Release Notes: Version 7.70

Version 7.70 of the EchoSpan platform will be released on June 16 ^th, 2019. This release includes new features and enhancements to our 360-degree feedback tool. As always, new features are included at no cost in their respective EchoSpan editions.

Brief summaries of the new features and enhancements are below. Once the release is published, we'll make additional documentation on each of these items available in the product guides. You can also sign up for a live session to review the new features with one of our client managers on June 25^th and 27^th.

We're thankful to all of our customers for their suggestions and feedback that have led to these great new additions to the platform!

7.70 Release Highlights
(P= Professional Edition, E = Enterprise Edition, A = All Editions)

Major Enhancements

Enhanced Individual Review Items Component: we've combined several popular reporting features into a single, flexible report section that presents individual item results more attractively. Consolidation of features also means you'll shorten your reports; more information is presented in fewer pages. In addition to average scores for individual review items, the enhanced component includes:

1. Frequency Distribution metrics displayed as a table or a graph (P,E)
2. Standard Deviation (E)
3. Identification of Hidden Strengths and Blind Spots (P,E)
4. Identification of Highest and Lowest Rated Items (P,E)
5. Comments with automatic translation and sentiment scores (E)
6. Percentiles and quartiles (E)
7. Faster Execution of Report Generation (P,E)

Alert to Managers when Direct Reports complete their Self-Evaluation: the system can be configured to send an automatic notification to a Target's managerial rater when the self-evaluation is complete. The content of this message is editable in the administrator tool. (E)

Lock Finished Surveys: administrators will have the ability to prevent participants from re-entering a survey and modifying their responses while the feedback phase is still active. Once a participant clicks "Finish" and returns to their dashboard, they will see a status of "Complete (no action)" under the Action column next to that survey. (P,E)

Rater Status Summary Table for Targets: when enabled , this feature will allow targets to see the summary status of raters on their review when the feedback phase is active. Rater names are not revealed with the status details. This can be helpful in cases when a Target is tasked with selecting their own raters and sending personal summary reminders to request participation in the process. (E)

Other Enhancements:

1. Allow sentiment analysis on comments appended to individual items section (E)

2. Purchase additional rater licenses online (P,E)

3. Suppress automatic email to Auditors when Targets submit Rater List for approval (P,E)
   

Coming Soon

Employee Engagement: we are looking for Beta testers for the EchoSpan Employee Engagement module. This is an all-new survey offering that will be made available to all customers later this year. Features include:

1. Conduct engagement, team or departmental surveys using the same EchoSpan tools you are accustomed to.

2. Customizable reporting that includes the ability to segment and filter responses by answers to demographic or other questions.

3. Seamless integration with your existing 360 review projects.

4. Support for very large survey populations.

Please let us know if you are interested in participating in the Beta program while spots are still available and we can provide you with additional details!

How to Upgrade

Once released, the version 7.70 update is automatically applied to any new, blank project you create. You can also update an existing project by opening the project and clicking Upgrade Project in the top right of the project's homepage. This option will only be visible if an update is available for that project. Upgrades are available to clients without existing customizations. Note that if you clone a project that uses an older version of code, the new project will also be based on the older code and require a manual update.

As always, we appreciate your feedback on our product and services. Please remember that we offer a question and answer session each week that is an open forum for customer questions. One of our Senior Client Service Managers leads the interactive session and will address any product questions you have. You can sign up for these recurring weekly sessions below:

https://www.echospan.com/qa.asp

Thank you for choosing EchoSpan for your employee feedback and review needs!