Getting the client information right in the Theme Table is important to make report generation really easy. Fortunately in Cascade, it is not too difficult if you follow these steps. There are three parts to the Theme Table page and here we will guide you through each one. From left to right they are;
- The selection criteria
- The names and email addresses of your clients or staff
- The StrengthsFinder themes for each person
Focus first on the names, email addresses and themes. Once this is complete you can add the selection criteria.
Name and Theme Information
There are two main ways to enter the name and theme information. Expand the headings below to discover more.
[expand title=”Type in the names and select each of the themes – easier for a few clients with just their top 5 themes”]
To enter the information manually, just start typing. The spelling of the theme names is critical for the operation of Cascade so you may want to use the drop-down lists of themes.
- The Firstname and Surname columns (G & H) are hopefully self-explanatory. The full name in column E is automatically generated.
- The Email column (I) stores the email address if you want to collectively email groups of people based on their themes.
- The Date column (J) stores the date of taking the Clifton Strengths® assessment. Cascade does not use this information anywhere else.
- The Theme columns (K – AR) store the order of a person’s themes from 1 to 34. In each column select the relevant theme from the drop-down list for that person.
- The Role and Contribution columns (AS & AT) are for the Team Roles page.
- Column AU is a copy of column D that helps the Labels page.
If you have a lot of names and themes to enter, please contact us. We can create the theme listings from a range of PDF reports and Team Grids to drop straight into Cascade.
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[expand title=”Import the information from the Gallup Strengths Center – For teams or larger volumes of clients”]
Best Option
For teams or larger volumes of clients, this will save a lot of time, especially if they have all 34 themes. It requires their codes to be managed through your Gallup’s Strengths Center account.
If you purchase the Clifton Strengths codes from the Gallup Strengths Center the results are available in your account. Using the export file, the contents can be directly copied and pasted into Cascade. This is by far the most accurate and easiest way to import information for several clients and will save a lot of typing. There are three parts to importing the information.
- Export the file from the Gallup Strengths Center
- Copy and Paste the information into Cascade
- Run the Reset Formatting process to clean up the page.
Gallup Strengths Center Export File
- Login to www.gallupstrengthscenter.com
- Under My Account, select Code Management.
- If given the option, choose Clifton Strengths.
- Select the name of the group to import to Cascade.
- Click on Export Strengths and save the Excel spreadsheet to your computer.
- Open the saved spreadsheet.
- Highlight the names and themes from cell A4 to the right-hand end of the last line, then select Copy (Ctrl+C).
- Switch to your Cascade spreadsheet, selecting the Theme Table page.
- Position the cursor to first available row and column G.
- Right-click and select the Paste icon or use Ctrl+V.
- Sometimes when pasting data from another spreadsheet the cells can inherit a locked state or the formatting is jumbled up. Click on the Reset Formatting button to release the locks and enable editing.
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Depending on the information available, there are other ways to collect the themes for each person. See the support article on ways to enter client themes.
Selection Criteria
The columns A-D are really important as your client base builds. The Team page uses these columns to select the clients to display. Think about how you distinguish between your clients to create relevant headings for the columns. They could be for the organisation, department, location, management level, a workshop session, cohort or their team.
Populate the columns with the information for each person. As you work with different organisations, you can use the organisation name to quickly select clients from that company.
It is not possible to perform any of the selections on the Theme Table page, this happens on the Team page.
We recommend collating all your clients into one copy of Cascade for easier management. The standard version of Cascade accommodates up to 500 clients where the Go Large add-on module expands this up to 2000.
Checking for Errors
Occasionally mistakes do slip in and Cascade can help to identify issues at this early stage.
The Theme Count column (F) shows the number of themes entered for each person. Looking at the numbers, it is easy to identify if a theme is missing. In the screenshot above the first theme is missing for Paige Turner.
Column F will show the word ‘Duplicate’ in red if a theme is specified twice for the same person. In the screenshot, the Relator theme is shown twice for Bill Payer.
Reset Formatting
After pasting in information or if the calculations for the Name or Theme Count columns get overwritten, there is an easy way to restore the page. The ‘Reset Formatting’ button refreshes all the calculations and resets the font and size for each of the rows. It is also worth clicking on the Refresh Page button on the Team page to accommodate any new clients.
Editing Information
To remove the contents of a row, highlight the cells and press Delete (or Right click, followed by Clear Contents). It is not possible to delete the Excel rows as this with throw out the calculations on the Team page. It doesn’t matter about the order of the names or if there is a blank row. This is just the collection of information for the other pages to reference and display.
If you want to structure the names so they are in a logical order, use the A/Z buttons to sort the names. After sorting, you will need to run the Refresh Page process on the Team page to display the correct names.
Bonus Feature
When printing name labels or lanyards in Cascade, it is now possible to include a team name on the label. This is helpful in workshops where you want to divide the participants into teams. Alternatively, in an organisation, you may want to show the person’s department.
In the Selection Criteria described above, use column D for the team, department or any other aspect. On the Labels page under the Label Format, select Yes for Add Team Name. This will include the name of the team in the footer of the label. The Team page also shows column D on the grid so you can see who is on each team.
This feature is only available with the Bonus Pack.
