Assessment Stage

The Assessment stage allows to systematically evaluate ideas using custom questions and rating criteria completed by designated assessors selected by the community administrator. This stage helps organize and prioritize ideas, while also building alignment and support for the community’s most promising opportunities.

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Assessment Stage Setup

Assessment Stage setup is divided into 4 tabs - Info, Settings, Automation & Permissions. Let's see them in detail.

1. Info

Info section contains basic details about the stage as follows:

Stage Function - Select Assessment stage from drop down. Once selected and saved, this section will be greyed out and cannot be changed to other stage

Stage Name - Create a custom name/label for the stage. Note: Character limit is 40.

Stage Key - It is a unique identified for the specific stage required for API call data retrieval. Once saved, the key cannot be changed.

Description - Describe stage functionality or how you would like to use this stage. This description will be mouseover text on the stages stack on the right navigation of the community homepage

Stage Color - Select a color for the stage from the 10 available default options.

Reported Ideas As - Set the stage as Selected, Implemented or blank to apply the respective label to all ideas within that stage. Help article on Selected & Implemented Ideas

Enable Stage - Select this checkbox to activate the stage, enabling ideas to be moved into it.

Stage Change Notification - Select this checkbox to activate the stage change notification. Enabling it will send a stage change email notification to the members who have opted for it.

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2. Settings

Settings section contains stage specific settings as follows:

Assessment Questions: Add a set of structured custom questions to systematically evaluate each idea and assign a corresponding rating.

Key: Define what each star or rating key represents for the Assessment team. By default, the available options are: Strongly Agree (5 stars), Agree (4 stars), Neither Agree nor Disagree (3 stars), Disagree (2 stars), Strongly Disagree (1 star), and Not Applicable (NA).

Assessment Team: Choose who will assess the ideas. Community admin can assign assessment to an individual member, to a specific group of members, or to a team role.

Private Assessment Submission: When this setting is enabled, assessment data remains confidential and is not displayed on the idea detail page. Only the review submitter and the administrator can view the individual assessments, meaning one assessor cannot see another assessor’s ratings. In addition, the overall rating for the idea will not be visible to other users.

Display Anonymized Reviews To Stage Viewers: This switch is visible only when the Private Assessment Submission setting is enabled. When activated, it ensures that the scores and notes provided by assessors are displayed under the label “Community Member” instead of showing the assessor’s actual username. Note that the effect of this switch becomes apparent only when the idea has moved to a different stage.

Enable Comments tab: Enabling this feature will create two separate sections within the comments tab: one labeled "Community" and another corresponding to the Assessment stage. Members can freely contribute comments related to the idea in the Community tab, while specific feedback for the Assessment stage can be recorded in the dedicated second tab by members authorized to participate in this stage.

Assessment Notes Required: Activating this setting mandates that all assessors provide a note along with their scores. Scores will only be saved and advance to the next question once a note has been submitted.

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3. Automation

Use this section to configure automation for the Assessment stage. When automation is enabled, once all the assessors for the individual ideas have completed the assessment, it will automatically advance to the next stage in the workflow.

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4. Permissions

The Permissions section in the Assessment stage defines who can view assessments and scores done by the assessors on the idea detail page. A community administrator can configure these permissions for all community members, for a specific group, or for a specific Team Member role (Only if a team role has been specified & filled in any build team stage in the same funnel)

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Stage Functionality on Homepage

Participants rate ideas on a 5-star scale or select NA, using the key shown below each question. Assessors can add an optional or required note per question before clicking Finish. Notes are visible only to the assessor’s team.

The assessor can see his own ratings and assessment notes as well as other assessors' ratings (also depends on a privacy setting) on the idea detail page. Such ratings from each assessor are added and averaged to calculate the overall rating on that idea. The assessor can also edit their assessment rating by clicking on Edit Rank button above the submitted assessment under Activity tab on Idea details page.

Non-participants will not be able to see the assessment rating /or overall ratings on the idea detail page if Private Assessment Submission is enabled. The members will see as Awaiting Assessments in the CTA block.

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Reminder to all Unassessed Members

Community administrators can send reminder emails to all assessors who have not yet evaluated ideas in the Assessment stage. To do this, use the Remind all unassessed members option available under the More (three dots) menu for the relevant stage on the Workspace Edit page. 

This action triggers an email notification prompting outstanding assessors to complete their assessments.

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Export to Excel

Assessment results containing all member responses as well as the list of non-assessed members can be exported by the Community admin in the Excel format. These options are available under the More (three dots) menu for the relevant stage on the Workspace Edit page. 

Export Assessment Details

This excel report contains 4 sheets named Assessment with workflow name, IdeaScale - Assessment Results, Stats, and Assessment.

Assessment with workflow name: It contains Stage Name, Stage Type, Idea ID, Idea Number, Idea Title, Idea Description, Idea custom fields, Idea Submitter Name, Idea Submitter email address, Idea Owner name, Idea Owner email address, Idea Campaign, Tags, Assessment Ratings, Assessment, Assessment Questions, Member name & Email.

IdeaScale - Assessment Results: This sheet contains Idea ID, Idea Title, Idea Description, Idea Submitter Name, Member ID, Stage Name, Idea Campaign, Assessment Rating, Assessment Question, Assessing Member ID, Assessing Member Name, Email and Date.

Stats: This sheet contains Idea Title, Idea Description, Idea URL, Total Rating, Member Assessed, Overall Rating, and Idea Number.

Assessment: This sheet contains Idea Title, Idea Description, Idea URL, Question, Average Rating, Assessor, Date, Assessment Note, Rating Given, and all the Group names in your community.

Export Non-Assessed Members

This excel report contains Idea Title, Idea Description, Idea URL, Total Invited Participant count, Member Not Participated count, and Non-Assessor email addresses.

Help Article on Assessment Stage rating calculation formula