Entscheidungsnavi v8.0

 

Entscheidungsnavi v8.0

Just in time for the start of the semester, we are able to provide a variety of new functions with version 8.0. In addition to various convenience features that allow all decision navigator users to work on their projects more easily and worry-free, there is also a wealth of new features for experienced users.

Registered users can now enjoy an automatic save function (cloud icon in the header) with version history for their online projects. For this purpose, backups of the current project are automatically created at short intervals when the user makes changes. These conveniently grouped backups can be viewed and restored via the version history, making data loss virtually impossible.

The example targets, which were already expanded with version 7.5, were again greatly expanded over the summer and can now be found under the name "Examples and Suggestions". As the name suggests, the function offers curated target suggestions in addition to ready-made objective hierarchies of past projects. These target suggestions are particularly useful for checking the completeness of the target system, but also provide helpful tips on measurement scales and indicators in the comments.

Advanced users can look forward to new functions, extended analysis options and detail improvements. The new idea pool (Issue Raising) can be called up via the header and allows the user to record all ideas at any time, initially in unordered form. Using a built-in sorting function, the captured thoughts can be sorted to the steps that fit the content and, if desired, can also be adopted directly as assumptions, objectives, alternatives, etc. This is particularly useful in the context of professional development. This is particularly useful in the Professional version at the beginning of a project.

The new risk analysis enables the user to check how the various uncertainties affect the utility of the alternatives. It is now also possible to combine influence factors in one or more scenario factors in order to map more complex uncertainties. In this case, dependencies between the influence factors are modeled by so-called cross-impacts.

The range of functions of the indicator scales has been extended by a verbal description option. The numerically defined indicators can now be described in more detail by so-called verbal dimensions. Users can then also use these verbal dimensions to enter the indicator expression. For this purpose, drop-downs with the predefined proficiency levels of the verbal dimensions are presented to the user, as with the verbal scales, which are converted or aggregated by the Entscheidungsnavi into the corresponding numerical values.

In the course of scale creation, it is now also possible to describe the different levels of the verbal and numerical scales with longer texts, which are also displayed when entering an explicit trade-off in the fifth step to facilitate the entry of the trade-off.

In the Professional variant, it is now possible to hide the decision statement on the Structuring and Estimating page in order to direct the focus to the essentials when working with the project for a longer period of time. In addition, alternatives can also be duplicated directly in the consequences table to enable faster processing of similar alternatives.

Everything is rounded off by two visual changes. First, the display of the status of trade-offs on the objective weights overview page has been improved. An intuitive coloring supported by icons is now used for this purpose, nudging the user to perform the trade-offs in order to achieve the best possible decision quality. In addition, the functions of the consequences table have been transferred to a hover menu to provide a better overview of the large amount of information.