13 Aspen Release (July 2021)

Features & Updates 

IMPROVEMENTS TO IDEA GUIDE ASSIGNMENTS

Idea Guides are a select group of users responsible for helping idea creators and team members move their ideas forward. Previously, when a user submitted a new idea to Forest, our system automatically selected a user from a list of Idea Guides and assigned them to as the Idea Guide. However, in some cases administrators want to assign an Idea Guide to a specific campaign, without adding them to the list of randomly assigned potential Idea Guides.

To solve for this, we added a new feature in the “Admin” section that allows administrators to include or exclude users in the Idea Guide assignment step. Admins can select or deselect an “auto-assignment” option within the Idea Guide user list to include or exclude guides from random idea assignment, while keeping the ability to assign them as an Idea Guide for specific campaigns.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins, Workspace Admins, and General Users

DATA EXPORT IMPROVEMENTS

If you’re an administrator in Forest, you may have seen some inconsistencies and confusing data points within CSV data exports. New feature improvements were not clearly updating in export data, so administrators had to manually remove outdated data export column headers in those exports. These inconsistencies meant administrators were seeing multiple data types that didn’t match what they were seeing in the tool.

In this release, we improved CSV data exports by removing any export fields that aren’t relevant or useful. We’ve also added and updated any fields in those reports to ensure all the data in those exports contains the most accurate and up-to-date information. Additionally (and by popular request), we’ve added direct links to content in the reports, allowing users to easily jump from the CSV export to a specific idea, campaign, portfolio, or evaluation with one click.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins and Workspace Admins

SHARE SAVED FILTERS 

A common task for a team of administrators is to pull reports from Forest that have the same filter settings (e.g., a combination of idea status, stage, attributes, date range, etc). Previously, if administrators wanted to share a report with a set of filters applied, they had to walk someone through applying those filters on their own, usually via phone or email.  This process was time-intensive and often resulted in different teams pulling inaccurate reports due to a missed filter or a last-minute change to the filters applied.

To help administrators with this issue, we introduced a feature enhancement where they can quickly copy all applied filters via a URL. In one click, an administrator can grab a link with all the applied filters and share it with others in their organization. This shared link will take another user to the page with those filters automatically applied. They can also “save” that filter for future reporting.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins and Workspace Admins

USER GROUP WORKSPACE LABELS 

Previously when administrators assigned groups access to content, there was confusion if they were assigning the right content to the right group. User groups in different workspaces sometimes share the same name, and it wasn’t clear if a group was a global group or a workspace group.

To solve this problem, each user group now displays the workspace it belongs to. These workspace labels will be visible to administrators when they add user group access to ideas, campaigns, portfolios, and custom pages. These labels can also be seen within the “access” section in each content profile, so users will always know which workspace the assigned user group belongs to.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins, Workspace Admins, and General Users

EVALUATION ENHANCEMENTS 

For most users, it wasn’t clear how to add or remove ideas and evaluators within an evaluation. To do this, they needed to select a “+” button within an evaluation, but this process was cumbersome and confusing for many evaluation facilitators.

To make this process more intuitive, we added “Add/Remove” buttons within the evaluation to make it clear where users can add/remove ideas and evaluators. This feature enhancement should eliminate confusion for evaluation team members.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins and Workspace Admins

SHOW EVALUATION CREATOR

Previously, evaluators could not see who created an evaluation they were assigned to. The evaluation team did not always know who was facilitating or managing their evaluation, creating confusion and access issues.

To eliminate this confusion among evaluators, we’ve made some enhancements to the evaluation creation flow so that when a user creates an evaluation, they will automatically be marked and labeled as the evaluation “creator." This association will make it clear who is responsible for facilitating the evaluation. Additionally, the evaluation creator will automatically be given administrative access to that evaluation.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins, Workspace Admins, and General Users

FILTER BY PENDING USERS 

When managing users in Forest, administrators had the option to filter for all “active” users in the User Management section of the tool. However, these results displayed both “active” users (users who have logged into Forest) and “pending” users (users who have not yet created an account with Forest).

We’ve added a new filter enhancement that now allows administrators to separate “pending” users from “active” users. This way, administrators can see which users have a Forest account set up and which users still need to create one.

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins and Workspace Admins 

TOGGLE FEATURES ON/OFF

The Forest platform has a broad set of features and applications, in order to support a variety of use cases. Previously, Forest defaulted to “all features turned on.” However, we found that this could be overwhelming to new users of the platform, or those that only needed a certain set of features for their specific use case.

To simplify the experience and keep users from feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary features, we’ve created the option to toggle certain features “on” or “off,” which admins can access through a new “Settings” section in the Admin area. If a feature is toggled on, that feature will be available and usable in their account. If a feature is toggled off, that feature will not be available in Forest.

Global admins can now turn these features on/off:

• Diagnostics
• Scorecards
• Forces (Explore)
• User Groups
• User Segments
• Workspaces
• Learning Plans
• Campaigns

Users impacted by this feature: Global Admins, Workspace Admins, and General Users