The C16-4 Release offers you two choices: You take the blue pill - your Centercode implementation gets updated with Matrix Elements, Stacked Rank Elements, and data engine functionality to support it. You take the red pill - well, they’re the same. It turns out the pills were Fruit Gushers and this is a feature-rich product release for Centercode!

new features 

✨ New Features ✨ 

Jack into Matrix Elements

Determining the best way to collect customer feedback on a survey or profile form can be a daunting ask. To better support the whole gamut of methods out there, Centercode now supports Matrix Elements. A question matrix is a common method of presenting multiple topics to collect sentiment responses. It’s usually considered a “single” highly structured survey element despite actually being multiple questions piled into one. 

Matrix Elements come as a dedicated element type in the Form Engine, giving you a full set of configuration options. You’ll set the Choices (column labels which default to 1 - 5) as well as the Items being rated (the rows); making configuring a Matrix Element flexible and intuitive. Like all our similar form elements, Choices and Items also allow for a front-end Label and internal Value so you can present something tester-facing on the form, but report the results in a language your stakeholders, data analysts, or integrated tools can easily understand. 

Important Notes:

• Don’t forget to update your Question Banks with some Matrix Element defaults for your surveys. Make sure folks are using accepted formatting or just give yourself a shortcut to dropping matrices in your forms!
• There may or may not be a spoon.

Top the Charts with Stacked Rank

As is the case with Matrix Elements, the visual presentation of a question can significantly influence the responses you get from your testers. In order to facilitate the most appropriate response from your respondents, Centercode has implemented a new Stacked Rank element type. This element uses an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that automatically randomizes the listed items and requires interaction to ensure you’re capturing the respondent’s prioritized list (and not lazy non- or half-answers).

Technically, I can’t submit my response as-is, but I’m sure you’d agree with that one at the top. ;)

We’ve taken the liberty of enforcing randomization in the source column because many administrators forget how seeding a response set can skew your data. By requiring the respondent to actively move items from one column to another, we’re ensuring they aren’t being lazy about their selections - they can’t just leave them there and still submit a response. Finally, the new Stacked Rank element is mobile-responsive (oriented vertically instead of side-by-side) meaning they can rank stuff on the go! 

Important Notes:

• With too many items to order, respondents typically only focus on tops and bottoms, meaning your “middle” rankings blur together, quickly losing their value. Avoid having more than about 7 items per stack.
• Easy prioritization is a HUUUUUGE time- and effort-saver. Now your testers can rank features, product concepts, their own priorities or interests, and their favorite jelly bean flavors.
• Don’t forget that we’ve built tools that automagically prioritize Feedback (issues, ideas, etc.), too!

New Question Types = Data Hypes

Are you ready for your new Element Types!? We sure are! 

Data collection for Matrix and Stacked Rank questions requires the Centercode platform to look at rating scales in a whole new way. Each Matrix and Stacked Rank element you create corresponds to multiple Rating Scale elements behind the scenes, meaning that a 5x5 matrix or 5-item stack is actually five independent rating scales magically stitched together in the UI. To facilitate easier data visibility and reporting, Filter and View interfaces will group corresponding Matrix or Stack items together under an appropriate heading:

In addition, the Reporting Engine includes a new Report Element Style which shows dynamically whenever you’ve selected items contained within the same Matrix or Stacked Rank Element. 

But wait! There’s more! When generating a new Macro Report, your Matrix and Stacked Rank Elements are automatically detected and the new style (shown below) will be available and selected by default. 

Also, note that since Matrices and Stacks consist of multiple Rating Scales, the Rating Scale option is still available when selecting individual data items.

Puttin’ On Our Marigolds

While some team members are plugging away at developing these incredible new features, others are ensuring that the existing platform components and capabilities perform to the highest standard and continually receive modernization adjustments. 

• Interface and Experience - Nathan’s developed rugged calluses on his hands from all the UI scrubbing. Interface performance and consistency continues to improve, and he’s lookin’ buff.
• URL Security - as a part of our ongoing security reviews, we've added even more protections against Cross Site Scripting attacks. 
• Platform Scaling - we’ve removed another speed-bump to implementing auto-scaling!

fixes 

🐞 Bug Fixes 🐞

The 16-4 release doesn’t have a specific list of bug fixes, but we’ve released seven patches since C16-3 in June. The list below provides customer-submitted bugs and minor feature improvements we’ve deployed since then.

Improvements / Feature Changes

• A new icon has been added signifying toggling from Simple and Advanced View in Feedback Management
• Feedback Workflows and Advanced Destination settings will now be included when using Copy Access while creating a new team

Access Control

• Users on an "Internal Member" level team can now access files appropriately within archived projects
• Non-admin accounts can no longer access Archived Projects even when following direct links
• Teams can no longer have their Team Type settings adjusted after initial creation process (preventing dangerously misconfigured Teams)

Filters & Views

• The "Submitter Assigned Test Platform" data engine criteria will once again return results as expected
• Filters containing Completed or Answered states of Paragraph Text elements will once again return appropriate results
• Corrected a partial fix for "Answered=Yes" Filter/View criteria in both User and Feedback management

Form Engine

• Paragraph form elements set as Conditional now display properly when maximized or minimized via tester-facing text editor
• Form element choices that contain specific international characters will now submit properly without error
• Modifying a form containing certain special characters no longer results in a bomb error in areas like Surveys, Workflow, Test Platforms, etc.

Integrations

• JIRA External Destinations failing with "The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel" error now work as expected

Reporting

• Existing Report Elements using the "Answered = Yes" filter criteria targeting Paragraph text will now see proper results once they’ve been refreshed
• Paragraph textual form elements will once again match "Answered = Yes" correctly

User Interface

• User Summary links to containing Projects will now link to the matching Project User Summary page instead of Project Homepage
• A new icon was implemented for the Simple List toggle and returning to Simple List from Feedback view
• Email Template Preview viewed in-site more accurately matches the actual results observed when creating and receiving the email

WYSIWYG

• Note from Development regarding the Tester-Facing Text Editor:
  In an effort to protect you, your testers, and your site from nefarious activity (ex: XSS, CSRF, etc.) even if unintentional, the end-user WYSIWYG formatting capabilities are limited. We've had some clever testers attempt to paste HTML formatted copy from other sites, and it didn't go well. We now automatically paste plain text, which is much safer but will require manual formatting.
  It's important to note that this change only affects the Tester-Facing editor - We continue to allow admins (in admin-only areas like Content, Element Descriptions, etc.) to do weird stuff.
• The Link functionality seen when adding or modifying the description of a Text Entry form element no longer shows unintended settings

Miscellaneous / Performance

• Resolved occasional error for Feedback Roles page submission
• Some static text in Feedback Reply Notification emails have been converted to strings, allowing them to be edited or localized
• File Uploads with certain special characters will now properly complete and download