Helicopter View - Grid Functionality

The system displays the selected grid with employee icons that correspond with the selected User Criteria, Date Criteria, Filters, and Color Code. The cells are labeled in accordance with the selected grid, and the employees are displayed within the cell that matches their metric ratings. If the number of users that are plotted in a grid cell exceeds the maximum number of visible employees, the system displays navigation arrows within the cell, allowing the user to scroll up and down through the employees contained within the cell.

Note: Changes that are saved on this page do NOT impact ratings within succession tasks. To report on the most recent changes to an SMP metric field from the Helicopter View, Succession Snapshot, or Succession Task, create a custom Succession report. Ratings that are associated with the Task Name of "Current" represent the most recently saved ratings from any of all possible methods of updating succession ratings.

To access the Helicopter View page, go to Succession > Helicopter View.

When a user clicks the title of a cell, an employee selector pop-up displays all employees within the cell in alphabetical order by last name. The employee selector displays each employee's photo, name, and position, as well as a View Details button. Click the View Details button to open a detailed view of the employee. See Helicopter View - Employee Detailed View.

When a user hovers the cursor over an employee icon within the grid, an employee selector pop-up displays an overview of the employee, including the employee's photo, name, and position. The pop-up also displays the following information:

  • The metric rating titles and values used to plot the employee's grid position. Note: An employee must have a rating for the specified metric for the progress bars to appear. The colors associated with the progress values are configurable for the metric rating scale in SMP Custom Field Administration.
  • The date on which the metric ratings were last updated (either through an update via My Team or an SMP task that is accessible by the manager).
  • The user that last updated the employee's succession ratings or grid placements.
  • Succession Log - Select this link to view a log of succession-related comments that have been added for the user from various locations in the system. See Succession Log.
  • View Details - Select this button to open a detailed view of the employee. See Helicopter View - Employee Detailed View.
  • Update Underlying Ratings - This option is available when calibrating the user's succession task ratings from the Helicopter View. See the Calibrate Succession Task Ratings from Grid section below for additional information.

Calibrate Evergreen Ratings from Grid

From the Helicopter View, users can change an employee's position within the metric grid by dragging and dropping the employee's icon to the desired grid cell. After an employee's icon is moved, the icon has an asterisk to the left of it to indicate that it has been moved.

Click Save to save all employee position adjustments. All grid placements are committed and the asterisks remain to denote that the user has been repositioned. The updated grid placements are used in all reports that use the most recent metrics.

Note: Changes that are saved on this page do NOT impact ratings within succession tasks. To report on the most recent changes to an SMP metric field from the Helicopter View, Succession Snapshot, or Succession Task, create a custom Succession report. Ratings that are associated with the Task Name of "Current" represent the most recently saved ratings from any of all possible methods of updating succession ratings.

Click the Reset Rankings icon to revert all employees to their original grid placements. This applies even if an employee has been repositioned and the new position has been saved. Once the original grid placements are reset, the asterisks are removed.

Calibrate Succession Task Ratings from Grid

To calibrate a user's succession task ratings from the Helicopter View, follow these steps:

  1. From the Data Source filter, select the appropriate succession task. The filter only includes active, non-expired succession tasks that are available to you and are configured to allow users to calibrate the task ratings from the Helicopter View.
  2. Set other filters, as needed.
  3. Drag and drop the target user to the desired grid cell. After the user's icon is moved, the icon displays an asterisk to indicate that the user's grid position has changed, but the underlying ratings associated with the grid position have not been saved.
  4. Select the icon with the asterisk to view an overview of the user.

  1. Within the pop-up, select the Update Underlying Ratings button to refine and save the user's succession ratings. This opens the Refine Underlying Metrics pop-up. Note: This button is only available when calibrating succession task ratings, and it is not available when calibrating Evergreen ratings.

  1. If the selected grid placement represents a range of succession ratings, it is necessary to refine the underlying ratings. To do this, select the appropriate rating for the X Axis and the Y Axis. If one of the ratings is configured to be read-only for the succession task, then that rating cannot be modified.
  2. After making the appropriate changes, select the OK button in the pop-up.
  3. Select the Save button at the bottom of the Helicopter View page to save the calibrated ratings. After the calibrated ratings are saved, the asterisks are removed from the user's icon. If one or more of the ratings cannot be updated, the asterisk remains, and the new calculated grid value is based off the non-updated and updated X/Y combination. For example, if the x-axis is an editable succession rating, but the y-axis is a read-only performance review score, then the y-axis value cannot be overwritten. If a user is moved from grid position 2x2 to 1x1, then the x-axis value will be updated to 1, but the y-axis value remains at 2, which results in an updated position of 1x2.

The updated ratings are applied back to the succession task to update the user's grid placements and underlying ratings. When an administrator views the results of the succession task or reports on succession task ratings, they will see the updated ratings, not the original ratings from the task.