About Heatmaps
A heatmap uses shades of colours proportional to the numbers in the cell and is easier for our brains to digest large amounts of data. As heatmaps are a lot more visual than standard analytical reports, they are more accessible, particularly to people who are not used to viewing and analysing large amounts of data.
The heatmap also provides easy comparisons between demographic options to assist with identifying outliers.
Viewing the heatmap
There is a lot of data shown on a heatmap which can be overwhelming. Typically you'll generate heatmaps for an organisational demographic such as Location or Department, however, you can create heatmaps for any demographic. Team Leader heatmaps are a great way to identify managers that are doing well, and managers that could use some help. Age or Gender heatmaps give a view of diversity, and Length of Service heatmaps provide a view on particular groups within the organisation.
To generate a demographic heatmap, navigate to the Heatmap report and select a demographic from the dropdown.
Question types
All question types have a heatmap available (except free-text questions). If one or more of a question type is included to a survey, the applicable sub-report will be available.
On the Agree-Disagree heatmap will group all Questions by Category. Click a Category name to expand and see the Questions included. Or, to view all questions, click Questions on the Categories-Questions toggle.
On the Yes-No heatmap sub-report, the Yes scores will be shown by default. To see the percentage of respondents that selected No, click No on the Yes-No toggle.
Missing demographics
When viewing the demographic heatmap, if a demographic option does not have enough responses to meet the reporting threshold, Missing demographics will appear to inform you what options have been excluded from the heatmap and their respondent count.
Heatmap colours
Best practice data visualisation recommends gradient colours are used on the heatmap charts. Simple gradients were selected for the heatmap to assist with demographic comparisons, and highlighting outliers and patterns.
Demographic filters on the heatmap
You can filter your results by any of the demographic categories included to your survey. This provides greater flexibility when you want to drill deeper into your results.
For example, you may be interested in understand what is happening in your Auckland location by Department.
To do this, click on the Apply filters button at the top of the page and apply a demographic filter of Auckland, then select Department from the Demographic Category dropdown.
Sorting
Both questions and demographics can be sorted alphabetically and by average on the heatmap.
By default, questions/categories are sorted by descending average and demographics alphabetically.
Using a combination of sorting the questions and demographics by highest to lowest scores will group all lowest rating combinations into the bottom right corner to help identify outliers.
Apply filters
The Apply filters functionality can be used to reduce the number of questions shown on the heatmap, or to view questions that apply to a theme (including the People Score).
To apply a filter or select questions:
Select Apply filters (the filter icon at the top of the page).
Select a theme or group of questions/categories.
Select See results.
Once a filter is applied, the button changes to Filters applied.
To clear filters:
Select Filters applied.
Select Clear filters or a new combination of questions to view.
Select See results.
Can't find a theme in your filter list?
If you can't find the theme you want to filter by, it might be due to one of the following reasons:
Survey template
The theme you want to filter by may not be available for the survey template you've used. A survey template is the type of survey you've run. For example, Business, State Sector, Local Government.Not enough questions included
To calculate a robust theme score, we need a minimum amount of questions from that theme to be included in your survey. If you have added less than 50% of the questions available for that theme, it will not display as a filter option.
Exporting the heatmap
To export from the heatmap, apply any demographic and/or question filters then click Export to the right of the legend.
The colour gradient from the Heatmap will flow through to the export, making this ready to copy and paste into a report or presentation.