Org Processor

The key element of EFS Employee is the Org Processor, which allows you to map your corporate structure in the software and to supplement it with all kinds of data required in the survey (e.g., position, and address data of the employees). Thus all these data become available for the survey process, i.e., it is possible, for example, to present your employees with questionnaires that are tailored to their respective role, or you can evaluate the survey results separately for each individual department. The Org Processor is activated by default in new employee surveys. It can be found in the Projects → {Selected project} → Org Processor menu.

Organizational structure

When you open the Org Processor, the Organizational structure tab will be displayed automatically. It shows the organizational structure with the key characteristics of the units, and forms the starting point for all subsequent work.

Open

• By summing up the values for online participants and/or paper-pencil questionnaires and comparing them with the preset values you can easily check whether the stored data are correct.

• By clicking a unit in the organizational structure you can access all the data stored for this unit, i.e., properties such as name or process status, contacts, preset value, participant data, or requisition notes concerning paper-pencil questionnaires.

Changing the view

Above the organizational structure you will find four buttons with which you can change the display:

• Expand all: All branches of the organizational structure are opened entirely so that you can see every unit. In large structures, this action requires considerable time: The auto expansion feature described below presents a time-saving alternative. For very large structures, i.e. structures with 1,000 or more units, both features are hidden for performance reasons. Use the search function to find the desired units in such large structures!

• Collapse all: All branches of the organizational structure are closed entirely. Only the topmost unit of the hierarchy remains visible.

• Activate / Deactivate auto expansion: This function makes sure that the respective branch is always completely expanded upon clicking. You no longer have to click every single node in order to see the whole branch in its entirety. This function is disabled again by clicking Deactivate auto expansion. Please mind that auto expansion is not available for very large structures, i.e. structures with 1,000 or more units, for performance reasons.

• View: Clicking this button will open a dialog where you can activate or deactivate various table columns (except for the permanent columns “Short form of unit name” and “Actions”). After you have confirmed by clicking on Save settings the table will be modified accordingly.

Opening other structure views

If several structure views are used, you will find a drop-down list above the menu where you can switch back and forth between the different structure views. As soon as you change the setting, the desired structure view will be displayed.

Searching for units

Above the organizational structure you will find a search function which allows you to browse the structure for a particular unit. This makes it much easier to locate units in complex organizational structures. Depending on the composition of the unit names, you can also use the search function to limit the display to groups of units. Please proceed as follows: Enter the name or part of the name of the desired unit in the field “Organizational unit” and trigger the search process by clicking on Search. The results show all units containing the search term, including their path upwards to the main unit (root unit) - i.e., all units one level up. In order to display all units again, you have to delete the entry in the text field and click on Search again.

The content of the organizational structure in detail

Actions

A variety of actions are available that can be applied to individual, selected, or all units of the organizational structure.

Actions for editing individual units

The following actions are used to edit individual units, e.g., to subsequently edit or to move units to another position. They are mostly used during the construction phase.

• Edit: Opens the dialog with the data of the respective unit for subsequent editing.

• Create unit: Opens the dialog where you can enter the data for a new unit. By default, this unit is created below the respective unit.

• Export to Excel: Triggers the export of the respective unit and all subunits.

• Import structure: Allows the import of new substructures under the respective unit.

• Participants: Opens the Participants tab in the detail view of the respective unit.

• Move up / down: Moves the respective unit and all its subunits up or down one position in its branch. Please note that this will merely modify the display while the structure remains unchanged.

• Adjust target figure: You can define a correction value that will be applied to the aggregated participant numbers of the respective unit.

• Delete: This option allows you to delete the respective unit while moving any existing participant data or subunits to another position.

These actions are located in a layer that opens when you click on the Actions icon.

Actions for editing all or selected units

The following actions can be applied to selected or all units. They serve primarily for process control, e.g., for locking units against further editing or for sending e-mails to users.

• Lock units: With this action you can protect units against further editing.

• Lock units and subunits.

• Release units: With this action you can undo the locking of units.

• Release units and subunits.

• Mail users.

• Mail users of the selected unit and its subunits.

• Release units for filtering: Allows access to these units from the condition editor when defining filters and hiding conditions.

• Revoke filter release for units: Deactivates access to these units from the condition editor.

• Delete units: This action allows you to delete several units en bloc if these do not yet contain any participant data or subunits.

These actions can be found in the drop-down list below the organizational structure. Select the desired units by ticking the checkboxes in the “Actions” column or alternatively via the checkbox “Apply action to the whole organizational structure”. Then specify the desired action and confim by clicking on Execute.

Detail view

By clicking on a unit in the organizational structure you open its corresponding detail view. The detail view contains all the data stored for the unit, arranged on various tabs.

• Status information: This tab contains the following information and functions:

  • Name, short form of name, and meta name of the unit. These data can be edited on the Edit unit tab.

  • Buttons for locking and releasing the unit or its subunits for editing.

  • Data that indicate the status of the survey for the unit and its subunits.

• Edit unit: On this tab, you can subsequently edit basic properties of the unit such as name, meta name, or preset number of staff.

• Text elements: Unit-specific Org Processor data, such as names and other unit properties, can be inserted into the questionnaire using wildcards. On this tab, the desired data - and in multilingual surveys, their translation - are entered.

• Participants: On this tab, you create and manage the survey participants of the unit.

• User management: On this tab, you can view the responsible persons of the unit or define new responsible persons.

• Paper-pencil questionnaires: If the logistics functions of EFS Employee are activated, you can register your paper-pencil questionnaire requirements or view already existing requisition notes.

• Import structure: The import dialog on this tab allows the import of new substructures under the current unit.

View

By clicking on the Show tree view button you can have the tree view displayed for better orientation. The current unit will be marked with a red arrow. In order to hide the tree view again, simply click on Hide tree view. The arrow icons allow you to switch to the units located directly above or below the current unit in the tree.

Manually building the organizational structure

The organizational structure in the Org Processor is created top-down, i.e., starting with the topmost unit, the entire corporation, the corporate structure is mapped down to the smallest unit (depending on the desired level of detail). The organizational structure can either be built up manually, created by import, or
created by a combination of both manual build-up and import. The manual build-up of organizational structures may be rather time-consuming but also offers valuable insight into how to store which data. This will improve your understanding of the import process and facilitate any subsequent manual editing.

Creating units

To create a new unit, please proceed as follows:

• Open the dialog for creating a new unit. There two ways to do this:

  • By clicking on the Create unit button you can invoke the dialog directly. If the organizational structure is still totally empty, then this is how you create the main unit (root unit).

  • Look for the unit in the organizational structure below which you want to create the new unit. Click on the Actions icon to open the selection layer and then click on the link Create unit. This approach has the advantage that the correct unit one level up will automatically be preset in the edit dialog.

• Enter the required data

  • Name of unit: Name of the respective unit

  • Short form of unit name: Name of the respective organizational unit as it is to be displayed in the organizational structure. For greater clarity, a shortened form of the actual name is usually used.

  • Meta name: Unique identifier of the unit. The meta name may contain only the following characters: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, "_", "-"

  • Parent unit: In this field, you specify the parent unit. If you have opened the dialog via the Actions layer, the correct unit should be preset automatically. If you have used the Create unit button, you may have to specify the correct unit first. Clicking on the binoculars icon will open a list of all organizational units.

  • Staff (preset value): Preset number of employees for this unit.

  • Permit allocation to unit in the questionnaire: Activate this action if participants are to be able to allocate themselves to the units.

  • Create another unit afterwards: Activate this option if you wish to manually create further units. Upon saving, the dialog for creating units will open again automatically.

• Click on Save.

• After Saving the unit, switch back to the overview by clicking on the link Back to organizational structure. You will see the new unit in the Organizational structure.

Importing an organizational structure

Instead of manually building the structure you can also import the entire structure or parts of it using a CSV or Excel file.

Before you start

• Do not start preparing the import before you have created all the required structure variables.

• The organizational structure may have any number of levels.

• When using Excel, you have to observe the following restrictions due to the specifications of the manufacturer:

  • Only the first sheet of the file will be processed. The maximum number of 256 columns and the maximum number of 65,000 rows should not be exceeded. If you require more columns or rows, choose another program and save the import file in CSV format.

  • When using very large numbers as meta names, please note the following: Depending on the operating system, large numbers may be stored as
    exponential numbers in Excel. When importing, EFS will adopt these exponential numbers as the meta names. You can easily avoid this problem by saving your Excel table in CSV format and then importing this CSV file.

  • Excel import is only possible when using files created or stored with Excel 97+. Excel files that have been created or stored with “Excel for Mac”, “Neo Office”, or “Numbers” cannot be imported as a matter of principle.

  • 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.

Import process in detail

Download import template

Open the import dialog. There are three different methods to choose from:

• If there is no organizational structure yet, use the Import structure button. The illustrations in this chapter show such a complete import.

• Otherwise you need to locate the reference unit within the organizational structure, i.e., the unit under which to import the new structural portion. Open the Actions layer and click on the link Import structure.

• If you are already in the detail view of the unit under which to import the new structural portion, open the Import structure tab.

For each import format, i.e. level import and connected list, there is an already preformatted import template available, containing all the required columns. This
template can be downloaded by clicking on Import template “Level import” or Import template “Connected list” respectively. The illustrations in this chapter show a level import.

Format the import file

Open the file in a suitable program, e.g., in Excel.

• Enter the data.

• Save the file in Excel or CSV format.

Match the fields of the import file with the database fields

Again, open the import dialog.

• If you import into an already existing structure instead of performing a complete import, the field “Update existing structure data” will be displayed. Tick this checkbox if you wish to perform an update.

• Select the appropriate character set.

• Use the Browse function to select the import file on your PC.

• Make sure that the checkbox in the field “First row includes column labels” is ticked or unticked accordingly. Usually, it should be ticked.

• If your import file is formatted as a “Connected list”, activate the checkbox.

• Automatically generate meta name prefixes: If you are importing an already existing structure, you can modify the meta names and render them unique by entering a prefix in this field. This can be helpful when two subareas of a company have identical substructures which are duplicated by export and import.

• To start the import process click on Send file.

• In the next step the columns of the import file have to be matched to appropriate fields of the database. If you have retained the column labels as recommended, then the software will perform the allocation automatically.

• After checking the allocation, confirm by clicking on Open preview.

Check the import data in the preview

The import preview shows all data records as they are imported into the project.  This step allows you to subsequently change data with the aid of the following new information and edit options:

• Status: The traffic-light icon in the “Status” column tells you whether the data record is complete and logically coherent. A red icon indicates an error. Move your mouse pointer over the icon to display the reason for this error.

• Edit: By clicking on this actions icon you can open a dialog to subsequently change the respective data record.

• Delete: The respective data record will be deleted after a confirmation prompt.

Perform the import and download the results

If you are satisfied with your data in the preview, click on Import to trigger the actual import process. Following the completion of the import process, the program will indicate how many data records were sucessfully created and how many were not created due to certain problems. An Excel file containing the following information can be downloaded by clicking on the Download results button:

• all the data in the import file

• The “result” column contains the result of the import, i.e., either the message “Data record import successful” or “Data record not imported”.

• If any problems occurred, the reason will be indicated in the “messages” column.

If necessary, you can correct the data records that were not successfully created directly in this file, delete the successfully created data records, and then use the file again for a new import attempt.

Columns of the import file

Formatting of the import file in detail: Connected List

You can export and if necessary, externally edit and reimport the organizational structure or parts thereof. This can be useful in various situations:

• You want to check the stored structures and/or numbers or relay these data to third parties for verification.

• You want to change the names of the units or update already stored numerical values in an already existing structure.

• You want to reuse parts of the organizational structure elsewhere in the same project. If, for example, two departments have the same or very similar
  substructures, then you can export the completed substructure of the first department, adjust the names and values for the second department in the export file, and subsequently import it into this second department.

• You want to reuse the entire organizational structure or parts thereof in another project (e.g., in an intermediate survey).

Before you start

Please note: Via import you can insert new substructures in already existing structures, change the names of existing units, or update stored numbers. It is not possible, however, to move, merge, or delete existing units via import.

Exporting, modifying, and reimporting an existing structure

If you want to modify a structure or parts thereof, and reuse it elsewhere in the project, please proceed as follows:

• You want to check the stored structures and/or numbers or relay these data to third parties for verification.

• You want to change the names of the units or update already stored numerical values in an already existing structure.

• You want to reuse parts of the organizational structure elsewhere in the same project. If, for example, two departments have the same or very similar substructures, then you can export the completed substructure of the first department, adjust the names and values for the second department in the export file, and subsequently import it into this second department.

• You want to reuse the entire organizational structure or parts thereof in another project (e.g., in an intermediate survey).

Before you start

Via import you can insert new substructures in already existing structures, change the names of existing units, or update stored numbers. It is not possible, however, to move, merge, or delete existing units via import.

Exporting, modifying, and reimporting an existing structure

If you want to modify a structure or parts thereof, and reuse it elsewhere in the project, please proceed as follows:

Exporting

• Locate the desired unit in the organizational structure. Click on the Actions icon to open the selection layer and then click on the link Export to Excel.

• Specify the extent of the export data record. The following options are available:

  • Standard export

  • Standard export and user-defined variables: If you have created additional structure variables (see Chapter 4.4, p. 56), this option may be useful.

• Select the character set.

• Trigger the export process by clicking on Send.

• Save the Excel file to your PC.

Editing the export file