Manage topic visibility in Medallia Setup

Reporting > Text Processing > Topic & Theme Tagging > Topic Visibility and Reporting > Text Processing > Topic Sets

Topic visibility settings control which topics are displayed in Medallia Text Analytics reports. Visibility is controlled at the role level.

Note: Roles and users with the Do Anything capability always see all topics, regardless of the topic visibility settings applied.

Properties of the Topic Visibility screen

The Topic Visibility screen allows you to change the visibility default for the entire system.

DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted
Whether topic visibility is restricted by default. This setting is global, so it applies to all topics in all tag pools.

In general, you should not change this setting after completing the Text Analytics implementation. If the program is a simple, straightforward implementation and you expect the program to remain that way, leave this property unselected. Alternatively, if the program is complex (or you anticipate that it will become complex), turn this property on.

In addition to affecting the Topic Visibility screen in setup, this setting also changes the behavior of the Visibility button on the Topics screen. See the sections below for more information.

  • Selected — Topic visibility is restricted by default. Users cannot see a given topic unless explicitly authorized. This option is commonly used for large, complex programs.
  • Not selected — Topic visibility is unrestricted by default. Users can see any topic unless explicitly excluded. This option is commonly used for small and medium-sized programs.
Note: In addition to the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property setting, whether a comment is visible to a user depends on where the topic is accessed and whether the comment is tagged. For non-administrator report users, untagged comments in reports respect your Topic Visibility settings, and users see only the comments for the topics available to their roles. For administrators building rules in Topic Builder, untagged comments appear for topics in that rule's tag pool.

Administrators can filter for untagged comments when building a rule

Additionally in Topic Builder, the number of comments tagged to selected themes includes untagged comments for the topics in that rule's tag pool.

A theme's number of comments includes those that are untagged

MemberViewRoles
When the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is off, moving a role to the right prevents users from viewing the selected topic in reporting.

When the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is on, moving a role to the right authorizes users to view the selected topic in reporting.

Modifying visibility from the Topic Visibility screen when the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is off

If the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is off, keep these rules in mind when you modify the visibility of individual topics:

  • Visibility changes to parent topics do not impact child topics. If you restrict the visibility of a parent topic but not the child topics, the child topics will appear as orphans. In this example, the child topics of Internet remain accessible to Frontline users after visibility to Internet is restricted:

    Before the visibility change, the Internet topic is visible and its child topics (such as Internet - Signal Strength) are located underneath it. After the visibility change, the child topics are visible, but the Internet parent topic is not.

  • Visibility changes to child topics do not impact parent topics. If you restrict the visibility of a child topic, then its parent topic will remain visible. In this example, removing visibility to the Phone - Receiving Calls child topic does not change the visibility of the Phone parent topic.

    Before the visibility change, the Phone - Receiving Calls child topic is visible. After the visibility change, the Phone - Receiving Calls child topic is not visible.

Modifying visibility from the Topic Visibility screen when the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is on

If the DefaultTopicVisibilityRestricted property is on, keep these rules in mind when you modify the visibility of individual topics:

  • Visibility changes to child topics do not impact parent topics. If you make a child topic visible without also granting visibility to the parent topic, the child topic appears in reports as an orphan. In this example, providing visibility to the Contacts - Process child topic does not change the visibility of the Contracts parent topic.

    Before the visibility change, the Contracts - Process child topic is not visible. After the visibility change, the Contracts - Process child topic is visible, but its parent topic (Contracts) is still not visible.

  • Visibility changes to parent topics are not inherited by their child topics. If you make a parent topic visible, its child topics will not be visible unless you explicitly modify the settings of the child topics afterward. In this example, providing visibility to the PAYMENTS topic does not provide visibility to its child topics.

    Before the visibility change, the Payments parent topic is not visible. After the visibility change, Payments is visible, but its child topics are still not visible.

  • When you make visibility changes to a child topic, you can potentially override the visibility settings inherited from the parent topic.

    In this example, the VP role loses access to the child topic (Brand - Competitors) because the user did not add the VP role when modifying the settings of the Brand - Competitors child topic:

    If you make the Brands topic visible to the VP role, Brands and its child topics (e.g. Brand - Competitors) will be visible to the VP role. If you then enable the Insights role to see Brand - Competitors without also adding VP to the list of enabled roles, you will be restricting the VP role's access to that child topic. The VP role will no longer be allow to view Brand - Competitors.

Modifying visibility from the Topics screen

From the Topics screen, the Visibility button opens a window from which you can grant visibility at the role level. In the following example, the CX Lead role is the only role with access to both the PAYMENTS and Payments - Ease Of Payment topics.

The CX Lead role is the only role that is checked, so this role is the only role with access to both the selected topics.

Restriction: To edit visibility from the Topics screen, the user's role must have the Member Edit Roles property enabled.

The only exception to this restriction is for the InternalAdmin role. The Member Edit Roles property does not apply to this role.

To turn on the Member Edit Roles property for a role:

  1. Open the Company > Users > Roles > Role Edit role screen.

  2. Select a role from the left panel.

  3. Locate the Member Edit Roles property and move at least one role into the right-side box.

In the following example, the Text Analytics Topic Builder role is selected and the Member Edit Roles property is enabled for two roles: Corporate and Text Analytics Hotel User. As a result, any user with the Text Analytics Topic Builder role can manage which topics that are visible to those two roles.

An example showing that any user with the Text Analytics Topic Builder role can manage which topics are available to the Corporate and Text Analytics Hotel User roles