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2020 Product Updates
2020 Culture Amp updates and new releases
2020 Culture Amp updates and new releases

Information on our product updates and new releases through the year 2020

Jared Ellis avatar
Written by Jared Ellis
Updated over a week ago

What can I learn from this page?

A running list of Product Updates through 2020

Who is this guide for?

All Users

Below we are highlighting the latest updates for Culture Amp Engagement and Performance. NOTE: For our most up to date Product Updates, please see 2022 Culture Amp updates and new releases

Platform

Update to prevent duplicate demographic

Duplicate demographic values with inconsistent casing (e.g. ‘Melbourne’ and ‘melbourne’) will now be merged on import, using the first value provided.

Assigning your employees with pre-loaded demographics makes it super easy to review, analyze and share insights from your Culture Amp surveys.

To help you keep your demographic data up to date, we’ve made a change to the way Culture Amp handles duplicate demographics on import.

Demographic values have historically been case sensitive. This meant it was possible to end up with unintentional duplicates. For example, you might have some employees allocated to ‘Location: Melbourne’ and others allocated to ‘Location: melbourne’.

This meant their survey results would appear under two different demographic values, making it harder to properly review insights when surveying Melbourne-based employees.

Now, demographics with the same characters but different capitalization will be merged using the first value that was provided. In the above example, ‘melbourne’ would be automatically changed to ‘Melbourne’ and everyone would end up correctly grouped together.

Note that this rule only applies to demographic values, and does not apply to demographic labels (e.g. ‘Location’).

Not happy with the capitalization rules that have been applied? Admin users can still go in and change the casing of a demographic at any time using the ‘Account demographics’ page.


We have launched a learning hub for managers

The new Playbooks resource on Culture Amp is a standalone library of ideas, videos and downloadable resources for Managers. With content written by Culture Amp’s People Scientists and our partner LifeLabs Learning, who have helped train thousands of managers across the world, it features 7 proven areas of impact for managers.


New ability to limit survey creator role by demographic

In addition to company-wide initiatives such as engagement surveys, your organisation might also have managers and HR business partners who want to collect, understand and act on feedback within their departments and teams.

For this case, the best solution is a ‘Survey Creator’ role limited to specific demographic criteria - such as location, department or team.


Engagement + Experience

Update to bulk export Powerpoint and PDF shared reports

Admins users can now download a Zip file containing every shared report in a report group.

These bulk exports are now also available in Powerpoint and PDF, as well as Excel and CSV.

Bulk exports are an easy way to quickly distribute insights to employees off-platform.


New commenter statistics and update to comments report

Over the next few weeks we're rolling out some changes to the comments report, including commenter statistics to help you read and interpret comments more confidently. We've also made some workflow changes to the comments report, grouping text analytics tools in one tab ("Topics and themes") and making some usability improvements to Emerging Themes.

The new commenter statistics summary shows what percentage of survey participants left at least one comment, the median number of comments per commenter, and the overall engagement score of commenters relative to the company overall – all of which can help you make sense of them. For example, if you know that only half your population has left comments, you know that some voices aren't being heard – and if the median comments per commenter is 8, you've got some enthusiastic typers (or lots of mandatory questions, perhaps).


New commenter statistics on questions in the comments report for surveys

We’ve added stats to every question on the comments report, comparing the favorability of the commenters with the overall participants.

The following stats are now available :

  • What % of participants commented on this question? e.g. 10% of participants commented

  • How favorable are the commenters on this question? e.g. 75% favorable

  • How favorable are the commenters vs the overall participants on this question? e.g. -17 compared to overall


New ability to duplicate report sharing

With this update, when you duplicate a survey, the shared reports & report recipients from the original survey are also duplicated. All reports will be duplicated into draft (unpublished) state.


Engagement Navigation and Headers

As part of our effort to keep Culture Amp more usable and your workspace more focused, we have uplifted the headers and navigation across the Engagement product.

We are bringing you this update in order to:

What has changed?

  • Updated title blocks

  • Reporting navigation

  • Admin headers


We added Moments for your engagement trend

We have added a new feature to the Engagement trend chart in the Account Dashboard called Moments. With the introduction of Moments, you can now add dates that are important for your organization to tell the story behind the data.

See: Moments


We launched hierarchical report sharing

We have launched the ability to automatically create reports for leaders based on their organizational hierarchy, making it easier and faster to share reports through the business. To activate this feature, add your hierarchy


New pre-configured report types for sharing reports quickly

At Culture Amp we know that deciding who should get access to what when it comes to sharing reports is an important part of the results to action process.

Today we made that even easier, by providing you the choice of 3 pre-configured report types for the most common stakeholder use cases in your organization - Summary, Standard and Advanced. You can then decide if you want to include comments and filters.


New ability to disable Action Framework for specific shared reports

At Culture Amp, we believe that taking action to improve your organization is an important step in collecting and understanding employee feedback. This is why all shared Standard or Advanced reports include the Action Framework as a default.

However, we know that not all reports are shared with the intention or expectation of taking action. Sometimes we share reports to engage employees in a broader process, for transparency, or simply as a check-in on progress.

This is why we’ve created the ability for survey admins to disable the Action Framework for specific shared reports.


We have released 2020 benchmarks

Benchmarks can provide you with important insight and context for your Engagement results. We just released 2020 benchmarks for Engagement.


We introduced an Emergency Response Template

Our People Scientists have created an Emergency Response Survey template to help you address this complex and challenging situation. This survey can be used to measure your business response during this time, collect information from your teams and use their feedback to inform your strategy. We are offering a free template with an extended emergency response survey and a special COVID-19 pulse survey. For our customers, the Emergency Response Survey and COVID-19 Pulse Survey are also available in the template library when you log into your account. Learn more about this and other COVID-19 resources to support you and your employees.


We introduced a one-click onboarding survey

We know how valuable it is to measure the onboarding process and capture the entire employee experience, so we’re making it easier for you to launch an onboarding survey in just one-click. Account Administrators can login to the platform to get started.


New ability to assign Report Owners

We know that diffusion of responsibility can be a barrier to making changes based on employee feedback. With this update we make a distinction between Report Owners and Report Viewers.This new report owner status allows you to give leaders within your organization clear responsibility and guidance on how to communicate survey results and drive meaningful action on a report.

If you want to assign responsibility and communicate expectations to a leader to take action on a particular report, then this is a good feature for you.


New enhanced confidentiality protections

In 2020, we updated the way participant confidentiality is protected in Culture Amp.

It is now impossible to indirectly identify small groups of participants by filtering on everybody else and subtracting from the whole.

Although these changes produce the smallest possible impact to reporting utility, some additional demographic groups may become un-reportable if your survey is includes groups that are smaller than your Reporting Group Minimum.


Performance

New PDF export abilities for Admin and HRBP roles

Your export capability for Admins and HR Business Partners just got a little bit more robust in CA Performance. Admins and HR Business Partners can now export all goal data and team stats.


New draft state for evaluation cycles in Performance

When creating an evaluation cycle, feel free to go at your own pace. Save, exit and return to where you left off at any time.


New iOs app for Performance

On the go? The new Culture Amp mobile app for iOS is designed to drive professional development. Employees and managers can give feedback and update their goal progress any time, anywhere.

With the Culture Amp app, you can easily:

  • Give and request continuous feedback

  • Post and review public praise

  • Create and edit individual goals, and view department and company goals

Use of the app is available to any customers using Culture Amp Performance.


Update to navigation in Performance

We’ve made a few changes for a smoother experience between our Engagement and Performance products.

When clicking Performance in the main navigation of Engagement, users (with access to our Performance product) will go directly to Performance, skipping the in-between page and remaining in the same browser tab.

A new link has been added to the Performance main navigation which allows users (with access to our Engagement product) to return to Engagement.
Performance navigation item “Admin Settings” has been renamed as “Switch to admin view” and repositioned.

With the introduction of teams to the platform, we made a few small updates to the left side Navigation bar to make it easier to locate new features.

What's New:

  • Goals is now part of the navigation bar, listed just below Inbox. Click Goals to view, create and track goals.

  • My direct reports is the new name for My team. Managers can click My direct reports to view and request feedback on direct reports, view self-reflections submitted by direct reports, manage evaluations and see an overall summary on their direct reports. Note: goals created by direct reports have moved to Goals page.

  • There is a new Teams page, listed within My Company.

NOTE: the teams feature appears only if it has been activated. Reach out to your assigned Coach or our Support team to activate the teams feature. Once activated, click Teams to create, view and edit teams and to request team-based feedback.


We made a few small updates to navigation in Performance.

With the introduction of teams to the platform, we made a few small updates to the left side Navigation bar to make it easier to locate new features.


We launched Teams

We know not all teams follow a hierarchy structure. For this reason, you can now create Teams in the platform to support your people no matter the organizational structure. To activate this feature, reach out to your assigned Coach or our Support team.


We launched Team Goals

Team goals is a new goal type in Culture Amp Performance that allows cross-functional and agile teams to create and manage progress toward shared goals, no matter the structure of the organization. Just like Teams, the Teams Goals feature must be activated. Reach out to your assigned Coach or our Support team to get started.


We launched Team-Based Feedback

With the launch of teams, we are introducing team-based feedback, allowing team leads to gather feedback about the members of their teams within the context of that team and give it to managers. Managers gain visibility into the performance and development of their direct reports through this team-based feedback provided by team leads.


We introduced a Chrome extension, and we have an Outlook plugin coming soon

Now you can easily give and request feedback, review goals and capture notes without leaving their Chrome browser. Any user with a Culture Amp Performance account can download the Culture Amp extension from the Chrome webstore.


We gave the Goals section a visual uplift

We designed a new interface to highlight Goals as a central feature of the platform and make it easier for users to have clarity into team, department and company goals. Enjoy the new vertical layout with the same functionality as before with updating, editing and commenting on goals.


We added in-platform message support for Account Administrators

We offer an in-platform messenger for Account Administrators to connect directly with our Support team. Messenger is available in Performance and Engagement.


We introduced a new help center panel

Helping you get the most out of our platform is important to us. We have added the Help Center panel into our Performance product to make it easier for you to access our support resources.


We added an Outlook Extensions

We have introduced an Outlook extension so Performance users can easily give and request feedback, review goals and capture notes without leaving Outlook.

Note: this feature has since been deprecated


We added a new filtering feature

You can now filter users by start date when creating a self reflection or evaluation cycles. This filtering feature allows you to quickly exclude new employees from upcoming cycles.


Performance Navigation and Headers

As part of our effort to keep Culture Amp more usable and your workspace more focused, we have uplifted the navigation and headers across the Performance product to become more consistent with the Engagement product.

We are bringing you this update in order to:

  • Improve the consistency of the interface between our products

  • Improve accessibility of key buttons and actions across the Performance product

  • Provide a cleaner, more focused interface for all users

What has changed?

  • Consistent title blocks

  • Easy to find action buttons

  • Distinct admin headers

  • Consolidated cycle controls

  • Mobile friendly

  • New navigation


Update to disable points in Performance

At Culture Amp we want you to get the most from our platform. Today, we have added additional configurability in Performance and have introduced the ability to disable 'points' for an entire account, even when continuous feedback has been enabled.

If you wish to disable or re-enable points on your account, please contact support@cultureamp.com.

When points are disabled for your account:

  • The points total will be hidden for users

  • The points section will be hidden from the leaderboard

  • Adding or subtracting of points based on giving and receiving feedback will not occur

  • When opening feedback and there will be no opening envelope animation


Update to Performance Navigation

As part of our effort to refine our product terminology for key concepts related to your performance review process and ensure those concepts are familiar and understandable for your managers and employees, we've made some changes to our navigation in Performance.

We are bringing you this update in order to:

  • Improve the discoverability and intuitiveness of the platform

  • Create consistency around upcoming work to unify the performance review process. Soon, a performance review cycle could contain self-reflections, peer & upward feedback, and manager reviews.

What has changed?

  • Performance review

The overall performance assessment process has been updated from Employee evaluation to Performance review. The term Performance review remains customizable and can be updated at any time.

Manager review

  • The performance summary written by a manager, which was also previously referred to as an Employee evaluation has been updated to Manager review.


New Help panel in Performance

Helping you get the most out of our platform is important to us. We’ve now added the Help Center panel into our Performance product to make it easier for you to access our support resources.


The Help Center panel displays these options:

  • Get trained up - Where you can enrol and take part in our range of training sessions.

  • Visit the Academy - Where you can read how-to articles to help you use our products.

  • Ask a People Geek - Where you can connect with our community of People Geeks. In the forum, you can discuss Organizational Design, Leadership, and the future of work.


Update to navigation in Performance

With the introduction of teams to the platform, we made a few small updates to the left side Navigation bar to make it easier to locate new features.

What's New

  • Goals is now part of the navigation bar, listed just below Inbox. Click Goals to view, create and track goals.

  • My direct reports is the new name for My team. Managers can click My direct reports to view and request feedback on direct reports, view self-reflections submitted by direct reports, manage evaluations and see an overall summary on their direct reports. Note: goals created by direct reports have moved to Goals page.

  • There is a new Teams page, listed within My Company. Note: the teams feature appears only if it has been activated. Reach out to your assigned Coach or our Support team to activate the teams feature. Once activated, click Teams to create, view and edit teams and to request team-based feedback.


Update to navigation in Performance

We’ve made a few changes for a smoother experience between our Engagement and Performance products:

When clicking Performance in the main navigation of Engagement, users (with access to our Performance product) will go directly to Performance, skipping the in-between page and remaining in the same browser tab.

A new link has been added to the Performance main navigation which allows users (with access to our Engagement product) to return to Engagement.

Performance navigation item “Admin Settings” has been renamed as “Switch to admin view” and repositioned.


Product update to Goals in Performance

We launched exciting new updates to the goals feature and interface in Performance.

  • We introduced a new type of goal called team goals. Learn more about teams and team goals. A note for managers, goals created by direct reports have moved and are now viewable in the new Goals page.

  • We designed a new interface to highlight Goals as a central feature. This interface includes a redesign of how you track goals.

    • Goals are now displayed in a vertical layout instead of the previous kanban style, both pictured below.

    • This redesign comes as a response to customer feedback. The vertical layout provides users more clarity into Company, Department and Teams goals while still offering the same functionality as before with updating, editing and commenting on goals.


New feature to filter users by start date when creating self-reflections and evaluations in Performance

When creating an evaluation or self-reflection in CA Performance, you will now be able to filter the list of employees based on "Start Date".


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