Managing teams in the teams dashboard - theliberators/columinity.docs GitHub Wiki

This step-by-step guide explains how to manage teams and snapshots in the Teams Dashboard. You can try a read-only Demo Teams Dashboard here

Who is this guide for?

Subscribers to one of our paid plans ("Professional" or "Enterprise"), which provides access to the Teams Dashboard.
The Teams Dashboard is typically managed by team coaches, enterprise coaches, or team leads.

1. Access Teams Dashboard

Go to https://teamsdashboard.columinity.com and log in with your account to access the Teams Dashboard.
If you are on our "Enterprise"-plan, you potentially have multiple Teams Dashboards to choose from.

2. Understanding the Teams Dashboard

A Teams Dashboard is a collection of teams in the same (sub)organization. The Teams Dashboard allows you to:

Manage teams in this organization
Manage snapshots (surveys) for teams in this organization
Analyze patterns and trends across teams or subsets of teams
Keep track of all improvement actions taken by teams
Manage users with access to the Teams Dashboard
Export data for further analyses in your tooling (i.e., PowerBI, SPSS, or Excel)

Teams Dashboard per organization

One organization typically has one Teams Dashboard. However, creating multiple Teams Dashboards is more valuable and performant for huge organizations with hundreds of teams. Our "Enterprise" plan makes this possible.

Teams, snapshots, and scientific models

Teams typically and ideally run multiple surveys over time to track their improvements. Each survey is a snapshot, tied to a particular scientific model. We offer several scientific models to help teams become more effective, each focusing on a few core factors and sub-factors. Teams often benefit from multiple models, each offering its perspective on the same team. You can toggle between models with this selector in the header, which effectively filters the entire Teams Dashboard to just the snapshots and results for that model:

3. Viewing a team

To view a team, click "Teams" in the sidebar and locate the team. Each team has a mini dashboard:

The mini dashboard shows actualized information for the team:

The top bar shows the name of the team and any associated tags. The team type is automatically as a tag.
A flame icon () is shown if the team has impeded actions and is requesting help. Click on the icon to see which.
Click the three dots at the top right of the box to edit, archive, or remove the team. Later in this guide, we describe the removal and archival of teams in more detail.
Below the top bar are the badges this team has gained. Each award reflects an accomplishment and is a cause for celebration.
Below the badges is a summary of the improvement goal and any improvement actions this team has identified. This team has 18 actions, 4 of which are open, 10 are completed and 4 are impeded.
Below the action summary are the three most recent snapshots. Click the small arrows above the list to go further back. For each snapshot, Columinity shows the start date, the differences in the core factors with the previous snapshot, the total number of participants so far, and management options.

4. Filtering teams and results by tags

Teams are often grouped into clusters, value streams, business units, or organizational departments. When you analyze the results for teams, it often makes sense to focus on particular groupings. The "Team filter" in the header allows you to filter everything you see in the Teams Dashboard to only those teams that contain a tag (or a combination of tags). This includes any results shown under "Insights".

To set tags for a team:

Locate the team under "Teams".
Click the bullets on the top right of the team box and click "Edit".
Add or remove the tags for this team with the field in the form.

5. Adding new teams

Click "Teams" in the sidebar on the left.
Click "New team" on the right. If you do not see this option, you may not have administrative permissions, or your license does not allow more teams. You can increase the number of teams on your license or request administrative permissions if you need them from an existing administrator.
Provide a descriptive team name under "Team name".
Choose a color for this team. This is used in the Teams Dashboard for easier visual recognition.
Provide an email address to which functional notifications (e.g., reminders or new participants for snapshots) can be sent.
Select the most applicable team type. If you don't know, choose "Other." We use the team type to customize model suggestions and some survey language.
Set applicable tags for this (if any) to allow easier filtering (see above).
Under "Advanced options", you can set a baseline benchmark that will be used for this team. Teams can always choose another, but this is the default. You can also merge the results from other teams into the team reports for this team. We won't cover these features in this guide.
When you're done, click "Save". You can now create a snapshot for this team to start a survey.

6. Adding existing teams

Teams often try Columinity on our "Free"-plan before a subscription is acquired. Such teams can be linked to your Teams Dashboard. If a team is already linked to another Teams Dashboard, it must be removed from that Dashboard first. To link a new team, follow these steps:

Upon subscription, you receive an activation code to add existing teams. If you don't have this e-mail, you can find it in the Teams Dashboard when you click "New team". The code is shown in the box on the right side of the screen titled "How to add existing teams."
Go to the Team Report of the existing team. Click "Settings", then "Add team to existing subscription". Enter the activation code there and hit submit. If the code is valid, the team will be added to the Teams Dashboard and gain access to all the paid features.

ℹ️ Tip: You can safely delete teams from a Teams Dashboard (click "Remove" for a team). This does not throw away any of their data but only unlinks them from your Teams Dashboard. Paid features will also be disabled. This way, teams can be reverted to the "Free" plan.

7. Starting a snapshot for a team

Once you've created the new team, you can start the first survey snapshot to establish a baseline.

ℹ️ Tip: Create buy-in with the team before you start with Columinity. People are often understandably wary of surveys, so getting them on board first improves the chances of success considerably. Review how we protect anonymity and privacy if your teams have questions about this.

Click "Teams" in the sidebar to see the teams.
Locate the team for which you want to start a snapshot.
Click "Take new survey".
Choose a predefined questionnaire. The "Focus" questionnaires are short and focused on specific areas. Choose "Let me choose" to select topics yourself. If you don't know or this is your first survey, we recommend "Full diagnostic" or "Baseline" to set a good baseline measure against which to compare.
Click "Advanced view" to customize the selected topics further. Some topics are only asked of team members, stakeholders, or supporters.
Based on your selection, Columinity estimates the time it will take team members, stakeholders, and supporters to complete their surveys. The accuracy is also calculated and depends on the number of questions (fewer is less accurate).
Add a personal note that will be shown to all team members before they participate. It is an excellent opportunity to reiterate the purpose of the scan and to clarify questions teams might have (i.e. about anonymity and what happens with the results). The note will not be shown to stakeholders and supporters.
Estimate the number of participants you expect to participate or leave 0 if you don't know. Setting a non-zero value allows Columinity to calculate a participation rate (the number of participants versus the expected number). You can change this later. This is not a limit, so more (or fewer) people can participate without issue.
Click "Create" when you're ready. You can always go back.

ℹ️ Tip: When selecting topics, we recommend balancing completeness and accuracy on the one hand with survey duration on the other end. While more questions make the survey more accurate and comprehensive, it can also tire participants. If the survey is too long, consider splitting it into separate scans. You can always measure some topics now and the others next month. Columinity will intelligently combine them in the reporting.

Encouraging teams to self-manage additional snapshots

Columinity is designed to let teams self-manage their snapshots. They can do so whenever they want and don't need access to the Teams Dashboard. The only thing they need is a link to a recent Team Report. In the Team Report, they can click "Repeat" at any time to start the wizard to set up a new survey, invite participants, and set a reminder for the snapshot after that:

8. Managing the snapshot and inviting participants

Once the snapshot is created, you are redirected to the snapshot management page. You can also reach it by locating the team under "Teams", locate the new snapshot underneath it and clicking "" followed by "Edit". Here, you have several options:

There are two complementary ways to invite team members, stakeholders, and supporters to fill in surveys for your team:
- The most straightforward approach is to let Columinity send invites by email to team members, stakeholders, and supporters. Columinity will track who has participated, so you can send reminders to those who haven't. To do so, enter their email address and role in the header, click "Add, " or use "Import" to upload a CSV with invitees. To learn how importing works, consult this short guide.
- You can also use the "sharing links" we provide once the survey is created and make them available on your team's Discord, Slack, or workspace. These links are advantageous because you don't need to provide members' email addresses, but Columinity won't be able to track participation. You can also mix both approaches by inviting some directly (like your team members) and sharing a link with your stakeholders.
Click "Edit" to edit the snapshot properties you entered in the previous steps. However, you can only change the questionnaire type and selected topics if no one has participated.
You can close the snapshot by clicking "Close". This effectively prevents more participants from joining and is helpful in "freezing" the results.
Click "Remove" to delete the snapshot and all associated data (this action cannot be reversed).

Once participants start joining the snapshot, the page updates to reflect this:

Each row in the table shows a participant:

The first column contains an obfuscated version of the email address if a participant left one (this is optional). This is helpful to get a sense of who already participated.
The second column specifies this participant's segment (team member, stakeholder, or supporter) and the version of the survey they took.
The third column provides the number of questions answered by a participant. Participants can skip questions, which doesn't always add to 100%. If a participant has completed the survey, a green checkmark is shown (). Hover your cursor over the bar or the checkmark to see when the participant participated and completed the survey.
The fourth column, which is empty in the example, shows a warning icon () if there are potential reliability issues with the participant's data. Hover your cursor over the icon to see details. Typical problems are that participants completed the survey too quickly to be able to read and answer each question correctly or that they marked it as a test. It is up to you to decide if you want to remove the participant.
The fifth column allows you to delete the participant ("Delete") or re-send an invite if Columinity invited this participant.

ℹ️ Tip: If you notice many warnings for your participants, this likely indicates that participants don't trust the survey, surveying platforms like Columinity, or your intentions. Treat this as a clear sign that a good conversation about these concerns is needed before you proceed.

8. Removing and archiving teams

You can remove or archive teams that are no longer relevant to your Teams Dashboard. To do so, locate the team, click the three dots, and choose between "Remove" or "Archive":

Removal: This unlinks the team from this Teams Dashboard and reverts it to the free plan. This removes the team from your license and creates space for a new team. No data about this team is lost with this operation, and the team can always be readded to the Teams Dashboard (see "Adding existing teams" earlier in this guide). These teams can continue to use Columinity, but their data is no longer accessible to you, and any paid features will be disabled.
Archive: Archive a team to retain its data in your Teams Dashboard but remove it from your license. Archival makes the team and its snapshots entirely read-only, meaning no new snapshots can be added, and existing snapshots can't be modified. This process is one-way and cannot be reversed. Archival is useful when the team has disbanded or stopped, and you don't want to lose the data for benchmarking purposes. Archived teams are hidden from the default view of teams. Toggle the view mode above the team list to see archived teams.

ℹ️ Tip: Removal or archival of a team does not automatically reduce your subscription volume. If you wish to change your volume, do so after you remove or archive a team.

9. Exporting team data

Columinity offers several exports of team data. Exports are always comma-separated files (CSV).

Click "Teams" in the sidebar.
Click "Tools", then "Export"
The dialog shows available exports (CSV) and export definitions.

ℹ️ Tip: Exports help integrate Columinity into your ecosystem. You can import the files into PowerBI, Excel, SPSS, or other tooling.

Next steps

Analyzing many teams in the Teams Dashboard