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In this chapter, you are introduced to the multi-level participant administration of multi-source feedbacks.
The basic principles are explained.
The four levels are presented in detail.
Afterwards, typical participant administration workflows are explained step by step:
Feedback participants and feedback constellations are specified manually by the project manager.
Feedback participants and feedback constellations are imported by the project manager.
The feedback participants are created by the project manager, the feedback constellations are defined by the focus persons. This scenario is realized optionally on project base. It needs special programming.
The Level Concept
In multi-source feedbacks, the participant administration has a multi-level structure. I.e. the participants’ data can be viewed and edited from several perspectives.
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Participant pool:
The participant pool contains all participants which have been registered in the system, including their master data.
The persons in the participant pool are not necessarily allocated to a feedback constellation. They can be administrated on this level initially, and allocated to feedbacks at a later date.
Menu Participant administration → Participant pool.
Wave:
Multi-source feedbacks are frequently realized in so-called waves, i.e. in staggered intervals. Thus, various parts of a company or various hierarchy levels can be surveyed at different points in time.
On the wave level, you can find all existing waves with their current return rates.
By opening a wave, you can access an overview of its’ focus persons: Each of them represents a specific feedback constellation. By clicking on a specific focus person, you can access a list of all persons who provide feedback to that focus person, i.e. who are part of his or her feedback constellation.
Menu Participant administration → Waves.
Focus persons:
This level presents the wave’s focus persons, each of them representing a specific
feedback constellation.Menu Participant administration → {Selected wave}.
Feedback providers:
On this level, you can find a list of all persons who provide feedback to the selected focus person, with their respective role in this specific feedback constellation.
Menu Participant administration → {Selected wave} → {Selected focus person}.
Participant Pool
The participant pool contains all participants of the multi-source feedback which have been registered in the system, including their master data.
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You can find the participant pool in the menu Participant administration → Participant pool. The features on the neighbouring Statistics tab allow to monitor the composition.
Administrating Participants
On the Participant pool tab, you can find the following information for each participant:
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Send mail / invite: Using this action, you can send invitation mails to the selected participants. You can customize the template for an invitation mail.
Restore initial password: The initial password is restored. The initial password is visible to authorized users inside the admin area (ACL right: view_loft_passwd).
Bulk edit: This action allows you to modify several participant records in a single step.
Generate new password: A new password is generated.
Delete: This action deletes the selected participants from participant administration. Please note: Deleting participants also irrevocably deletes all data belonging to these participants, including existing feedbacks.
Checking the Composition of the Participant Pool
The features on the Statistics tab allow differentiated monitoring and analysis of the participant pool’s composition.
Waves
Waves allow to run a feedback process in staggered intervals. Therefore, a multi-source feedback will always have at least one wave to which the focus persons and their feedbacks are allocated. Usually, the focus persons are known at the start of the project. Depending on the planned process, the feedback providers are either known initially, too, or the focus persons select them during the process.
The wave overview, which is automatically opened when accessing the participant administration, lists all existing waves. Each wave contains an overview of the allocated focus persons. And via the focus persons, you can access lists of their feedback providers.
Administrating Waves
The wave overview lists the following information:
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Instead of triggering the status changes manually, you can specify them beforehand. |
Archiving Waves
To move a wave to the archive, just click on Archive wave. Then, the waves are removed from the wave overview and listed on the Wave archive tab instead. Archived waves can be revived with a click on Recover wave.
Focus Persons
In the focus persons overview, you can find the following information for each feedback constellation:
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Invite / Remind: You can invite or remind all feedback providers of the selected focus persons or restrict further e.g. to a specific role.
Reset and delete data: The complete feedback constellation will be reset. The feedback providers’ disposition codes will be reset to 11 = “not yet invited” or 12 = “active” (11: feedback providers who have not been invited yet; 12: feedback providers who have already received an invitation mail). Already collected result data of the feedback providers will be deleted. Feedback providers who have already taken part may participate again.
Reset without deleting data: The feedback providers’ disposition codes will be reset as described above. However, the already collected result data will not be deleted.
Disposition code 15: If invitation mails are bounced, you can set the corresponding feedback providers to disposition code 15. These feedback providers will be except from all future mailings. See “EFS Survey”, Table 11.5.
Export return rate
Change focus person to: The status of the feedback constellation can be changed.
Feedback Providers
In the feedback providers overview, you can find the following information for each feedback provider:
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Invite / Remind: see above.
Reset and delete data / Reset without deleting data: see above.
Disposition code 15: see above.
Assign new code: a new access code is generated.
Defining Feedback Participants and Constellations Manually
Optionally, you can specify the participant data and feedback constellations for a wave either manually, or by import, or you can allow the focus persons to select appropriate feedback providers. If you know the constellations at the start of the feedback process, you will usually import them. If the constellations are now known yet, you can either simply upload the data into the participant pool, or you can import the focus persons directly into the wave, while other participants are uploaded into the participant pool.
This chapter explains how to specify the feedback constellations manually. In the following, the import process is introduced. In a real project, you’d usually import the data. But to understand how the process works, it is helpful to work manually step by step first.
Creating a Wave
First of all, a wave must be created.
Open the Participant administration menu. The submenu Waves is opened automatically.
Click the Add wave button.
The properties dialog for waves is opened.
– Name: Name of the wave
– Field start, Field end: In this interval, the feedback providers of this wave can open the feedback questionnaire. The field time of the waves may differ from the project field time specified in the Survey menu.
– End of process: The date after which it will not be possible anymore to access reports for this wave.
– Active: yes/no
– Peergroup: Individual peergroups can be created based on concluded previous feedbacks (Process configuration → Report definition → Peergroups). Examples for peergroups are: Wave of the previous year or focus person in similar position.
Confirm with Add wave.
Specifying Automated Status Changes
A status change for the participants of a specific wave at a given date can be specified beforehand.
Creating Focus Persons and Feedback Providers
Creating focus persons
Return to the menu Participant administration → Wave.
Click on the title of the desired wave.
The focus persons overview is opened.
Click on Add focus person.
Enter the master data. If the focus person has been registered in the system earlier, e.g. because all participant data have been uploaded to participant pool, you can find them with the magnifying glass and insert the data with a click on Add participants.
If necessary, you can furthermore specify process data for the current feedback.
Confirm with Add focus person. The focus person is created and displayed in the overview.
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In the overview, click, on the name of the desired focus person.
The selected focus person’s feedback provider overview is opened. At the current stage, it contains only the focus person in the „self-assessment“ role.
To create the first additional feedback provider, click on Add feedback provider.
Enter the master data. If the feedback provider has been registered in the system earlier, e.g. because all participant data have been uploaded to participant pool, you can find them with the magnifying glass and insert the data with a click on Add participants.
If necessary, you can furthermore specify process data for the current feedback.
Confirm with Add participant. The feedback provider is created and displayed in the overview.
Repeat the process for all feedback providers of the current feedbacl constellation.
Defining Feedback Constellations By Import
Usually, you will not create the individual participants of your project manually but rather import the list of participants.
Before you start
Please note:
Do not start preparing the import until you have created all the required participant variables according to the instructions in Chapter “Editing Master Data and Process Data”.
When using Excel, consider the following restrictions imposed by manufacturer specifications:
Only the first sheet of the file will be processed. You should not exceed the maximum of 256 columns and 65,000 rows. Should you require more columns or rows, select a different program and save your import file in CSV format.
Excel import is only possible for files created or saved using Excel 97+. Excel files that were created or saved using “Excel for Mac”, “Neo Office” or “Numbers”, for example, cannot be imported.
The file format XLSX, newly introduced by Microsoft with Office 2007, is not supported by EFS. Please save your files as XLS files before starting the import process.
Creating the Participant List
Create a list of the feedbacks including all persons involved and their roles in Excel.
To simplify this process, a dedicated import template can be downloaded in the import dialog.
In any case, the content should be formatted as follows:
We recommend entering the respective column labels in the first row.
Below, for each individual feedback constellation, list the respective participants and their attributes.
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The same person may appear in a single feedback in several roles or multiple times in various feedbacksk. The allocation is handled via the attributes “link ID” (u_link_id) and “role” (u_role). |
Link ID, role, personnel number and e-mail address are compulsory:
Link ID (u_link_id): This is an unambiguous identifier of the individual feedback. The feedbacks can be numbered consecutively, for example, or the personnel number of the focus person can be used to identify the feedback.
Role (u_role): See Chapter 3.3, p. 19.
Personnel number (u_account): Unambiguous identifier of the participant. Is stored in the column "u_account".
E-Mail-Adresse (u_email): Needed for inviting the participants.
Furthermore, you can enter title, first name, name, organizational unit, gender, initial password, language version and user-defined master and process data.
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Save the file in XLS or CSV.
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CSV (Character Separated Values) is an exchange format that is mainly used for exchanging data between different computer programs. CSV files can be created either with simple text editors or with spreadsheet calculation programs as e.g. Excel or OpenOffice Calc. To save an Excel file in CSV format, use File → Save → File type CSV. |
Importing Participant List
Open the Participant administration and click on the wave‘s title.
The focus persons overview is opened. Click on the Import button.
Select Download import template and save the file locally.
Enter your data as described above and save them.
Select the completed file.
Select the appropriate character set.
Activate “First row includes column label”.
Use Send file to upload the list.
In the next step, the columns of the import file are allocated to the database fields. On the left hand of the form, you can see the fields of the participant administration. On the right hand, you can find the columns of the import file. Check the allocation. Repeat the procedure on the second tab Process data.
Click on Proceed to preview.
Check and confirm with Import.
A success message confirms that the data have been imported.
In the focus persons overview, you can see the focus persons of the imported feedbacks.
If you click on a focus person, the overview of that person’s feedback providers is opened.
In the participant pool, you can find all participants of the wave.
Allowing Focus Persons to Select Their Feedback Providers
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This scenario is realized optionally on project base. It needs special programming. |
Activating Validation of the Selected Focus Providers
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This scenario is realized optionally on project base. It needs special programming. |
If the feedback constellations are specified by the focus persons, a validation by the focus person’s superior can be activated optionally. To activate the feature and to specify the notification mail, please proceed as follows:
Create a mail template of type “Default mail”.
In the menu Process configuration → Feedback center in the section “Approval of feedback providers by the manager”, activate the checkbox “Validation process active”.
In the drop-down list “Mail template”, select the appropriate template and Save.
Sending E-mails in Feedback Processes
During the feedback process, you may have to contact all participants, sometimes you will contact specific selected persons. Other e-mails are dispatched semi-automatically if e.g. a focus person has forgotten the feedback center password.
In general, the invitation processes are based on the well-known functionalities of EFS Survey participant administration.
For the following topics, you can find MSF-specific explanations below:
how to personalize e-mails
how to prepare mail templates
how to link mail templates with semi-automatic features. Resetting of passwords and requests to validate a list of feedback providers are quite typical situations for semi-automatic dispatch.
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Detailed information about sending mail in EFS can be found here. |
Personalizing E-mails
You can use wildcards to personalize e-mails and mail templates.
The wildcards listed in the following table allow to insert master and process data of the mail recipient. These wildcards are supported in the questionnaire, too.
The wildcards listed in the second table allow to insert master and process data of the focus person in the current feedback constellation. These wildcards are supported in the questionnaire, too.
Only supported in mails: The wildcards listed in the third table allow to insert information on the current feedback wave.
If you click on the Question mark icon above the mail text field in the mail form, a context-dependent overview is opened.
Participant:
Wildcard | Meaning |
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#u_account# | Personnel number |
#u_title# | Title |
#u_firstname# | First name |
#u_name# | Name |
#u_email# | |
#u_unit# | Organizational unit |
#u_gender# | Gender |
#u_role# | Role |
#u_stats# | Feedback status |
#u_language# | Language version |
Focus person of the current feedback constellation:
Wildcard | Meaning |
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#fb_recv_u_account# | Personnel number |
#fb_recv_u_title# | Title |
#fb_recv_u_firstname# | First name |
#fb_recv_u_name# | Name |
#fb_recv_u_email# | |
#fb_recv_u_unit# | Organizational unit |
#fb_recv_u_gender# | Gender |
#fb_recv_u_role# | Role |
#fb_recv_u_stats# | Feedback status |
#fb_recv_u_language# | Language version |
Only e-mail: Wave:
Wildcard | Meaning |
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#wave_active# | Wave active |
#wave_end_date# | Field start |
#wave_gid# | Wave ID |
#wave_gname# | Name |
#wave_peergroup# | Peer group |
#wave_process_end# | End date |
#wave_start_date# | Field start |
#wave_status# | Status of the wave |
Preparing Mail Templates
Usually, when writing e-mails in EFS, you will use pre-defined mail templates. These templates are centrally created, edited and managed in the Libraries → Mail templates menu.
If you need a new mail template, open the Libraries → Mail templates menu and click on Create template. Specify all necessary settings, select the appropriate mail sender and enter the content. Please mind:
Use meaningful titles for your mail templates, to ensure that everybody understands which template fits for which situation.
Make sure that the mail template type fits for your purpose. For invitations, for example, templates of type “Invitation mail” should be used.
An appropriate sender address should be specified beforehand according to the instructions in the “EFS Survey” manual, and selected for the template. This is of particular importance if, for example, e-mails for resetting passwords are to be sent from an address which is not yours, e.g. a general mail box to which other
project team members have access.Make sure that all necessary wildcards are inserted properly. You can find an overview on all available wildcards in the mail form below the Question mark icon.
In multi-source feedbacks, a dedicated set of wildcards is available for constellation-specific information.
Use the wildcard #code_complete# to insert an access link, i.e. the URL of the questionnaire with access code.
The feedback center URL can be found in the Process configuration → Feedback center menu on all tabs. It consists of the questionnaire URL and the appendix /loft.php, e.g.
https://questback.qb-feedback.com/uc/main/a437/loft.php
Configuring “Reset Password” Mails
If participants have forgotten their password and cannot log in to the feedback center, they can trigger a „Reset password“ mail. It contains a link for resetting the password.
To configure this feature, please proceed as follows:
Create a mail template of the type “Password-Recovery-Mail”
Ensure that the template contains the wildcard #password_recovery_url#: It is filled with the reset link.
In the Process configuration → Settings menu in the field “Mail template”, select the new mail template and Save.