Radar: Configuring the default view

What is it? 

The ITONICS Radar is the module for displaying a rich content landscape and understanding it easily by representing multiple characteristics simultaneously by the distance to the radar center, placement in a segment, color, size, and shape. 

How does it work?

While your users will later have the option to customize the radar to their needs, you need to provide them with a default configuration. Radars can be activated on any entity but only one radar can be used per entity e.g. Trend radar for Trend entity or Technology radar for Technology entity. This means that the content displayed on the radar always corresponds to the respective entity type.

To activate the radar module, go to the Settings Wheel > Entity Configuration > Entity Configuration and open the respective entity by clicking the Edit (pen) icon. Look for the Radar card under the Modules/Features section and check the box on the left corner of the module card.

When the checkbox is marked, the card will change the layout color from light grey to the system color. Do not forget to press the Save button at the bottom of the page.

After enabling the module, you can configure the default view according to your preferences. There are two ways to access the Radar Configuration tab:

1. Click the radar icon in the Entity Configuration interface. You will see a small radar icon in the column of each entity for which the radar is enabled.
   
   
   
   
2. On the Entity Configuration interface, click the Edit button of the entity whose radar you want to edit and select the Radar Configuration tab.
   
   
   
   

Radar Label and Segments

From the Radar Configuration you can make changes to configure your Radar view:

• Define the Radar Label (1) - the title that is shown on the top left side of the Radar (see image below). It can be anything you want to name your Radar, and you can use 256 characters maximum.
• Define a Segment type for the Radar. Segments are categorization fields for a specific element type, and they are represented by the Radar. Segmentations can be, for example, the well-known STEEP categories (see image below) or individual technology segments, product categories, or whatever you like to have (2).

Please note: Before the segmentations can be used on the radar, they must be created and defined in the Segment Fields menu.

Segments can also have sub-segments. In total, up to five hierarchical levels are possible. In the image below you can see a sub-segmentation (2nd hierarchy level) of the Technology segment from the main view of the radar from the image above.

Default settings for visualization

In addition, the Radar Configuration menu allows you to set default values of how the rating criteria should be reflected visually. A differentiation is possible by shape (3) , color (4) or size (6) of the displayed elements or the distance (5) from the center of the radar by selection from a dropdown window. The settings for this must be made in the Rating Configuration or in the list fields/dropdown fields which are indicated as rating criteria to be displayed on the radar.

• You can also configure the radar view by setting preferred Default radar actions. Simply check the boxes to activate an action.
  • Show legend by default. This shows the legend left to the radar and will allow users to adjust the indicators for the size, distance, color, and shape
  • Show relations by default to present the relations set between the content elements shown on the radar
  • Show labels by default to reflect the titles of the content element on the radar
  • Show/hide unrated elements to show content elements that have not been rated and elements that do not have a dropdown value assigned in a dropdown field that are marked as “rating criteria”
    
    
    
  • Show segments with dynamic size. If active, this option will adjust the size of segments relative to the number of elements put in the segments.
  • Show radar as 360°. This will display the radar in a full circle.
  • Hide empty segments. If activated, this option will hide all segments that do not contain any content element.
  • Show/hide N/A elements to show elements that have no distance rating (as per the current distance indicator set). Please note elements at least need to have a segment set for being displayed on the radar.
  • Please note that these are only default settings and can be changed by any user at any time.

Radar Configuration Checklist

To be able to see elements on the radar, you need to verify that the following steps have been performed:

1. The criteria (e.g. market potential or complexity as ratings or technology readiness level as categorization) and their attributes (e.g. high, medium and low) must be defined via the Rating Configuration if you want to use ratings or list fields/dropdown fields if you want to use categorizations which are indicated as rating criteria, activated and assigned beforehand.
2. The ratings must also have been done (7) and attributes must be assigned on the respective element (8). Otherwise the element might not be shown on the radar.

3. Make sure to check the view permissions for the radar setup within the entity-specific permission scheme.

   
   
   
   

You can access your new radar from the main navigation menu by hovering over the Radar section.

To get some inspiration on how to best structure your radar, read on in this article:
How to best segment and split your foresight work