, related to a (strategic) theme.
To adjust the content displayed, you can use the filter menu on top. If you want to open the preview card to get more information on a dot, click on the dot. In the right-sidebar, the preview opens. You will also see a small button with a light bulb (2) next to the selected element. With a click on that button, the Network Graph will only show this element and its related content elements.
By using the scroll action when hovering over the Network Graph section, you can zoom in and out of the Network Graph. This way, you can see just a selection of elements that you have zoomed on.
The Toolbar
- Show/Hide the Legend (1)
- Show/Hide labels of all Elements (2)
- Fullscreen Mode (3)
- Zoom in (4)
- Zoom out (5)
- Center the Network Graph (6)
- Hide/Show unrelated elements (7)
One particularly useful filter to assess the direct impact of a “destination elements” on the “pool of source elements” you want to take a look at, is the Related Entity Type filter. Located in the general filter section, the Related Entity Type filter is a multi-select filter.
To apply the Related Entity Type filter, you first need to narrow down the number of elements that you intend to compare with the entity type(s) that you want to select in the Related Entity Type filter. In the end, the Related Entity Type filter will only highlight those elements of the selected entity type, i.e. in this example the entity type Trend (1), that have a direct relation to at least one of the “source elements”, i.e. in this example the filtered down Technology elements (2). In the present example, only two Trend elements (red color) are shown, as only those two elements have a direct relation to one or more of the Technology elements that have been filtered down prior (3).
Thus, use the Related Entity Type filter to quickly assess and explore direct relations of elements with your innovation portfolio, i.e. particular Innovation Projects or Technologies, and identify new relations between elements that might have a direct impact on mission-critical projects or technologies.
The network graph can also be opened by selecting content elements, for instance, in the Explorer. You first need to select one or multiple elements. To select one or multiple content elements, click on the white space of a content card. If the content piece(s) has/have been selected, the element will be marked by a thick, pink color border. Please note, you can only select up to 20 content elements.
Once the content has been selected, a new menu appears next to the Select button. Navigate now to the Show Relations button. After clicking it, the Network Graph will open and the content selected will be added to the Related To filter and, therefore, displayed on the Network Graph.
Besides the navigation via the Explorer, you can redirect from a specific element’s detail page to the Network Graph. On the element detail page within the relations section, click the “Show Relations on Network Graph” button to be redirected to the Network Graph with the particular element being visualized with all its element relations as shown on the detail page. Use this functionality to easily assess element relations of a specific element.
Be aware that you can also filter for all child element related to a parent element and vice versa, and visualize those within the Network Graph visualization. This may even be done via the Show relations on Network Graph option on the detail page of the Parent or child element, which will include any parent-child relations and any other element relations.