Creating a population

Populations are sets of workers grouped by common attribute or attributes. They are created for the purpose of performing a specific function, such as implementing a process, sending a notification, or applying a rule.

In practice, a population is used wherever the platform needs to identify which workers a given function applies to. For example, in Compensation Management, a population determines who is included in a compensation round’s salary and/or bonus planning; in Performance Management, it defines who is invited to a review cycle. Populations can also be used to scope a snapshot or a worker category.

A population can either include everybody in your organization or be built around custom criteria.

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Populations are available under Workbench > Data Management > User Segmentation > Populations. Access to Workbench depends on your role within the platform. This feature is available for users with the Data Modeler Admin professional role.

Step 1 - Basic information

To create a population, proceed as follows:

1. Click Create population in the upper-right part of the Populations page. The population creation form opens at the first step, Basic information:

   

   Basic information step of the population creation form

2. Fill in the details:

   • Enter a name for the new population in the Name field.

   • Enter a description for the population in the Description field. We recommend that you statethe purpose of the population in this field to avoid any confusion if you are creating several populations in your system.

3. Click Next in the progress widget to move to the next step of the creation process: Population criteria.

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Click Save & exit in the upper-right corner of the application to simply save your changes and finish the creation later on.

Step 2 - Population criteria

Once you have entered the basic information for the population, you need to configure its criteria, i.e., the rule or rules that determine which workers are included.

To set the criteria, proceed as follows:

1. Using the radio buttons, choose the population scope:

   • Include everybody – this option creates a population out of all the workers in your organization. There is no need to set any further criteria.

   • Custom criteria – this option lets you create one or more rules that determine who is included in this population.

2. If you selected Custom criteria, go to the Define custom criteria section and click Add block to add your first criteria block, as illustrated in the figure below:

   

   Custom criterion defined for a population

   You can add up to 25 criteria blocks per population.

3. In the block, toggle ANY or ALL to decide whether a worker must meet any or all of the block's conditions to be included.

4. Configure the condition:

   • Select an Entity from the drop-down list. Besides standard Data Foundation entities such as Worker and Employment, the list also includes compensation elements and worker-linked custom entities configured for your environment.

   • Select a Field from the drop-down list. The fields available depend on the entity you selected.

   • Select an Operator. Then, enter the corresponding Value. Depending on the field's data type, the Value input can be a simple text or number, or it can open a searchable dropdown listing all of the field's possible values, for example currencies.

     For fields that reference a hierarchical structure, such as an organization, clicking below Value opens the following pop-up window, displaying the parent-child relationships between values:

     

     Item selection pop-up

     Each row shows the value's name and ID, an arrow to expand or collapse its children, and its level in the hierarchy (L0, L1, L2, and so on); parent rows also indicate how many direct and indirect children they have. Select one or more rows using their checkboxes; selecting a parent automatically selects all of its descendants, and a parent whose descendants are only partially selected is shown with a dash instead of a checkmark.

     Hovering over a row also reveals more precise actions: select node only selects just that value on its own, independently of its children, while select all direct children and select all indirect children select, respectively, only its immediate children or all of its nested descendants further down the hierarchy, without necessarily selecting the value itself. Once a value has been selected on its own, these links change to unselect node only, unselect all direct children, and unselect all indirect children. Also, a Parent selected label appears next to the row to indicate that the value itself, and not just its descendants, is part of your selection.

     Use the Search bar to filter rows by name, or Select all and Deselect all to select or clear every row at once. Click Show selected to open the summary panel listing everything you have selected so far, as presented in the image below:

     

     Selected items summary panel

     There, the Total tile shows the number of all selected items, while the Parent selected tile specifies how many of your selections are parent values selected on their own rather than through a descendant. In the panel, you can search for items using the Search bar, filter the list by level or by whether an item's parent is also selected, and remove any item individually by clicking the X icon next to it. To go back to the selection pop-up, click Close in the top-right corner of the summary panel. In the pop-up, click Apply to confirm your selection.

5. Click Add condition to add more conditions to the same block, or click the X icon next to a condition to remove it.

6. Click Add block to add another criteria block to your population. You can copy an existing block by clicking the icon, or remove it entirely by clicking the icon, both located in the upper-right corner of the block.

7. Click Next in the progress widget to move to the next step of the creation process: Preview.

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Click Save & exit in the upper-right corner of the application to simply save your changes and finish the creation later on.

Step 3 - Preview

After configuring your population, you need to select an effective date to preview it. This step is for visualization purposes only: no effective date is stored as part of the population's configuration, and the number of workers returned may change over time as your data changes.

1. Choose a date from the Effective date calendar, as illustrated in the following picture:

   

   Previewing the configured population

2. Review the number of workers visible in the Workers tile. This shows how many workers would be included in the population if it were evaluated as of the selected date.

3. Click Publish to finish the process and close the creation form. The population's status changes to Ready, and it becomes available for use wherever populations are selected across the platform.

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Click Save & exit in the upper-right corner of the application to simply save your changes and finish the creation later on.

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For more information about viewing, editing, duplicating, or deactivating a population once it has been created, see Managing populations.