Managing Steps in Pipeline


Brightidea's Pipeline workflow provides a central place for administrators to build their workflow, collect evaluations and feedback, and manage submissions. The Pipeline Steps View provides a clear interface to control the innovation process from start to finish, ensuring the best submissions advance through to implementation.

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With the 2023 Fall Release, administrators may now resend action items for submissions that return to previous Steps. Learn more about this Beta feature here.

 

Table of Contents

Getting Started

Pipelines are built from Stages and Steps. Each Step can be configured to a specific Tool Type, and will organize Submissions as they are entered into and move through the innovation process. Administrators can also add a description for each Step, to inform other admins or moderators of the intended workflow. This description appears in a tooltip, visible when hovering over the info icon in the Step title.

Each Step in Platform has a 'Manage' section which allows admins and moderators to see how action items are progressing, as well as manage the submissions in the Step. To access the 'Manage' section for the Pipeline, select Step Menu > Manage (Tool Name):

Each Step Manage area consists of three tabs: Action Items Progress, Currently in Step, and Step History.

Action Items Progress Tab

When selecting 'Manage Step' from the Step menu, admins and moderators will be brought to the 'Action Items Progress' tab. When submissions move into each step, action items are sent to evaluators for completion. The Action Items Progress tab provides admins and moderators at-a-glance information on how these action items are being completed. This information includes:

  • A chart comparing of Assigned vs. Completed action items assigned for the Step
  • The list of evaluators for the Step, and the number of assigned vs. completed action items for that Step
  • Depending on the Tool Type, this may also display the average completion time, as well as the last time each evaluator has logged into Brightidea

The Pipeline Manager can also perform the following actions from the Action Items Progress tab:

  • Share: This dropdown has two options:
    • Send an email to selected evaluators assigned to the step
    • Copy the evaluation link, which can be sent to any evaluator assigned to the step to quickly access their action items for that step.
  • Configure: Allows the manager to update the configuration of the step, such as add or remove evaluators or change templates
  • Edit Due Date: Change the due date for this steps' action items.
  • Remind All: Triggers an email reminder to all evaluators who have outstanding action items, reminding them to complete their action items
  • Remind Individual Users: Trigger an email reminder to a specific evaluator
  • Re-assign: Allows the manager to reassign a evaluator's action items to another user
    • Action items can now be reassigned for Steps using category assignment
  • Delete: This deletes the evaluator from the Step, including deleting any previously completed action items. Deleted users will not receive new action items moving forward.
Manage_Evaluators_dropdown.png

Select the green Excel export icon to generate a report of the action items in the selected step. The export will contain the results about each assigned evaluator from the tool type including:

  • Percent Complete
  • Assigned
  • Remaining
  • Last Login Date
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Currently in Step

The "Currently in Step" tab allows the Pipeline Manager to view scores collected in the selected Step/Tool Type. The goal here is to quickly see how idea screeners are evaluating ideas in this specific Step. As a result, Admins can decide which ideas to move forward or which to stop from progressing forward. 

The left pane displays data related to each Idea, which can be controlled admin. Clicking on the ellipsis menu will open a list of toggles for which data to show.

Some of these options vary depending on the Evaluation Step tool type. For example, Variance is only available for Single Scale, Scorecard, and Judging.

Note: Variance is a value of how much the numbers in a data set vary from the mean. It is calculated as the sum of the squared differences between each data point and the mean, divided by the number of data values. Due to the way variance is calculated, it weighs outliers more heavily than data near the mean. It can also be a much larger number than the actual point difference in scoring. For reference, standard deviation is the square root of variance.

 

Within the "Currently in Step" tab, a few Tool Types will allow Admins the ability to Stop or Advance ideas to the next step using the buttons on the right side:

If the Manager chooses to take an idea out of the running, they will select "Stop". This action will change the idea system status to the one which is mapped to "Stopped".  

If the Manager chooses to move ideas forward, they will select "Advance to Next Step". This action will only move the selected idea(s) to the next Step configured in the Pipeline work-flow. The Step name will be listed in the confirmation box below.  

Here, the Manager has the following options:

  • Alert the Idea Submitter of this advancement via email and/or in-product notification. 
  • Change the idea Status.
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Within the "Currently in Step" tab, the Pipeline Manager also has a number of Actions available to them:

  1. Change the Status or Step (requires at least one Idea to be selected)
  2. Update Assignees for any selected Ideas (requires at least one Idea to be selected)
  3. Update Judging Order (can also be done directly from step) 
  4. Export the list of Ideas in the Step

Selecting "Update [Evaluation Tooltype] Order" will bring up a modal that allows an admin to reorder Ideas for evaluation in the step.

Once changes are made and saved, evaluators for that step will see the new order. This reordering option is available for the following evaluation Evaluation Tooltypes:

  • Development

  • Judging

  • Review

  • Scorecard

  • Single Scale

 

Step History Tab

From the 'Step History' tab, the Pipeline Manager can review what ideas were selected to move forward or to be stopped within the Decision column. 

 

Duplicating Steps

Administrators can duplicate individual Steps for their Pipeline. In the Pipeline Steps view, administrators will see a "Duplicate Step" option.

Duplicate

Selecting this will display a popup where administrators can edit the name and stage for the duplicated Step.

Duplicate

Duplicating a Step will duplicate the assignees and settings for the new Step. Submissions in the Step will not be duplicated. Any Rules Engine rules related to the original Step will not be affected.

 

Resending Action Items (BETA) 

To view information on how to resend action items, view the KBA here. 

 

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Comments

  • Avatar
    John Berg

    Hi,

    I'm curious about what happens to the information associated with the various action items after an idea moves from one step to another. Is that information retained, and is it accessible anywhere?

    Thanks,

    Jack

  • Avatar
    Brightidea Support

    Hi John,

    That information would be available in each individual step manage section. Please see this under the gear icon menu in the step view.

    Thank you,
    Brightidea Support

  • Avatar
    John Berg

    Hi Ron,

    Thanks for the quick reply. One piece of information that I wasn't able to find in the individual step management section is project information for ideas that have passed through the given step. For example:

    Let's say I have a pipeline that utilizes a Project step. After ideas complete the project step they move on into an additional step that represents them being completed, that doesn't have a tool type associated with it.

    When ideas move into this final completion step, there doesn't seem to be any way to access any of the project information associated with the idea previously.

    Any suggestions? Maybe I'm missing something.

    Thanks!

    Jack Berg

  • Avatar
    Joseph Hines

    Hi Jack,

    The Project information for that idea can be viewed in the old Pipeline under the "My Projects" tab. That information will be retained in that tab even after the idea moves to the next step. You will be unable to view information about ideas in the new Pipeline in the manage section for that step unless the step has been configured to a tool type.

    Thank you,
    Brightidea Support

  • Avatar
    John Berg

    I can't seem to find the "My Projects" tab you referenced. Can you elaborate?

    Thanks!

    Jack Berg

  • Avatar
    Rob Poole
    Is there a way to take the status of an idea and have it tied to a step on the back end? Also possibly have it color coded? I don't want to assign responsibility to a step as you need to do in single scale as our use would be specifically to have this as a visual tool.
  • Avatar
    Brightidea Support

    Hi Rob,

    There is no specific functionality that ties a step to a status. You can of course place ideas of a certain status into a particular step.

    The step itself can't be color coded to match any status however the ideas in that step, will have a colored border around them based on the status color configured.

    Let me know if that answers your questions here.

    Thanks,

    Brightidea Support