Winter 2024 Release Notes

Discover the new features, improvements, and bug fixes for the latest release.

Check out the What's New videos for an overview of the new features and don't forget to visit the Visier Portal to request and vote on new features.

Platform

This section covers the changes to Alpine, the open innovation platform for workforce data.

What's new

Dashboard Layout

You can now choose different layouts when authoring an analysis:

  • The Narrative layout has a narrower canvas that is optimal for analyses that tell a story or educate users with lots of text describing the data, metrics, and visuals. The Narrative layout remains the default layout.
  • The Dashboard layout has a wider canvas allowing you to fit more data and visuals on the screen. This new layout is optimal for analyses that show the most important KPIs that help fuel decisions made by business leaders.

As part of this update, we’ve added new sizing options for Text and Header cards. These cards are available in half width and full width.

Suggested Dimensions

The amount of dimensions that can be used for filtering can be overwhelming for new users. To help viewers make faster and better business decisions, authors can now add a list of relevant filters for an analysis.

Improvements to Distribution Visual

The Distribution Visual has been redesigned to look more like a traditional box and whisker plot. You can also now add group bys or comparisons to compare distributions across groups. For example, compare Compa Ratio for different genders across your organizational hierarchy.

Power BI Updates

We added the following features to Visier’s Power BI plugin.

  • Limited Availability This feature is in limited availability. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

  • Additional logging capability for debugging purposes.
  • Freeform JSON query functionality for aggregate and list queries. You can specify a standard JSON query for Visier's Data Query API to retrieve results.

Tableau Connector

Users with data access can now take data out of Visier directly into Tableau. Users familiar with Tableau can retrieve Visier data through a plugin for use in Tableau.

  • Limited Availability This feature is in limited availability. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

  • Data is required for this feature.

Concept Creation Enhancements

Analytic Model Developers can now create concepts in the Concepts room. Previously, you could only create concepts after navigating to an analytic object.

Convert a Selection Concept from Member to Calculated

We improved the process of converting an existing selection concept from member selection to calculated. With this enhancement, you no longer have to re-select the concept’s associated analytic object in the conversion process; the analytic object is remembered.

Bug fixes

110021 - Improved Chart Results on Organization Visual

Previously, when searching for a specific employee in the Organization visual, you would only see the employee and their reports. To provide better context, you will now see the employee’s managers and peers alongside their reports.

113238 - Data Exports and Default Filters

We fixed an issue where deleted default filters were being reapplied to Data Exports when they were shared with other users. As a result, users could not consume the Data Export because they did not have access to the analysis population as defined by the default filter.

114171 - Overall Member Naming in Spreadsheets and Data Exports

When downloading data as a spreadsheet or consuming a Data Export, the Overall member will no longer appear as Root. We also fixed an issue where Root appeared twice in the exported results.

114342 - Duration Conversion

To make the time context easier to read, we’ve updated the way we convert durations. For example, durations longer than 12 months will now be converted to years. So a duration of 48 months will now be displayed as 4 years. You will see this change anywhere that time is displayed including visual titles, analysis cards, filter tokens, and tooltips.

115236 - Plus Sign in Emails and Usernames

Emails and usernames that contain the plus sign (+) will now be accepted when creating a user.

APIs

Data Query API

  • You can now use an option to return results in multidimensional expression (MDX) format; for example, [North America].[United States].[California].
  • You can now use an option to dynamically determine the time to use in a query based on the date ranges with available data for the query’s source (a metric or metrics, formula, or analytic object).

Direct Data Intake API

The Direct Data Intake API now supports extension tables to allow loading additional data for objects that already contain data from other data loading methods. For example, if you use SFTP to load Employee data, you can now use the Direct Data Intake API to load additional Employee data that isn’t loaded through SFTP.

Permissions API

We now offer an API to programmatically manage your permissions in Visier. With this API, you can retrieve existing permission capabilities, content packages, data security objects, and permissions to find out what exists in your Visier solution already. You can also create or delete permissions, and update existing permissions by changing the capabilities, content packages, and data security objects assigned to a permission.

  • Limited Availability This feature is in limited availability. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Third-Party Cookie Deprecation

Google is deprecating third-party cookies. Visier used third-party cookies for session management when embedding Visier in other applications. We now offer an alternative to third-party cookies that employs custom headers for requests to Visier's servers, providing enhanced security and control over token lifecycles. This adjustment ensures a more resilient integration framework by minimizing dependencies on browsers like Chrome. Failing to adopt these changes will result in users being unable to access analytics in Visier where you've embedded it in your applications.

Visier People

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

Location Check-Ins

What's new

Impact of RTO (Return to Office)

We’ve added an Average In-Office Compliance Rate metric based on badge swipes and expected days in office so you can accurately determine compliance with your organization’s RTO policy. Any employee absences such as PTO and holidays are accounted for and subtracted from the calculation.

  • Data is required for this feature.

Average and Total Employee Attendance metrics

We’ve added metrics that count the distinct total and average number of on-site check-ins during the period. If an employee checks in multiple times in a day, their attendance will be counted once. Average Employee Attendance has a dynamic Days Active value that you can adjust to change the number of days employees had an employment status of Active during the period.

  • Configuration is required for this feature.

Site Occupancy Rate metric

We’ve added a Site Occupancy Rate metric that calculates the percentage of total seats occupied at a site during the period. As part of this update, we've deprecated the previous Site Occupancy metric.

  • Configuration is required for this feature.

Day of Week property and range dimension

We’ve added a Day of Week Range dimension and Day of the Week property so you can better understand the patterns of office attendance during the week.

Bug fixes

115583 - Badge swipes to account for multiple swipes per day

We’ve renamed the following existing metrics to better reflect that they are counting multiple badge swipes per day.

  • Total Employee Attendance renamed to Total On-Site Check-Ins
  • Average Employee Attendance renamed to Average On-Site Check-Ins

Deprecation notices

Site Occupancy metric

We’ve deprecated the previous Site Occupancy metric. The new Site Occupancy Rate metric has replaced the deprecated metric with an improved formula that accounts for the distinct number of on-site check-ins during the period. For a full list of the objects we will no longer support, see Deprecation notice: Blueprint Design Objects.

Organization

What's new

Historical, Current, and Future Milestone Work Anniversary

We’ve added the following metrics that count how many employees have a work anniversary, for both current/historical time periods and future time periods. These metrics contain a mandatory Anniversary Length dynamic value that you must set in order to analyze particular work anniversary milestones, such as a 5th anniversary or a 10th anniversary.

  • Future Work Anniversaries
  • Current and Historical Work Anniversaries

Bug fixes

113083 - Most Recent Start Date formula update

Previously, the Most Recent Start Date property was showing blank values when used as a chart filter in analytics for employees who did not have a recent Employment Start event record. We’ve updated the formula to use the employee’s Start Date when there is no recent employment start value so that you will now see dates for these employees.

Patch updates

May 15 - Is Employee concept

We’ve added the following selection concept that calculates workers who have a formal employment relationship with the organization.

  • Is Employee

The charts in the following analyses have also been updated with the Is Employee concept. This concept is now applied to charts where the supporting text says “employees”, and in instances where the chart did not have a filter, this concept is applied as a group by.

  • ESRS S1 Own Workforce
  • ESRS S1 Own Workforce (Tabular)

April 17 - Has Work Anniversary in Period and Has Birthday in Period concepts

We’ve added the following selection concepts that calculate work anniversaries and birthdays during the selected period.

  • Has Work Anniversary in Period
  • Has Birthday in Period

Note: These concepts are replacing the existing Has Work Anniversary within Month and Has Birthday within Month concepts, which will be deprecated in the future.

Planning

What's new

Managed Planning

Users can now create plans that are managed in the studio experience. These plans can be secured using row and column security to limit users' visibility to the plan, and allow you to work in a project for better plan management and roll out. You can also create complete and reliable guidebooks that include plan data from managed plans.

  • Configuration is required for this feature. To create managed plans, users will need to be given Write, Simple access for the Planning profile capability.
  • This feature is not available for the Headcount and Cost Planning model.

Skills Insights

Bug fixes

116449 - Inferred skills formula update

We’ve updated the formulas of the following inferred skills metric and dimension to default to zero instead of N/A if a value is absent. When employees are missing performance ratings or promotion events (e.g., they have never been promoted), their inferred skill level metric and dimension will no longer show N/A because they will get zero for that corresponding component.

  • Average Employee Inferred Skill Level
  • Inferred Skill Level Range

Talent Acquisition

Deprecation notices

Recruiter Quota objects

We’ve deprecated objects associated with recruiter quota. For a full list of the objects we will no longer support, see Deprecation notice: Blueprint Design Objects.

Talent Essentials

Patch updates

March 27 - Pay Change Events metric rename

We’ve renamed the Pay Change Events metric to Pay Changes Count to better indicate that it is counting the pay change events that occurred during the period.

Talent Expert

What's new

Recognition Nominations filter enabled

You can now use the Recognition Nominations property as a chart filter in analytics.

Unique Recognition Nominator metric

We’ve added a Unique Recognition Nominator metric that counts the distinct number of nominators that have recognized an employee in the organization during the period.

Bug fixes

81256 - Recognition Nominations and Recognition Awarded return the same result

Previously, the Recognition Nominations metric provided the same result as Recognition Awarded if the data provided for recognition included employee nominator. We’ve now set Recognition Nominations to not visible in analytics. If the data provided contains recognition with no employee nominator, then Recognition Nominations can be set visible if required.

Workplace Dynamics

What's new

Skipped Response metrics for Collaboration Skill

We’ve added the following metrics to calculate skipped responses (neither yes or no) received by employees for any collaboration skill survey question during the period. We’ve also added a dynamic Answer Type value to the existing Response Count - Collaboration Skill metric so you have the option to analyze skipped responses.

  • Skipped Response Count - Collaboration Skill
  • Skipped Response Ratio - Collaboration Skill

Datasets and Enrichments

What's new

Additional Jobs and Job Types in Visier People’s Job/Skill Taxonomy

As part of our continued expansion of our job architecture, we’ve added more manager, product manager, and human resources jobs. You will also find more job titles for the manufacturing industry to help you discover the most relevant and accurate job titles for your existing employees.

Patch updates

March 13 - Community Career Paths Data

We’ve updated Visier’s Community Career Paths dataset, covering the period from January 2021 to December 2023. This dataset supports Visier's Career Paths and Sourcing Paths visualizations, which provide insight into job transitions.

  • Additional Purchase This feature requires an additional cost. If you are interested, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Visier Benchmarks

What's new

New measured values for Visier Benchmarks Trends

We've added measured values for Q3 2023.

Summary of dataset

The Visier Benchmarks dataset was last updated February 2024.

  • Benchmark values available: 256,187,226.
  • Employee records in dataset: 21,552,263.

The current breakdown of Visier Benchmarks Trends:

  • Measured values from Q1 2018 to Q3 2023.
  • Extrapolated values from Q4 2023 to Q3 2024.

The current breakdown of Visier Benchmarks Reports:

  • Measured values from 2017 to 2022.
  • Extrapolated values for 2023 and 2024.