This article provides a comprehensive guide on participant administration for multi-source feedback in leadership contexts. It covers the level concept, participant pool management, wave administration, focus persons, feedback providers, and various methods for defining feedback constellations.
The Level Concept
The participant administration in multi-source feedback has a multi-level structure, allowing participants’ data to be viewed and edited from several perspectives:
- Participant pool
- Wave
- Focus persons
- Feedback providers
Participant Pool
The participant pool contains all registered participants of the multi-source feedback, including their master data. It can be accessed through the menu “Participant administration → Participant pool”. The filling process for the participant pool depends on the chosen feedback process:
- Known Constellations: Entered manually or imported with related data, then automatically visible in the participant pool.
- Unknown Constellations: Participants imported into the pool, with allocations made later. Focus persons can select their feedback providers.
- Optional: Focus persons can nominate unregistered individuals, requiring special programming.
Administrating Participants
The participant pool provides information such as name, personnel number, email, organizational unit, and roles. The following actions can be applied to one or several participants: Send mail/invite, restore initial password (visible to authorized users (ACL right: view_loft_passwd). ), bulk edit, generate a new password, and delete.
The “Statistics” tab allows for monitoring and analysis of the participant pool’s composition.
Waves
Waves run feedback processes in staggered intervals, with at least one wave per multi-source feedback. Focus persons are usually known at the start; feedback providers are known initially or selected later. The wave overview in participant administration lists all waves, showing focus persons and their feedback providers.
Administrating Waves
The wave overview lists the following information: name of the wave (click to access focus person overview), max. process status, number of focus persons, sum of feedback participants (counted multiple times if contributing to several constellations), current return rate, field start, field end, end of process, and activity status (waves must be explicitly activated).
Available actions for waves: Edit wave (open editing dialog), archive wave (move to archive), delete wave (remove irrevocably with all content).
Actions for one or several waves: Invite/Remind (invite/remind all feedback providers or restrict to a specific role), reset and delete data (reset wave, reset disposition codes, delete collected data, allow feedback providers to participate again), reset without deleting data (reset disposition codes without deleting data), export return rate, change wave status (Instead of triggering the status changes manually, you can specify them beforehand).
Archiving Waves
To move a wave to the archive, click on Archive wave. The wave will be removed from the wave overview and listed on the Wave archive tab. To revive an archived wave, click on Recover wave.
Focus Persons
In the focus persons overview, you can find the following information for each feedback constellation: login status, name, first name, personnel number, e-mail, organizational unit, gender, language version, feedback phase, and report status. An overview of feedback providers’ role distribution and current return per role (e.g., “DR 1/2” = direct reports: 1 completed feedback, 2 assigned providers) is also available.
View allows modifying the display, and Extended search allows specifying complex search criteria.
Actions for administrating focus persons:
- Edit focus person: Opens the dialog for editing master and process data.
- Delete focus person: Removes the complete feedback constellation irrevocably.
Actions for one or several feedback constellations:
- Invite/Remind: Invite or remind all feedback providers of the selected focus persons, or restrict further (e.g., to a specific role).
- Reset and delete data: Resets the feedback constellation and disposition codes to 11 (“not yet invited”) or 12 (“active”), deletes collected data, allowing providers to participate again.
- Reset without deleting data: Resets disposition codes without deleting collected data.
- Disposition code 15: Set feedback providers to code 15 if invitation mails bounce, exempting them from future mailings (see “EFS Survey”, Table 11.5).
- Export return rate
- Change focus person to: Change the status of the feedback constellation.
Feedback Providers
In the feedback providers overview, you can find the following information for each feedback provider: name, first name, personnel number, e-mail, organizational unit, gender, role in the current feedback constellation, language version, dispositionscode, and code. View allows modifying the display, and Extended search allows specifying complex search criteria.
Actions for administrating feedback providers:
- Preview: View the questionnaire.
- Edit feedback provider: Opens the dialog for editing master and process data.
- Delete feedback provider: Removes the feedback constellation irrevocably (note: the focus person cannot be deleted).
Actions for one or several feedback providers:
- Invite/Remind: See above.
- Reset and delete data / Reset without deleting data: See above.
- Disposition code 15: See above.
- Assign new code: Generates a new access code.
Defining Feedback Participants and Constellations Manually
Optionally, you can specify the participant data and feedback constellations for a wave manually, by import, or by allowing focus persons to select feedback providers. If constellations are known at the start, usually import them. If not, upload data into the participant pool or import focus persons directly into the wave while other participants are uploaded into the participant pool.
This chapter explains how to specify feedback constellations manually. The following section introduces the import process. Typically, you’d import data in a real project, but manually working step by step helps understand the process.
Creating a Wave
- Open the “Participant administration” menu.
- Click the Add Wave button.
- The properties dialog for waves is opened:
- Name: Name of the wave
- Field start, Field end: Interval during which feedback providers can open the feedback questionnaire. This may differ from the project field time specified in the Survey menu.
- End of process: Date after which reports for this wave cannot be accessed.
- Active: Yes/No
- Peergroup: Individual peergroups can be created based on previous feedback (Process configuration → Report definition → Peergroups). Examples include the previous year’s wave or focus person in a similar position.
- Confirm with Add wave.
*A status change for the participants of a specific wave at a given date can be specified beforehand.
Creating Focus Persons
- Return to the menu Participant administration → Wave.
- Click on the title of the desired wave to open the focus person overview.
- Click on Add focus person.
- Enter the master data. If the focus person is already registered in the system (e.g., from participant pool data), use the magnifying glass to find them and click Add participants to insert the data.
- Optionally, specify process data for the current feedback.
- Confirm with Add focus person. The focus person is created and displayed in the overview.
Creating Feedback Providers
- In the overview, click on the name of the desired focus person.
- The selected focus person’s feedback provider overview is opened. At this stage, it contains only the focus person in the “self-assessment” role.
- Click on Add feedback provider.
- Enter the master data. If the feedback provider is already registered in the system (e.g., from participant pool data), use the magnifying glass to find them and click Add participants to insert the data.
- Optionally, 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 feedback constellation.
Defining Feedback Constellations By Import
Usually, you will not create individual participants manually but rather import a list of participants.
Before you start:
- Ensure all required participant variables are created as per Chapter “Editing Master Data and Process Data”.
- Only the first sheet of the Excel file will be processed, with a maximum of 256 columns and 65,000 rows. For more, use CSV format.
- Excel import is possible only for files created or saved using Excel 97+. Files from “Excel for Mac”, “Neo Office”, or “Numbers” cannot be imported.
- XLSX format is not supported. Save files as XLS before importing.
Creating the Participant List
Create an Excel list of feedback including all involved persons and their roles. Use the import template from the import dialog. Ensure the content is 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.
The same person may appear in a single feedback in several roles or multiple times in various feedback. 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 feedback 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.
Save the file in XLS or CSV.
Importing Participant List
- Open the Participant administration and click on the wave’s title to access the focus persons overview.
- Click on the Import button, select Download import template, and save the file locally.
- Enter your data into the template, save the completed file, and select it for import.
- Choose the appropriate character set, activate “First row includes column label,” and click Send file to upload the list.
- Allocate the import file columns to database fields, check the allocation on the Process data tab, then click Proceed to Preview.
- Confirm the preview with Import, and a success message will confirm the data import.
- In the focus persons overview, view the imported feedback. Clicking on a focus person shows their feedback providers, and all participants of the wave can be found in the participant pool.
Allowing Focus Persons to Select Their Feedback Providers
*This feature is optional and requires special programming.
Activating Validation of Selected Focus Providers
*This feature is optional and requires special programming.
To activate validation by the focus person’s superior and set up notification mail, follow these steps:
- 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 need to contact all participants or specific individuals. Semi-automatic emails are sent in cases such as a forgotten feedback center password. Invitation processes use the familiar EFS Survey participant administration functionalities.
Below are MSF-specific explanations for:
- Personalizing Emails
- Preparing Mail Templates
- Linking Mail Templates with Semi-Automatic Features such as:
- Resetting passwords
- Requests to validate a list of feedback providers
Personalizing E-mails
Information on using wildcards to personalize emails and mail templates is provided, including tables of available wildcards for different purposes.
- The first table’s wildcards insert master and process data of the mail recipient and are supported in the questionnaire.
- The second table’s wildcards insert master and process data of the focus person in the feedback constellation and are also supported in the questionnaire.
- The third table’s wildcards, only supported in emails, insert information on the current feedback wave.
- Click the Question mark icon above the mail text field to open a context-dependent overview.
Participant:
| Wildcard | Meaning |
|---|---|
| #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 |
|---|---|
| #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 |
|---|---|
| #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
When writing emails in EFS, you will typically use pre-defined mail templates. These templates are created, edited, and managed in the Libraries → Mail templates menu.
To create a new mail template:
- Open Libraries → Mail templates and click on Create template.
- Specify the necessary settings, select the appropriate mail sender, and enter the content. Consider the following:
- Use meaningful titles for easy identification.
- Ensure the mail template type suits your purpose (e.g., use “Invitation mail” for invitations).
- Specify an appropriate sender address as per the “EFS Survey” manual, especially for tasks like password resets from a general mailbox.
- Insert necessary wildcards correctly. An overview of available wildcards is found below the Question mark icon in the mail form.
- Use constellation-specific wildcards for multi-source feedbacks.
For access links, use the wildcard #code_complete# to insert the questionnaire URL with the access code.
The feedback center URL can be found in Process configuration → Feedback center on all tabs, formatted as: https://questback.qb-feedback.com/uc/main/a437/loft.php
Configuring “Reset Password” Mails
If participants forget their password and cannot log in to the feedback center, they can trigger a “Reset password” email containing a reset link.
To configure this feature:
- Create a mail template of type “Password-Recovery-Mail”.
- Ensure the template includes the wildcard #password_recovery_url# for the reset link.
- In Process configuration → Settings, select the new mail template in the “Mail template” field and click Save.
FAQ
What is the purpose of the participant pool?
The participant pool contains all registered participants of the multi-source feedback, including their master data. It serves as a central repository for participant information and allows for easy management and allocation of participants to feedback constellations.
How can I personalize emails in the feedback process?
Emails can be personalized using wildcards that insert master and process data of the mail recipient or the focus person in the current feedback constellation. A list of available wildcards can be found in the mail form by clicking on the question mark icon.
What is the difference between resetting data with and without deleting data?
When resetting with deleting data, the feedback providers’ disposition codes are reset, and all collected result data is deleted. When resetting without deleting data, only the disposition codes are reset, while the collected result data is preserved.