The timeline is positioned at the top of the MEE home page and displays the What's Happening Timeline events configured for the selected assignment. When an event icon is clicked on, event details are displayed in a modal based on the What's Happening Timeline events configuration.
The modal appears on screen with details about the event or events if there are more than one for the same date. The contents of this modal can is configurable. Some dates are configured to navigate the user to a different screen that provides more details about the date, e.g. a Service card, a page within the MEE or an external URL. For more details click on the More Information link.
What's Happening Events
The What's Happening Events screen allows date events to be set up to be shown on horizontal timeline on the assignment home page. This page can be accessed in one of two ways. Using the Configuration Search tool or by clicking on the What’s Happening Configuration hyperlink using the under the Advanced Settings section in the Portal Configuration screen.
Viewing Existing Date Events
The majority of the events shown in the timeline are shown based on dates associated with employees’ upcoming or past assignments/relocations.
The icon that appears on the timeline and the contents of the modal that appears when the icon is clicked are populated by the What’s Happening Timeline events card. A default list of dates ships with the Equus Platform is available in the Appendix, “What’s Happening Configuration” .
If there is an icon that appears on the timeline, this can be changed by finding the relevant Event on the What’s Happening Events screen. The screen is organized by the Equus Platform screen names associated with Services.
They are:
From the What’s Happening Events screen, four (4) actions can be used to change what is and is not visible on the Timeline.
– Edits the details about a date event on the timeline. Click the pencil icon to display the What’s Happening Event Details screen. See the next section for details.
– Identifies whether the date event is visible or not to the employee on their timeline. This action may also be performed on the What’s Happening Events Details screen.
– Deletes the date event from the from the configuration screen and no longer shows the date in the list of date events. This also deletes the date event from the employee’s timeline.
When the pencil icon is clicked, the What's Happening Event Details are shown.
Each date event on the What’s Happening timeline can have its details changed using the What's Happening Event Details screen, which is used to edit captions, add conditions that will determine when date event shows, as well as specify merge fields to display assignment information and its behavior when the More Information is clicked on the modal.
An example of the Cultural Training Date Event which relating to the event shown in the first two screenshots above. Click
after making any changes on the screen.
Adding a New Date Event
There may be multiple events with the same name and the same icon under each category. To identify which event requires changing it is recommended that each one is viewed to find the event that is related to what is displayed by checking details in particularly the conditions that govern when the even appears on the timeline. If one cannot be found, a new date event can be added to the timeline.
Click the
button:
This opens the New Event modal.
In the Date Field, type the first few letters of the desired date field name. A list of matching date fields will display.
To search for custom fields, search for the caption given to the field when the custom field was set up.
To search for fields that had their captions overridden, search for the caption that shipped with the Equus Platform.
Select the date field from the list. The Caption field will populate with the field caption name from the system. This can be changed to anything the user would like to that best provides the employee with the most valuable information. (e.g. Scheduled End Date could be updated to display “Last Day of Assignment” instead of “Assignment – Scheduled End Date”.)
What's Happening Events Details
Each date event on the What’s Happening timeline can have its details changed using the What's Happening Event Details screen, which is used to edit captions, add conditions that will determine when date event shows, as well as specify merge fields to display assignment information.
Here are the fields that can be populated:
Visible - Identifies whether the date event field is visible or invisible to the Employee on the timeline. When the box is checked, the date event field will be visible on the employee's timeline. When unchecked, this field will not be visible to the employee.
Date Field - The name of the date field from the database. This cannot be edited on this screen.
Caption – The name of the field as shown to the employee on the What’s Happening timeline. This defaults to the field caption name, but can be edited to display the date according to an organization’s preferences (e.g. Field = Start Date, Caption = Training - Start Date).
Description – A description of the date event. This can include but is not limited to merge codes, free-form text, or additional hyperlinks.
Display Date – Identifies when the date event displays on the What’s Happening timeline. Date events can be set up to display before or after the actual assignment date. This can be set to days, weeks, or months.
Event Link to: Indicates the date has a hyperlink associated with it. The hyperlink can be to one of three places:
Service – The details screen associated with an individual Benefit/Service. To specify, select a Benefit/service name from the choice list.
Screen – A portal screen that is not a Benefit/Service screen. To specify, select an option from the choice list.
URL– An external hyperlink that the employee can use to access additional information about that particular date event. Enter this including the protocol (e.g., http://). e.g. http://www.equusoft.com.
Conditions
Conditions may be specified to govern whether the date event displays in the employee’s timeline. Click the
button to display a row of condition criteria:
Delete – Deletes the condition when the Save button is clicked.
Order – Identifies the sequence in which the conditions are evaluated. This allows for rearranging the conditions without deleting and re-adding rows.
( or ) – Identifies the priority in which the conditions are evaluated. One or more conditions enclosed in parentheses will be evaluated before conditions that aren’t included in parentheses. Every open parenthesis must have a corresponding closed parenthesis.
Field – The field containing the value that is being evaluated in the condition. Type a few characters to display a list of tables and fields.
Comparison – Contains the evaluation of the condition. (e.g. Is Equal To, Is Blank, is greater than, contains.)
Value – The value used for evaluation in the condition. (e.g. Field = Assignment ID, Comparison = Is Equal To, Value = 118213). This example will only show the date on the employee's timeline if the Assignment ID is equal to 118213. If it doesn't, it will not show.
And/Or – Identifies whether two or more condition rows must both be true in order for the date event to show <And>, or only one must be true in order for the date event to show <Or>.
Merge Fields
Click the
button to display a list of merge fields that can be copied and pasted into a date field’s caption or description. The list displayed on the What’s Happening Event Details screen is restricted to those that are in the same table as the date event field.
To copy a merge code:
Hover over and click the merge field’s caption. The field’s merge caption displays, the row highlights, and the Copy button displays to the right.
Click the Copy
Place the mouse cursor where the merge code is to be pasted (e.g., in the description or the caption of the date event)
Right-click and select Paste, or press [Ctrl-V] on the keyboard. The merge code is pasted where the cursor is displayed.
The fields and their merge codes can be downloaded as a separate file by clicking the Merge Data Fields Documentation hyperlink.
In order to use a merge field that does not reside in the same table as the date event field, at least one field from that other table must be added as a Condition for the date event field.
For example: The Timeline administrator wishes to show the Temporary Housing Needs Assessment Estimated Start Date and Number Of Days in the description for the Temporary Housing Start Date.
Do this by adding any sort of “dummy” condition, such as (“Estimated Start Date is Blank” OR “Estimated Start Date is Not Blank”). NOTE: You will need to add a separate date event from the other table (Temporary Housing Needs Assessment in the example above) in order to see and copy the merge fields. If not using that other date event, just delete it when you are finished copying the merge fields.