Some data collected in GideonSoft will be used to compare against a population or subset of people within an Instance; other data may be converted into zScores (‘standard scores’). Statistics is how to achieve this.

 

For example, after a peer review, you may want to report on a person’s attribute rating compared to the ratings of the rest of the people in the same role; so you’d need values for the average and standard deviation of everyone in the role in order to generate a range (normal, expected, middle third, etc).  

 

The high level process in GideonSoft is to create one or more groupings; each grouping includes one or more definitions; and each definition generates statistical values. You can then display those values in reports or include them in a data export.

 

• From the Variable Manager page, filter the list of variables to Scores, or search for the variable you’d like to work with, and open the variable. 
• Expand the ‘Statistics Settings’ section. The total number of statistic definitions (across all groupings) that have been configured will be displayed.
• Click ‘Manage Statistics’ to open the statistics management tools.

 

Statistics Settings

Groupings

 

If any statistics groupings have been configured, they will be displayed. The primary definition will always be shown first.

• Click ‘+New Statistics Grouping’ to add a new grouping (it is not necessary for data to exist in the system before adding a new grouping).
• GideonSoft analyzes the data, and provides recommendations for new definitions. Click Recommendations, select one or more Roles (the number of data points is displayed by each Role) and then ‘Add Selected Groupings’. Each selection creates a grouping. (This is a kind of ‘easy button’ to quickly and easily generate stat values!)

 

You can click on a Role name to view grouping details. From this expanded view, there are several tools available.

 

For the grouping: 

• Recalculate the existing grouping by clicking the blue calculator icon,
• Delete the existing grouping, using the red trash can icon,
• Add a definition to the grouping, using ‘+ Add Definition’.

 

Definitions

 

For each definition, you’ll see the definition label (refers to the score label being referenced), descriptive(s) and whether or not it’s the primary definition. Next to the primary column, there are 3 dots used to access additional actions:

• • Edit Definition … Primary definitions cannot be deleted and cannot contain Descriptive dimensions. They are used in reports as a fallback value when a definition is not specified. The options available:

• General Options

• • • • Auto-naming rules … The name and label can be customized (or automatically generated) to make it easier to identify in reports. The lock icon is yellow and ‘locked’ if auto naming is being used; it is gray and ‘unlocked’ if manual naming is being used.
      • Is this definition active? … When toggled off, no values grid will be generated.
      • Only use active status in calculating statistics … Provides additional filtering; off by default.
      • Export Calculation Method … select from the drop down (one per definition):
        • None
        • Class
        • Existing Population
        • Class Population + Existing Population (Default)
    • Status Filters … Add one or more statuses (one at a time) for refined filtering. You can add tags to the filter as well. You can indicate that it should include historical status assignments, so if a person ever was assigned a certain status, any scores from them would get included.
    • Score Filter … Use this to limit the statistics to only the score values that meet the specified condition. 
      • Select a Score, an operator, and enter an appropriate value threshold(s).
      • This filter is applied to the population calculator as well, using the name or mapped score variable to locate the values.
    • Population Calculator Options … additional filtering includes:
      • Automatically calculate population statistics?
      • # of Instances back to use …Allows the population calculator to limit the historical lookup by count.
      • # of months back to use (i.e. 60 months for last 5 years) … Allows the population calculator to limit the historical lookup by time. For example, for 5 years, the value would be 60.
      • Module Membership Options …Base the population statistics on whether people in historical Instances in this Module match the following membership options. Note: When this is utilized, it is recommended to change the export type to Existing Population. Select a Module; and (optional) Status, Role and Tag.
      • Instance Exclusions … By default, all Instances are included. You can build a list to exclude one or more Instances.
  • Enter Population Stats … see ‘Edit Population Stats’ below.

• Export to CSV …This exports statistical data generated by all score variables designated to be included in statistics to a CSV file.

• Recalculate … to recalculate this definition.

 

Note: Processing the variable data can be resource intensive, so GideonSoft does not process every variable when the processing occurs. Basically, it flags any variables that have changed and recalculates those variables and those associated with, or connected, to them.

 

Each definition also displays a grid with data points generated. 

• The statistic types are listed down the left (Sample Size (n), Average, Median, Standard Deviation), and the sets (Class, Population, Export Preview) are listed across the top. 
• The last 2 rows display ‘Std Dev (±0.5)’ (Suspect/Acceptable), and ‘Std Dev (±1)’ (Criminal/Exceeding). The (+-) portion indicates the values used to add/subtract the standard deviations from average. These values can be overridden at the Module and Organization level.
• The population statistics by default are set to automatically calculate, but you can override the values by clicking on the pencil icon or by choosing ‘Edit Population Stats’ in the menu. 
  • Editing population statistics manually will prevent the statistics from changing when data is modified from the population. 
  • Future population values will be calculated off the export statistic set. This is designed for legacy and offline scenarios where the population data does not exist or has been maintained outside of GideonSoft. 
  • Overriding the Median statistic will result in an empty export preview median unless the export calculation method is set to Population.
  • The Suspect, Criminal, Acceptable and Exceeding values are automatically calculated based on the Average and Standard Deviation values.
  • To revert back to automatically cached values, simply check ‘Automatically calculate population statistics’.

Note: Statistics values are not viewable in Data Points. This definition grid is the only place in GideonSoft to view the values generated by your definitions without taking extra steps. Reports and data exports can include these statistics values.

 

Usage in Reports

By default, statistics displayed in reports use the default primary definition for a score/role grouping. Report designers are prompted with the following options when working with report visualizations (for example, a Bar Chart or 360° Grid):

 

• Statistic Type … options include:
  • Sample Size
  • Average
  • Median
  • Standard Deviation
  • Suspect
  • Criminal
  • Acceptable
  • Exceeding
• Set Type … options include:
  • Population
  • Class
  • Export Population
• Role … ‘Use Report Role(s)’ or select a specific Role.
• Specific Definition … ‘Default Definition’ or select a specific one.

 

See also …

Variable Manager – Manually Creating a Score Variable

Glossary

 

 

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Version(s): GideonSoft 2024 Release 1 and later