Spring/Summer 2020 Release Notes

Discover the new features, improvements, and bug fixes that were included in this release.

Platform

This section covers the changes to the platform.

Analytics

What's new

• Cohort analysis: You can now create and analyze cohorts in Explore. A cohort is a population that shares similar attributes or experiences common events at a specific time.

• Push analyses to users by email: You can now schedule and deliver analyses straight to your users' inboxes. This allows you to put insight into the hands of leaders and others who need to know securely and in a format that is familiar to them, while inviting them to explore the analyses on their own time. This feature is only available to administrators.

• Improvements to links for analysis authoring: We've added the ability to link to external webpages and any analysis that you have access to including analyses that have been shared with you. Inline links can also now be added to Text cards.

• Comparison of the same metric: You can now compare the same metric in a chart with different filter criteria applied. For example, compare the female headcount in the US and the female headcount in EMEA to see the differences between these populations.

• Filter by time-based attributes: You can now use time-based attributes to filter your population by a specific date or date range. For example, you can apply a filter using the Start Date attribute to see how many current employees joined the organization between the first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2019.

  Note: Contact Visier Technical Support to configure this feature for the desired date properties.

• Changes to the available time selection: To reflect the fact that data for individual subjects such as Employees, Applicants, and Requisitions can be loaded to the solution at different intervals, the available time selection will no longer be determined by a global start and end date. As a result, you may notice that the time periods that can be selected for analysis may differ from metric to metric.

Bug fixes

• 53165 - Trailing periods metric comparison: We fixed an issue where users couldn't compare the same metric with different trailing periods applied. With feature enhancements made this release, you can also now compare the same metric in a chart with different filter criteria applied.
• 54787 - Custom trailing periods: Some metrics such as Headcount are not compatible with trailing periods. To avoid confusion, we've changed the default setting and turned off the ability to customize the trailing calculation for all metrics. The option to change the trailing calculation will still be available for metrics that have already been customized with trailing period variations. Contact Visier Technical Support if you want to turn on this option for a specific metric.
• 55482 - Compare room search: We fixed an issue in the Compare room where employee search was showing no results.

Studio

• What's new
• Introducing Studio, the new admin experience: Studio will make your administrative workflows much more efficient, allowing you to focus on delivering value to the analytic user. Studio combines the data, analytic model, and security management into a single, unified interface. Not only does this make it easier for you to administer, you are now also using the same interface as the Visier team, allowing you to communicate more effectively.

• Control what administrator users can access and configure through profiles: You can now assign profiles to users to control what administrative workflows and configurations they can access in Studio.

• Changes to access levels of historical data: We've enhanced our security model so that access to the historical data of related subject members is limited to aggregate access.

• Rename users: As an administrator, you can now change a user's username.

• Resolve merge conflicts: You can now resolve merge conflicts between revisions and projects. Use the merge tool to review the differences between two revisions or projects and select which changes to keep. If you need help or guidance understanding how to resolve merge conflicts, we recommend that you contact Visier Technical Support.

Bug fixes

• 55216 - Auto-load data version: Sometimes when a data version is generated the application would not automatically load the new data version even though the auto-load feature was turned on. We've fixed this issue.
• 56025 - Metric descriptions and explanations: We fixed an issue where the description and explanation for the Age concept could not be changed.
• 57152 - View and duplicate Visier analyses: Administrators can now see and duplicate Visier analyses in Studio. To do this in a project, click Model > Analyses on the navigation bar.

Mobile app

What's new

• Single sign-on changes: If you have single sign-on (SSO) configured, mobile users will now be prompted to sign in using an in-app browser instead of being redirected to their default mobile browser. This authentication method is recommended by Apple and provides a better level of security. If this authentication method does not work with your SSO configuration, you can use the previous authentication method. This change resolves the known issue where SSO users couldn't log into the mobile app on any iPad, iPad Air, or iPad Pro device with iOS 13 or later installed.

Visier People

This section covers the changes to the content of the Visier People solutions.

All Solutions

What's new

• Guidebook reorganization: We've changed the way that we deliver our expert content. Starting with this release, all pre-built content provided by Visier will be added to the Visier People Guidebook. The Guidebook is organized by use-case based topics. You'll find analyses that will allow you to monitor key business areas (dashboards), discover new insights by exploring complex business questions, learn how to use and interpret specific metrics, validate your data loads, and find out what has been added to Visier People in the latest release. This reorganization makes it easier for content administrators to pick and choose the Visier analyses that are deployed to users through a custom Guidebook. In order to get future updates, we recommend that you do not customize the Visier People Guidebook.

Bug fixes

• 54676 - Guidebook charts: Due to the improvements made to chart legends in the Winter 2020 release, focus was automatically added to the pre-built Guidebook content that we provide. We've removed focus from these charts so you can see multiple attribute values instead of just the overall value.
• 55627 - Formula change: We've removed the previousChanges time filter from the formula of some metrics to ensure the configured Subject End Date is used in the calculations.

Organization

What's new

• My Supported Teams concept: As an HRBP, you can use this concept to track the managers and teams that you support.

  Note: If you want to use the My Supported Teams concept, you must provide a file that identifies the HRBP for each employee.

• Employee Exit metrics: We've added the following Employee Exit metrics to give you more insight into the characteristics of recently exited employees.
  • Employee Exit Average Range Penetration
  • Employee Exit Average Hourly Compa Ratio
  • Employee Exit Average Hourly Rate
• Standard Occupational Hierarchy: Use this hierarchy to view the standard hierarchical structure of occupational titles in your organization based on the O*NET-SOC codes. As part of this change, the Standard Occupational ID property was added to the Employee, Requisition, and Managed Position subjects.

  Note: If you want to use the Standard Occupational Hierarchy, you must provide a file that contains the Standard Occupational ID of each employee, position, or requisition.

• Positions Percent of Total metric: Use this metric to assess what proportion of positions require a particular attribute.

Improvements

• Formula change: We've updated the formula for the Vacant Position Status property to include positions that are occupied by an inactive employee.
• Furlough Target Return Count: We've split the Furlough Target Return Count metric into: Furlough Target Return Count - Future and Furlough Target Return Count - Past. These two metrics will allow you to see the number of employees scheduled to return in the future and the number of employees who were scheduled to return, but still remain furloughed. As part of this change, we've updated the Crisis Management topic. For more information on how to use these metrics, check out the linked analysis titled COVID-19 Crisis Displacements.

  Note: If you have a customized Guidebook, you will need to add the content for the Furlough Target Return Count - Past.

• Documentation: We've updated the Headcount Percent of Total metric documentation to explain how you can use this metric to analyze different attributes such as skills or learning item completions. Depending on the selected group by, employees may belong to more than one category and therefore be counted more than once.

Bug fixes

• 49384 - Usage metrics: Usage metrics now support the Dynamic Look-up method for Employee IDs. Previously, if you used Dynamic Look-up to automatically configure the Employee IDs of your users, you would have only seen Unknown values displayed for Usage metrics.

  Note:  

  • As of the Spring/Summer 2020 release, the users included in the Unknown attribute value for Usage metrics are based on the method your administrator uses to configure each user's Employee ID in the application.
    • If the setting is Manual Entry, the Unknown attribute value includes users who won't have an Employee ID associated with their user profile.
    • If the setting is Dynamic Look-up, the Unknown attribute value includes users who don't exist in the employee data provided by your organization and users who have yet to log in to the application.
• 51370 - Duplication: When grouping Managed Position metrics, you may have noticed that the Job Name attribute appears twice. We've removed the duplicate.
• 51910 - Formula change: When grouping Headcount by Resignation Event Employees, you may have noticed that the calculated value was different than the Resignation Count. We've fixed this issue by updating the formulas for the Resignation Event Count and Resignation Event Count Next Period properties.

Learning

• Employee Skills model redesign: To expand what you can do with the Skills model, we've changed Skills from a property to a subject. This allows us to link Skills to the Positions subject so you can analyze skills on employees and positions. New metrics include:
  • Positions with Skills which can be used to find the number of positions that require a particular skill.
  • Positions with Skills Ratio which can be used to find the percentage of positions that have skill requirements compared to the total number of positions.

Bug fixes

• 47077 - Documentation: We've updated the description of the Learning Item Registration Count metric to include information about how and when learning items are counted. This metric shows the total number of participants registered to the selected learning items with a start date during the period.

Planning

What's new

Talent Acquisition

What's new

• Positions model extension: The Position subject is now linked to the Requisition subject. This means you can now view positions and their corresponding requisitions.
  • Use the Vacant Position with no Active Requisition Count metric to determine the number of vacant positions that are not actively being recruited for.
  • Use the Position with no Active Requisition concept to filter and group positions based on whether they are actively being recruited for.

Bug fixes

• 51449 - Formula change: We've updated the formula of the Average Days Requisitions on Hold metric so it now only includes requisitions that are on hold.
• 53674 - Formula change: We've updated the formula for the Applicant Is Internal property so it will work with the changes we made in the Winter 2020 release regarding how an internal candidate is defined from your source files.
• 53907 - Documentation: We've updated a diagram in the explanation for the Open Positions metric because it was mislabeled.

Talent Essentials

What's new

• Employee Skills model redesign: To expand what you can do with the Skills model, we've changed Skills from a property to a subject. This allows us to link Skills to the Positions subject so you can analyze skills on employees and positions. New metrics include:
  • Positions with Skills which can be used to find the number of positions that require a particular skill.
  • Positions with Skills Ratio which can be used to find the percentage of positions that have skill requirements compared to the total number of positions.
• Estimated Cost of Replacement model: Use this new What-if model to estimate the cost of replacing turnover while adjusting the assumptions around exit rates for employees at different job tiers. The Estimated Cost of Replacement model can found in the Visier People Guidebook. Check out the Discover topic or search for the business question: What is the estimated cost to replace future turnover?

  Note:  

  • To use the Estimated Cost of Replacement model, you must have configured Starts and Exits, Budgeted Base Pay, and the Job Tier concept.
  • If you've have not configured these items, the model will not be available in the Preview application. Contact Visier Technical Support once the Preview window ends to configure these items.
  • You can also access the projected metrics for this model in Explore. You can update your custom Guidebooks with these analyses once the Preview window ends.

Improvements

• Display name change: We've renamed the Risk of Exit metric and concept to Risk of Resignation so they align with our naming convention.
• Total Rewards model: The following improvements were made to the Total Rewards What-if model.
  • We've added additional user-controllable assumptions:
    • Projected Final Budgeted Base Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Variable Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Supplemental Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Benefits per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Long Term Incentive per FTE
    • To help you understand the results of your assumptions, you can now analyze the following projected metrics in Explore:
    • Projected Final Budgeted Base Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Variable Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Supplemental Pay per FTE
    • Projected Final Budgeted Benefits per FTE

• Internal Placement metrics: We've made some changes to the availability of the Internal Placement metrics.

  Note: Existing analyses that contain charts with the hidden metrics will continue to work. However we recommend that you update these analysis with the new set of metrics. For more information on how to use these metrics, check out the analysis titled The Three Types of Movement Metrics. To find this analysis, go to the Visier People Guidebook > Learn About Analytics > Learn About Internal Movement Metrics.

  • We've hidden the following metrics because their behavior varies based on the data load approach taken by the customer:
    • Demotion Annualized Rate
    • Demotion Count
    • Demotion Rate
    • Internal Placement Annualized Rate
    • Internal Placement Count
    • Internal Placement Count TTM
    • Internal Placement Rate
    • Internal Placement Seasonality
    • Lateral Move Annualized Rate
    • Lateral Move Count
    • Lateral Move Rate
    • Promotion Annualized Rate
    • Promotion Count
  • To replace the preceding metrics, we've turned on the following metrics that will allow you to see the before state of employees:
    • Demotion Events Count
    • Demotion Events Rate
    • Internal Placement Events Count
    • Internal Placement Events Rate
    • Internal Placement Events Count TTM
    • Internal Placement Events Seasonality
    • Lateral Move Events Count
    • Lateral Move Events Rate
    • Promotion Events Count
    • Promotion Events Rate

Talent Expert

What's new

• Survey Participation metrics: Use the Survey Completion Rate metric to find the average rate at which each survey respondent completes a survey during the period and the Survey Questions Count metric to find the total number of questions in a survey during the period.

Improvements

• Display name change: We've renamed the Survey Completion Count metric to Survey Responses Count for clarity.

Workforce

What's new

• Has Time and Attendance concept: This concept indicates the employees who should have time and attendance events recorded. Use this concept as a filter to see the population that is under time capture.

Improvements

• Hourly Pay & Overtime model: To help you understand the results of your assumptions, you can now analyze the Projected Final Average Hourly Rate projected metric in Explore.