Category: Cleanup Service

Relates to the PI Data Cleanup Service

PI2 Upgrade Preparation Options

Believable Magic has been receiving inquiries from PI Network Partners and Customers to determine which of the tasks associated with upgrading to PI2 we can help with.

Here is our analysis of the Software upgrade support guide provided by The Predictive Index.

Prepare for upgrade – Preparation Checklist

In the Upgrade Preparation Checklist, PI has outlined several steps to be taken. Here are the ways Believable Magic can help with each of them:

Take Action

The actions suggested by PI essentially involve manual use of the PI software to make changes to individual records, fields, and any items that can be bulk-selected for action (bulk archive, bulk move, bulk export).

Action Suggested Strategy Analysis Believable Magic Alternative
Account hygiene Remove former employees, candidates and jobs you no longer need  Painful process of choosing, selecting, archiving, and/or editing persons and/or their assessments in the PI software Buy MagicTools or get PI Data Cleanup Service – use Clean Expired BAs, Clean Duplicate BAs, and Export-Adjust-Sync person data to mass-archive or mass-update many records at once. Jobs must be manually managed via the PI software.
Account hygiene Downloading assessment data using PI software PI data export has few columns, doesn’t include the Score ID needed to later re-create accidentally archived data Buy MagicTools or get PI Data Cleanup Service – use Export Person and Assessment Data to obtain a much larger array of assessment data including individual sigma values. You can also Export BA Reports to PDF for all your people to keep as an archive before making changes.
Review your employee emails Manual process of finding each person, editing, and updating them in PI software Painful manual process of searching, editing necessary fields, and saving each employee. Buy MagicTools or get PI Data Cleanup Service – export your HR data, prepare it a little, and then use the Sync process to match and fix employee person data in PI.
Review your folders Manually edit the Folder structure Removing a folder requires that you first archive or move all contents, a potentially very laborious process Buy MagicTools or get PI Data Cleanup Service – use Export Folders to get a clean list of your current folders, make a plan, then use Export-Adjust-Sync process to move all your people/assessments to their new folders, then delete any unused.
Review and prepare your Open Invitation (OI) Links Legacy OI Links that are linked to Jobs will be converted to the new Job Links and continue to work as they do now. OI Links that are not linked to a Job will cease to work. This is a manual process of analyzing your OI Link use outside of PI and then creating Job Links in PI2 to fill any gaps. We don’t offer any service or tool to make this easier.

Alternatives We Offer

Buy MagicTools and do the work yourself

If you license MagicTools for a 90-day period right now and install the software on your local system. Use its Clean, Export, and Sync processes to bring order to your PI data before making the PI2 transition. Follow guides in Learn MagicTools and the Knowledgebase.

Get the Predictive Index Data Cleanup Service

Priced according to your PI headcount, the PI Data Cleanup Service is a consulting service performed by Believable Magic in collaboration with your team by using MagicTools to connect to your PI data. It includes automated cleanup processes for expired and duplicate assessments and bulk data updates through a multi-step Export-Adjust-Sync process of exporting data, making adjustments, and then using MagicTools Sync process to push those changes into PI data. 

Export-Adjust-Sync Process

  1. Export – Export your HR system data to gather employee and/or candidate details, and use MagicTools Export to obtain your PI person data so you can understand what you are working with.
  2. Adjust –  Make necessary bulk adjustments to your employee and/or candidate data to prepare it for…
  3. Sync – Use MagicTools Sync process to import the contents of the HR data file, find matches wherever possible, and then change the PI data to match the HR data file contents — assign the correct person type, correct email, correct folder, and even fix name variations.

 

Order PI Cleanup Service as a Reseller

As a Believable Magic Reseller, you can sell and order PI Data Cleanup Service in the following ways: 

Initial Cleanup Service

  1. Reseller sends the Client a proposal naming two components and a total:
    1. Software: MagicTools for PI; price = 90-day license based on customer headcount (e.g. 1-50 headcount = $95).
    2. Service: PI Data Clean Up; price = list price for the Initial Service minus the MagicTools price (e.g. 1-50 headcount $750 – $95 = $655).
    3. Total = list price for the Initial Service (e.g. 1-50 headcount = $750).
  2. Client agrees to receive and pay for the service.
  3. Reseller communicates to Believable Magic in writing (email) that the Client agreed to move forward, providing:
    1. Company Name
    2. Company Headcount
    3. Primary Contact Name
    4. Primary Contact Email Address 
  4. Believable Magic engages with the Client and delivers the service.
    1. Obtains an API Key from the Client.
    2. Obtains Employee Data from the Client.
    3. Activates a MagicTools license on behalf of the customer.
      Note: If the customer wishes to use MagicTools themselves during the included 90-day license period, they may request the license key from Believable Magic.
    4. Performs the data cleanup service with the Client.
  5. After #2, Reseller invoices the Client for the total amount (two items: software and service).
  6. After #3, Believable Magic generates an invoice (two items: software and service) and provides to Reseller.
  7. Reseller collects funds from customer through normal business process.
  8. Reseller keeps the agreed-upon portion and sends a check to Believable Magic for the rest.

Follow-up Cleanup Service

  1. Reseller sends the Client a proposal naming only one component:
    1. Service: PI Data Clean Up; price = list price for the Follow-up Service (e.g. 1-50 headcount = $250).
  2. Client agrees to receive and pay for the service.
  3. Reseller communicates to Believable Magic in writing (email) that the Client agreed to move forward, providing:
    1. Company Name
    2. Company Headcount
    3. Primary Contact Name
    4. Primary Contact Email Address 
  4. Believable Magic engages with the Client and delivers the service.
    1. Obtains an API Key from the Client, if necessary.
    2. Obtains updated Employee Data from the Client.
    3. Performs the data cleanup service with the Client.
  5. After #2, Reseller invoices the Client for the total amount (one items: service).
  6. After #3, Believable Magic generates an invoice (one item: service) and provides to Reseller.
  7. Reseller collects funds from customer through normal business process.
  8. Reseller keeps the agreed-upon portion and sends a check to Believable Magic for the rest.

Employee Data Used for Cleanup Service

These instructions are intended for PI customers preparing to improve your PI data by correcting all the current employees found there with updated information, either by using MagicTools for PI yourself or as part of our PI Data Cleanup Service.

You should export employee data as a “flat, delimited text file” or “comma-separated values” (CSV) file. The delimiter can be a comma, a semi-colon, a tab character, or a pipe (“|”) character. If any field values are expected to contain the delimiter character, the value should be enclosed in double quotes.

Employee Data Fields to Export

There are several employee data fields you should include, if available, in the data you export from your human resources system when preparing to update PI data.

Always include these fields, if available:
  • First Name – the name you wish to become/remain the First Name in PI; Note: First Name is the person’s given name (not surname / family name)
  • Middle Name – optional, but include it if you wish to correct/update the Middle Name in PI
  • Last Name – the name you wish to become/remain the Last Name in PI; Note: Last Name is the person’s family name (not given name)
  • Other First Name – optional, include if different from First Name – this is only used for matching purposes and will not be used to update the PI First Name field. This could be a preferred name or any other alternate name by which the person is currently or was previously known when they took an assessment.
  • Other Last Name – optional, include if different from Last Name – this is only used for matching purposes and will not be used to update the PI Last Name field. This could be a previous or alternate style of last name that might have been used when they took an assessment.
  • Current/Work Email – usually the employer-provided email you wish to store in PI for employees — may or may not already be present in PI for all employees.
  • Previous/Personal Email – this is useful to identify an employee by the personal address used when they were a candidate taking an assessment or a previous work email address that uses a different domain name.
  • Employee ID – this should be the unique, unchanging identifier of some kind assigned to each employee, possibly from your HRIS system; including this opens the door to using the PI Org Data Upload feature without creating duplicate data for existing persons
  • ATS Candidate ID – optional, if you at some point used an integration with PI that placed a person identifier from your Applicant Tracking System, this can help correctly identify a former candidate 
  • Employment Status – is this a current employee or former employee? Note: If they are on leave of absence or a contract worker, decide whether PI should treat them as current or former because PI doesn’t recognize other statuses.
  • Hire Date – this will not be stored in PI, but it can be useful when an employee matches more than one PI person and you wish to choose the right one by comparing the oldest or newest assessment date.
  • Termination Date – optional, but may be necessary when applying time limits on the data you wish to keep or archive.
Optional but useful under some circumstances:
  • Country/Division/Region/Department/Team – useful if you will be organizing employees using PI Folders that correspond to org structures like these
  • Job/Position Title – only useful if you have defined PI Jobs for most of your employee position titles and wish to assign each employee to a specific PI Job Target. Note: If you intend to update PI Job assignment, all jobs titles in the HR data file must match exactly one and only one PI Job Target name (there cannot be two PI Job Targets with the same display name).

What about Former Employees?

Former employees may be useful to export, too, if you wish to identify former employees distinctly in your PI data. Export the same columns for Former Employees as you would for Employees with the exception of the Optional fields above.

Once matched/identified, you can decide what to do with them: update their person type to “Former Employee”, “Candidate” or “Other”
and keep them, or archive them. MagicTools for PI and the PI Data Cleanup Service support both options.

What about Past Candidates?

Previous candidate data exported from an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) may also be used to update PI data using MagicTools Sync, but there are admittedly fewer motives for doing this since everyone in your PI data that is not an employee is probably a current or former candidate. Export the same fields as for an employee with the exception of fields a candidate wouldn’t have (Employee ID, Employee Status, Hire Date, Employee Email).

Generating a PI API Key for PI v1

Predictive Index customers who wish to use the PI Application Programming Interface (API) to access their PI data must generate and use an API Key.

API Keys are “owned” by individual PI Users and are not assigned or created as a company-wide setting. The role and permissions of the user that owns an API Key determines the access that API Key will grant.

This article explains how to generate an API Key for accessing the data of an instance of the PI version 1 software.

To learn about PI version 2 software’s API Key features, see: Managing Open API Settings (PI version 2 docs)

Activate API Access

Your organization’s PI instance must have API Access turned on before any API Key you generate will work. Contact Predictive Index Support and ask them “Please ensure that API Access is turned on for our PI instance named _____”.

As of the time of this writing, API Access activation process and the use of the PI API does not currently cost anything extra for existing PI customers.

Where to Generate API Keys

API Keys are generated in the PI Software’s Administration > User Management area.

This administrative action can be taken only by PI Users with the role of Account Admin or Account Owner.

How to Generate an API Key

Refer to the PI Support site for general guidance on how to generate an API Key: Integration Guide > Generate an API Key.

Or you can follow this example:

Example – API Key for user named Data Manager

Steps to take if you decide to create a new user named “Data Manager” to own an API Key for use with MagicTools or an API Integration:

  1. Log into PI (https://app.predictiveindex.com) as an Account Admin or Account Owner user with whatever email and password you normally use.
  2. Go to Administration (on the menu seen when you click your name in the upper right corner).
  3. In User Management, click “Create New User”.
  4. Give the user the following details:
    1. First Name: Data
    2. Last Name: Manager
    3. Email: data.manager@yourdomain.com
      1. Note: no two users in the entire PI system can have the same email address
      2. Use a real email address if the user you are creating will need to log into the PI software directly
      3. Invent any fake email address if the user will not log into the PI software — as long as the email has not been used previously in the PI system and this user will only ever use the API Key to access PI data.
    4. Job Title: (optional)
      1. When using MagicTools: MagicTools Connection
      2. When using an API Integration: Integration with XYZ (the name of the system you are integrating with)
    5. Default Folder:
      1. When using MagicTools: \Your Company (type the backslash and then choose the first item shown in the suggestion list).
      2. When using an API Integration: choose a default folder into which new assessments/users will be created by the integration. If the integration will specify a folder, this is not as important. But if the integration doesn’t specify a folder, this is an important decision.
    6. Role: Account Admin – this elevated role allows the API Key to do things like archive unwanted data and move people to new folders.  
  5. Click “Create User” – you will be taken back to the list of all users.
  6. Click on the name of this new user in the list of users so you can view/edit the user details again.
  7. At the bottom, you will see a new “API Key” field that wasn’t there before you created the user.
  8. Click the “Generate New Key” button. 
  9. Click the little icon next to the API Key field to copy the new API Key to the clipboard.
  10. Paste the API Key into a document and save it to a secure location. Remember: an API Key is a powerful thing — guard it!
  11. Click “Save Changes” if you made any changes other than generating the API Key. Click “Cancel” if the Save Changes button is disabled — newly generated API Keys are automatically saved when you click Generate, so there is no need to click Save Changes if generating an API Key is the only action you are taking.

Granting Cognitive Assessment Access

If your organization uses the PI Cognitive Assessment, be sure to read this section.

Because the Cognitive Assessment is considered sensitive personal information, access to results is usually limited to a small group of hiring team members. If the API Key you are generating will be used by a system or tool (such as MagicTools for PI) that needs to access Cognitive Assessment data, that permission must be granted by someone with “Account Owner” permissions. A user with “Account Admin” access does not have the ability to grant permission. Therefore, be sure to contact a user with “Account Owner” access to have them activate Cognitive Access for the user you created as the owner of the API Key. While editing a user’s profile/details, Account Owner users will see a checkbox that grants access to Cognitive data.

Testing an API Key

It is always best to test your new API Key before sharing it or using it. Learn how to do this here: PI API Key Testing and Troubleshooting

Sharing an API Key with others

Because API Keys grant powerful access to semi-sensitive information, take precautions to protect them. Some choices:

  • Use a temporary encrypted sharing tool like the one offered by Believable Magic: Securely Share Sensitive Content
  • Save the API Key in a document that is stored in a shared location accessible only to you and the intended recipient

Generating a new API Key

If you have already created an API Key for a user and then use the “Generate New Key” button to generate a new API Key, the previously generated API Key will be deactivated immediately. Any integration or other data access function that was previously configured to use the old API Key will be disabled by this action. Generating a new API Key is necessary when you wish to disable access by people who might possess a current API Key and ensure that only the new API Key is usable. Be sure to immediately share the new API Key with whoever controls the configuration of any integration that relies on that Key! 

Securely Share Sensitive Content

When working with Believable Magic or co-workers, you may need to share an API Key or other sensitive content with another person. But API Keys are powerful information that you should keep secure.

The least secure way to share information is via email message. Messages can live for a long time on mail servers and in people’s mail archives, waiting to be seen by the wrong person.

A more secure way to share information is to place it in a temporary encrypted storage place and then share the key with a person who can only use it to view the content until it expires — using an expiration period controlled by the one who shares.

How to share sensitive content:

  1. Go to this page: https://believablemagic.com/private.
  2. Paste or type the content into the Editor area or click Attach a File.
  3. Click Save.
  4. On the next page you will see: “Your shareable pasted content link is” followed by a web address.
  5. Share that web address one of three ways:
    1. Copy that web address and paste it into an email message for your intended recipient.
    2. Click the Email button to send it in a new email message.
    3. Click the QR Code button to embed the link in a QR code you can share with someone.
  6. If you assigned a Password while creating your shared item, be sure to share that password with the recipient, too.

The recipient simply visits the web address, enters the Password if you created one, and sees the content you shared.

After the expiration period, the web address won’t work any longer and the content is no longer accessible.

How it actually works:

The web page has JavaScript code that encrypts the content in the browser, then stores the encrypted content on the Believable Magic web server, but the key that unlocks the encrypted content is ONLY shown to the user in the web page — it is not stored anywhere else.

The encrypted content stored on the web server is useless without the key — which is not stored on the server.

The Believable Magic service linked above relies upon this open-source project: https://privatebin.info