Our goal at Fuel Cycle is to release software updates approximately every two weeks to ensure consistency and constantly innovate. While some updates are more "under the hood", others include exciting new features to enhance your experience!
September 2024
Launch Communities from the Research Engine
Moderators can launch the community to a new browser tab from the Research Engine’s left navigation bar.
Design Updates
Various design changes have updated chart colors, button shapes, icon choices, and text alignments. The user profile menu now accommodates longer names. A separation now exists between Profile Settings and other options such as Organization Settings.
Bug Fixes
A calculation affecting grid questions in the Quantitative Report table has been fixed.
Fuel Cycle Audience Network
The Fuel Cycle Audience Network is a cutting-edge approach that combines the company's proprietary insight community with an extensive network of general population panels.
Navigation Update
- New Legacy Pages icons in the left navigation section represent links to functions currently available in the Legacy platform and have not yet been incorporated into the Research Engine: Members, Communications, Moderator Feed, Surveys, Gamification, Exports, and (General Community) Settings.
- As before, Home, Projects, and Groups represent functionality in the Research Engine (note the icons for Projects and Groups have changed).
August 2024
Beta Tags
Anything with the orange BETA tag in the app or Help Center is new functionality in its original release state. This functionality is currently undergoing real-world testing and may be further enhanced. These tags are also the new button to click to revisit that page's walkthrough guides.
Reference or Copy Subset Group Conditions
- Reference—When creating a new Dynamic group, you can now search for completed (or “locked”) Subset groups using the existing group conditions option to reference the chosen subset group conditions. Previously, only "completed" dynamic groups were searchable.
- Copy—You can now copy completed (or “locked”) subset groups from the listing page Actions menu. Users will be taken to the group builder with pre-selected conditions, and the count/percentage value will be copied over.
Quantitative Report Enhancements
- Persistent list of questions—In our quantitative reports, we previously had a chart settings button on the right side that let you adjust which data points you could see. We've updated this to a persistent list of questions from your project, which now matches the shared version of the report. This adjustment will make it easier for you to navigate through the report and quickly find the specific question you're looking for.
- Report Data Settings—For clarity, we have moved the data settings to a pencil icon from a gear icon, making it easier to understand how to edit your report.
- P2 Question Search—The list of P2 data was formidable for some communities, so we brought search bar functionality from member composition to Quantitative Reports.
Qualitative Report Bulk Tag Management
- Bulk Merge Action—Merge tags into an existing tag or a brand new one.
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Bulk Delete Action—Delete a tag and remove it from all comments it’s currently attached to.
Project List Updates
- Previously, some project actions were shown or not shown based on certain conditions in the projects listing table. Now, all of them are displayed whether they are enabled or disabled.
- In the past, the table navigation at the lower right showed the number of items displayed out of the total items. We have now updated it to show the number of pages, which allows for proper table navigation. The total number of pages will adjust based on the count selected for "Items per page."
Member Composition Dashboard 
View aggregated member data in the form of dashboard charts.
The first 3 dashboards display charts on User Status, Gender (if collected), and Age (if collected). Choose up to 20 more data points from P2 Points and Groups to visualize on the dashboard.
Share your dashboard with stakeholders using a secure hyperlink and password similar to your project insights reports.
July 2024
Activity Card Color Customization
You can now set the activity card background and text colors while generating your project in the Research Engine.
Member Profile Data in Qualitative Reports
You can now access P2 data about the member who created a comment. Click the member profile icon next to the username to see the member's profile information.
User Interface Enhancements
- We have removed the Group Type card icons for simplicity and space considerations.
- The Group Details container automatically collapses once the group has been saved and is in edit mode. You can still expand it by clicking on the caret
icon. While collapsed, the group's name and type still display.
- The Actions dropdown in the listing page now displays all available actions and indicates which actions are disabled based on the group's type and status.
Group Favorites
Users can now mark groups as favorites from the Groups List page. The star icon represents a group's favorite status.
Check for Group Members
The Groups List Actions dropdown menu contains a new entry: Check for Member. You can check whether a member exists in that group, and even if a member is part of the community or not.
Check Dynamic Group Size
As you assemble the requirements for your dynamic group, you can now monitor the group size in real time.
Two charts display a breakdown of active, inactive, and dormant status: one for available/activated members and the other for members who are pending activation.
Moderators Lacking Survey Provider Access May Build Custom Survey Projects
Moderators who do not have Survey Provider access can now create custom survey projects using surveys imported by someone else. Only the Existing Survey option will be available to these moderators.
Navigation Breadcrumbs
To improve navigation in the Research Engine, breadcrumb links have been added at the top of pages where it would take at least three clicks to return to the Home screen.
Immediately, you will find these breadcrumbs at the top of the Quantitative and Qualitative Report screens when viewing reports or AI summaries. More of these will be added as development progresses.
Qualitative Reports
We are overjoyed to bring Qualitative Reports to the Research Engine for all users. This report is automatically included as an Insight report for all discussion boards and surveys where comments are enabled.
You will be able to...
- Disqualify unnecessary comments or re-qualify them.
- Add Tags to comments—search from a list of all existing tags or create a new one.
- Search by Comments, Username, and Tags.
- Sort by—re-organize to prioritize Response Date, Username, Reply Count, or Likes.
- View and download attached images or videos.
- Read through comment chains.
- Share your report securely with stakeholders just like the Quantitative Report.
AI Comment Summaries
We are equally excited to bring the existing AI intelligence from our Community platform for discussion boards to the Research Engine. You can request a summary of your responses at any point in the discussion, refresh the summary when you receive new responses, and even edit your summary.
June 2024
Group Builder
Inspiring news to wrap up June with our release of Groups in the Research Engine! Groups assist you in better understanding and connecting with specific cohorts in your research.
Access your groups from the Groups icon in the navigation menu on the left. With this release, several enhancements and refinements have aimed to improve the overall user experience.
In addition to adding static and dynamic groups, you can now add Subsets of members that are "locked in" based on AND/OR logic and various criteria. For example, highly active responders, first responders who are potentially over-positive, or speeders. This group type is perfect for differential sampling.
In the Groups list in the Actions column, the Check Size action displays a pop-up showing 2 charts: one with the breakdown of user status for activated members and another for pending activations.
Improvements and Bug Fixes
- We improved the copying functionality, so activity and feature card images will also be copied over.
- The error messaging for importing Alchemer surveys has been reinstated, so you will once again receive information on why your survey failed to import.
- You can now adjust the closed date of published projects without unpublishing them.
- You will no longer receive the “Are you sure?" pop-up when navigating to the legacy system from the Research Engine.
- The tag containers in the Qualitative Report have been improved to dynamically size based on the number of tags present.
- We fixed an issue with the search function in the form builder dropdowns.
- We fixed some console errors on the Teams page.
Survey Alias Field
There is a new field in the Survey Details step that allows for adding or modifying a survey alias. This enables members to see more appropriate names instead of internal naming conventions.
Help Center Redesign
This new Help Center design template improves on the previous template:
- Cleaner, less distracting design.
- Better adherence to core UX guidelines.
- Better adherence to web accessibility guidelines.
- A proper image "lightbox" functionality to images, allowing a zoom-on-click experience.
- An accordion-style navigation element on the left side of any article enables quick access to any article in any section.
- A navigation element within every article to any internal header makes a table of contents inside the article unnecessary.
- The nav elements highlight what article you're viewing and what section of the article you're viewing.
May 2024
Set Research Engine as Default Landing Page
In our pursuit to establish the Research Engine as the premier platform for community research, we are offering a seamless transition for existing users. Upon logging in, you will see a banner enabling you to set the Research Engine as your default home page. This setting can be found in the Core platform under Account Settings and is specific to the Community you are in at the time you save the setting.
Quantitative Report Exports
While our main objective is to enable you to analyze your data within the platform, it’s also important to ensure that your data remains easily accessible through other methods.
In Quantitative Reports, you will see a tab for Exports within the Share interface. From here you can request two types of files:
- Data File—Similar to how survey data displays in activity exports but provides all the survey data in your quantitative reports. We’ve included the low-quality flag from the Table view for you to filter out data you don’t want in Excel.
- Frequency Tables—This file takes the table data for each chart into Excel. The purpose of this file type is to make populating a report shell much easier as the data will be ready to copy and paste into PowerPoint.
Notifications
As a first step to improve information delivery, we have added the Notifications alert icon at the top of the screen for downloads and complex workflows.
When you request a Quantitative Report export, for example, you will now receive a notification from the system once your file is ready to download. Instead of being directed to an export listing page, you can download the file directly from the notification. This allows you to continue working without interruption.
Improvements and Bug Fixes
- Improved charts in quantitative reports should utilize more space and accommodate longer labels within a survey.
- The tabs in the Edit Chart Interface and Data Settings in Quantitative Reporting can be opened by clicking anywhere on the tab, as opposed to only clicking the caret.
- Fixed an issue causing charts to infinitely load in Quantitative Reports.
- Fixed some issues causing charts on the Project Dashboard to intermittently not load.
April 2024
Quantitative Reports
This is an exciting release of the first round of insights in the Research Engine!
When you publish a custom survey project through our Research Engine, instantly access the quantitative report. Keep track of your data while conducting your survey or review your response data once the survey is completed.
Then, share your report with your stakeholders with just a link and a password.
Custom Redirect URL
You can now redirect members to a new location at your survey's end while still rewarding and logging the survey as complete in Fuel Cycle.
This new functionality is for those who may want their members to land somewhere else upon survey completion instead of bringing them back to the community.
March 2024
Edit Published Projects
You can now edit custom surveys, discussion boards, and ignition projects while they are published. So, if you need to make an adjustment (with caveats) to a landing page, or include more members or groups, you don’t have to unpublish first.
December 2023
Survey Import Validation Messaging
When importing a survey to the Research Engine, you will now be given further details on import status. Now, if your import fails due to an issue with redirects, you will be given more specifics on what is wrong and where it is wrong in your survey.
Improvements to Discussion Boards
- The Force Private Response option now appears only when allowed.
- When you create a new block, it will be added below existing blocks instead of above them.
- Added previews to DOCX, PDF, and video files.
General Improvements
- Category and Topic will now be displayed at the publish step of the project builder.
- Optimizations for RE interface on smaller devices.
- Improvements to incentive settings that don't allow options (like commenting) to be selected if other options are selected (like the landing page being disabled).
November 2023
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards offer a platform that allows members to engage in textual interactions, enabling them to share insights, ask questions, and collaborate on ideas. This space is a hub for meaningful discussions and knowledge exchange among your community members.