Version 2.0
Introduction
Othot is pleased to announce release 2.0 of the Othot platform. The release adds a variety of new features and enhancements, as well as significant improvements to overall performance and predictive capabilities.
If you have any questions regarding the contents of this document or require additional information on any updates contained in this release, please reference other Othot Help Desk articles or contact Othot Support at support@othot.com.
Dashboards
Understanding your data is one of the primary uses of the Othot platform. To aid in that effort, Othot now provides a configurable Dashboard that enables you to quickly visualize your institution’s key metrics and goal progress. Standard dashboard templates are enabled by default to present a high-level overview of where your institution’s efforts stand currently and also in comparison to prior years.
Dashboards can be shared, created, modified, and arranged by users to suit their needs using Othot’s preconfigured widgets. If there is a case where the existing widgets do not meet your needs, please contact support@othot.com with your request.
Rewind
Take further advantage of the historical data that your institution has provided to Othot. With this new feature, you can now rewind time to run different scenarios or analysis to figure out what could have been done better or what might have happened if you took a different approach. You can rewind your data to a prior Lifecycle Phase, a previous academic year, or both.
At the Lifecycle Phase level, rewinding all students to the Admit phase can enable you to assess the effectiveness of financial aid award disbursement. When coupled with Othot’s Sensitivity functionality, you can see where financial aid awards would have been predicted to yield the best results and then utilize it to update your plan and budget for the coming year.
By rewinding your data back to a prior year, you could run the same type of analysis to see what financial aid or marketing strategies would have been most effective for that cohort. Additionally, insights can be uncovered showing the effects of strategic changes your institution may have made in between academic years.
Forecast Predictions
See the predicted enrollment or retention final totals before any actions (such as disbursements or visits) have been completed by your institution. These new predicted values are determined by combining Othot’s predictive modeling with observations based on your institution’s historical effectiveness. They can be found in the Prediction Confidence and visualizations sections of the Insights page.
Initially, the Forecast Prediction values will likely be higher than the Current Prediction for each Lifecycle Phase and in total. This is because the Forecast Prediction values assume that your institution will follow the same strategy with similar results as observed in prior years. In order to meet or exceed the Forecast Prediction, your institution must perform activities that increase students’ Likelihood Scores, such as financial aid disbursements, visits, and marketing campaigns.
App Data Selector
When utilizing the manual data update functionality in the Model page, it is now possible to select a file from the Data page instead of uploading the file directly on the Model page. This can save time and improve your team’s data update processes.
Improved Aggregate Predictions
Othot has enhanced the cross-Lifecycle Phase aggregation methodology. This new calculation will lead to more accurate aggregate prediction numbers earlier on in the Lifecycle of the cohort.
Improved Projected Enrollment by Lifecycle Visualization
Forecast Predictions have been added to the lifecycle phase enrollment visualization. This will allow you to see the gaps in quality from years past.
What-If Security
Access to individual What-if variables can now be controlled by different security groups. If a group or groups are set to have access to a What-if variable, only those users listed in the collective groups will be given access. All other users will be blocked from having access to that What-if variable.
Tooltip Descriptions
To help improve understanding of customer data for more users, we have included a tooltip containing the description associated with each variable. Simply hover over the column header for a moment and a tooltip with its description will appear.
Deep Linking
The Othot platform now provides deep linking to individual student pages. This will now allow for tighter integration with other external systems. These links can be included in an automated export, which then can be ingested and utilized in other systems in an automated fashion.
One of the most useful implementations of this enhancement is to place a deep link in each student CRM record. This allows users of the CRM to easily access Othot’s detailed predictive analytics information and What-if functionality with one click.
Improved Top Impacts
On the Insights page at the aggregate level, the Top Impacts visualization now shows the number of students your institution is predicted to be gaining or losing based on the values of each variable.
Top Impacts for individual students now show the expected increase or decrease in their likelihood score that can be attributed to each variable.
Regression For Additional Predict
The Othot platform can now utilize regression algorithms for predictions of continuous variables, such as: GPA, SAT score, days to deposit, and terms to graduate, instead of just binary outcomes.
Mixed Algorithms
The Othot platform can now utilize a mix of regression and classification algorithms in a single HIQ. If an HIQ primarily utilizes a classification algorithm, its additional predictions could use a regression algorithm or vice versa.
Edit & Save Sensitivity Analysis Configuration
Sensitivity Analysis configurations can now be copied or modified. Descriptions, What-if Variables, and Aggregates can be changed after a Sensitivity Analysis has been created without having to generate a new one from scratch.
The Sensitivity Analysis chart configuration can also now be saved once the columns, rows, and values are set and formatted to your liking. Saved changes to the Sensitivity Analysis will be automatically applied the next time the same report is viewed.
Help Center
Othot is providing a new self-service knowledge base where all active users can access instructions on how to use primary features and view answers to frequently asked questions. The link to the new Help Center can be found in the Main Menu within the Othot platform.
Automated Inactive User Deactivation
Administrators of Othot customer accounts will now have the ability to set a duration in days for when user accounts will automatically be deactivated due to inactivity. This is a security enhancement to assist you with user account management. If a user is deactivated, a customer administrator has the privileges to reactivate a user account at any time.
Performance Improvements
Each release contains a host of different performance improvements to help increase speed and reliability of the platform. Here are a few of the larger efforts included in this release:
- Dynamic Node Scaling
- Additional Service Scale Features
- Very Large Feature Performance Improvements
Next Release
The Othot development team has already begun working on the next release, 2.1. This release is scheduled to go into production at the end of Q3 2018. For more details about the features planned for the 2.1 release, contact Othot Customer Success or Othot Sales.