Element Configuration allows you to adjust your ITONICS Cloud platform to your Organization's needs by defining what your content should look like.
Note that the Element Configuration feature is part of our Professional offering. It is not available out of the box and needs to be enabled for your Organization. Contact us at support@itonics.io to trial the feature!
Relevant Terms
- Element Type: Elements are the basic building blocks of the content in ITONICS. And Elements can be of different types - they can be Trends, Technologies, Projects, or Companies, for example. Depending on an Element's type, different information is relevant and will be shown.
- Property: A Property is a piece of information that belongs to an Element. For example its title or summary, but also rating criteria or dropdowns that describe the Element.
- Property Type: Each Property has a certain type which - analogous to an Element's type - will decide how that Property is shown and what kind of information it contains. Examples are rich text fields, dropdowns, or rating criteria.
- Group: Element configuration enables you to group Properties into logical units that will be shown together. There are different kinds of groups that change how the group will be displayed and that might impact what type of Properties can be placed within.
- Blueprint Element Types: ITONICS comes with a set of predefined Element Types such as Trends, Technologies, or Inspirations. We also provide content of those types in the ITONICS Showroom.
Where to configure what?
All configuration happens in the settings section of ITONICS. It's important to understand that some parts of the Element configuration happens for the entire Organization, providing bits and pieces that can then be used to configure Elements on the Workspace-level.
On the Organization-level, you will do the following:
- Create custom Properties beyond the ones ITONICS provides.
- Create and configure custom element types beyond the blueprints ITONICS provides.
Note that you are not able to change the blueprint element types for the entire Organization, you can do so for every Workspace individually, though!
For more information, see the following article: Organization Element Configuration
On the Workspace-level, you have the possibility to do the following for the current Workspace:
- Further configure the custom Element Types created for the Organization.
- Customize the blueprint Element Types provided by ITONICS.
Note that you are cannot create Properties for an individual Workspace, but only use Properties created for the Organization.
For more information, see the following article: Workspace Element Configuration
💡 General Tips for Element Configuration
Don't make it too complicated: Try to reduce the total number of Properties you add to an Element Type as much as possible. This makes it easier for users to consume the content. Especially when it comes to textual Properties, consider only using a single rich-text property that
Keep rating criteria few & consistent: Don't add too many rating criteria to make it easier and more engaging for collaborators in the tool. Also, it helps to keep the criteria consistent with regard to the number and values of the different options.
Don't enable multiple values for Radar segmentations: If you want to create a property that can be used as a segmentation for the Radar visualization, types Dropdown and Hierarchical Dropdown are likely candidates. Just make sure not to enable the option "Allow Multiple Values", as the Radar can only use Properties that have single values assigned.
Go for a common base and add specifics on top: If you have multiple Workspaces that need slightly different looking Elements of a type, start off with defining the Element Type using the common Properties needed everywhere for the entire Organization, and then go into the Workspaces' settings and add Properties to the Element Type that are specific only to the respective Workspaces.
Re-use Properties for multiple Element Types: Try not to create multiple Properties that are very similar for different Element Types. Rather think of a way to combine those Properties into one - this will keep your system clean, and allow you to create visualizations with Elements of multiple Element Types, using those Properties.
Use the ITONICS blueprints as much as possible: ITONICS offers you free content through the ITONICS Showroom (Trends, Technologies, Risks, and Inspirations). If you are interested in that content, avoid creating custom types, but instead customize the ITONICS blueprints for your Workspaces. This way, you will be able to use the ITONICS content next to your own, displaying them together in visualizations!