Segment overlap

Background

In certain organizations, the user structure can be well-known to the managers that are utilizing the Eletive tool. In those cases, the admin can activate "Segment overlap" to prevent the comparison of results over multiple segments.

By setting a segment overlap threshold, the segment report will effectively hide survey answers for identified segment overlaps that contain fewer users than the configured threshold. This means that the answers from the overlapping users, which include both 1-5 questions and comments, will be excluded from one of the overlapping segments. This can in some cases create scenarios where entire segment reports will be hidden.

This way a user whose identity is at risk of being revealed will not be shown to their manager or other stakeholder that analyzes the survey reports.

Common overlapping scenarios

Here are typical scenarios involving segment overlap, along with the resulting impact based on the configured Segment overlap threshold.

Full segment overlap (Smaller segment report is hidden)

If all employees in a segment also belong to another segment, except for 1 employee – all answers can be hidden in the smaller segment report.

For example, in Employment type Blue Collar you have 10 employees. All of these, except 1 employee, also belong to Gender Male:

If segment overlap is “Off”: you will see a full result in both segment reports. No data is hidden.
If segment overlap setting is set to “1”: you will see a full result of the Blue Collar report.
But the Gender report will not be visible as there's a full segment overlap and this segment is the smallest of the concerned segments.
If segment overlap setting is set to “2”: you will have the same result as Segment overlap set to "1". But now also include scenarios when 2 users are overlapping, i.e., the smallest of the overlapping segments will not be visible.

User type attributes (Direct report is hidden)

For user type attributes, managers get access to a Direct and All report, containing direct and indirect employees respectively. Read more about this here.
Your configured Segment overlap will affect these reports, the direct report can be completely hidden based on your setting of Segment overlap.

For example, in a manager's direct report, there are 8 users, and in the All report have 10 users.

If segment overlap is "Off": the manager can see both reports. No data is hidden.
If segment overlap is set to "2" (or higher), the manager will only be able to see the All report, i.e. the Direct report will be hidden.

Partial segment overlap (Larger segment report(s) have hidden answers)

If you have 2 segments where some employees belong to both - the larger segment report can have hidden data depending on your setting of Segment overlap.

For example, in your Segment A you have 10 employees, only 1 belongs to Segment B.

If segment overlap is “Off”: you can see both segment reports, A and B.
If segment overlap setting is set to “1” (or higher) you will only be able to see the result in Segment A, if this segment is smaller than the Segment B report, i.e. Segment B report will have hidden data.

If a Manager has 5 people in their Direct report - where 1 employee belongs to Location A and the remaining 4 belong to Location B, reports can have hidden data based on your setting of Segment overlap.

If segment overlap is "Off": you can see all three reports, without any hidden data.
If segment overlap is set to "1": you will only be able to see the full result on Manager Direct and Location B reports, the Location A report will have hidden data.
If segment overlap is set to "4" (or more): you will only be able to see the full report for the Manager Direct report, the Location A and Location B reports will have hidden data.

Reducing the number of segments with hidden data

Employees often belong to multiple segment reports. In cases like this, we won’t always hide the largest segment report as the logic normally would as described above. Instead, when there are overlapping segments, the logic will hide the report that best addresses all overlaps, regardless of the segment size.

Meaning that the logic also tries to reduce the number of segments that have hidden data. This means that if an entire report can be hidden, it will be fully hidden rather than hiding data across multiple segments. This applies even if the hidden report is the smallest segment among those involved.

In the example below, segment B is completely hidden, instead of hiding data in A, C, and D, even if they are the larger segments. This way fewer segments have hidden data.

Notes: Reports are still shown based on the minimum segment size being fulfilled, this means that for aggregated reports it's still possible to see reports even if the participation for the latest survey is not fulfilled as it spans all surveys within the aggregation period.

The users type attribute has precedence over other attribute types (choice, date, and number type attributes). This means if there are segment overlaps between segments with different types, the users type segment is prioritized to be kept intact. This means that data will be hidden in the other overlapping segment as it is of a different attribute type.

Configuring Segment overlap

Segment overlap is set to "Off" by default. This setting is configured under:
Settings / General
Select your preferred Segment overlap and press "Save".

Interpreting hidden reports

In Segment reports

If a segment report has hidden answers, a badge at the top of the segment report informs that results have been excluded.

The entire report (excluding the participation rate section) will not include the overlapping users' answers. For example, if 1 employee's data has been hidden in a report, the question distribution can show a total of N-1 answers, while the participation rate still shows N participants.

In the Heatmap

In the heatmap, there's a symbol highlighting whether a report has hidden data.