Heat Maps Overview

The Heat Map uses colors and X and Y axes to display the intersection of object data and where that object data falls on a scale. Heat maps are most commonly used when analyzing an organization’s risks, the likelihood the risks will occur, and the impact on the organization should they occur. Heat maps pull their data from data points, which are select lists and/or formulas from the selected object type.

EXAMPLE
Your organization needs to track risks by each office location to implement the appropriate controls and tolerances. To do so, you create a heat map that uses the Business Unit object type as the report anchor, then select the Risk object type, which is associated with Business Unit through a relationship, through the Data Definition. This data definition will allow users to generate a report that will display all the risks at each location (Business Unit) as well as indicate the impact and likelihood of each risk on the heat map.

Clicking the objects on the map will display either the default form selected in the role permissions or an alternate form selected by an administrator in the report settings. Depending on the user’s role permissions, the user may be able to view or edit the data in the form. Hovering your cursor over a circle on the heat map will display the object’s full unique ID and name.

When a cell contains 10 objects or more, it will display [No. of Objects] Items instead of the number from the objects' unique IDs. Note that hovering your cursor over 10 or more objects will not display each objects’ unique IDs and names, nor can you open individual objects when clicking on a cell with 10 or more.

It’s recommended you create a table to accompany heat map reports, which will allow users to open individual objects in cells that contain 10 objects or more, provide additional information about the objects, and allow the object data in the table to be exported into a Word document or Excel spreadsheet as needed. Heat map data cannot be exported

A heat map with multiple data points.

Single Data Points 

Single data point includes a select list or formula for both the X and Y axes, which also populate the labels on the left and bottom of the heat map. The color of the pills on the map are pulled from the selected object type's monogram color, if any, and the number from the objects' unique ID (e.g. R-4 will be displayed on the heat map as 4). 

Multiple Data Points 

If needed, up to six additional data points from a single object type can be added to the heat map. For example, you may need to create a heat map that shows an Inherent Risk data point using the Inherent Impact and Residual Likelihood formulas together with the Residual Risk data point using the Residual Impact and Residual Likelihood formulas.

Labels displayed in the X and Y axes are pulled from the first data point added to the element. Additionally, each data point is displayed in a legend and assigned one of the following preset hex color codes, based on the order each data point was created:

  1. #bccdda
  2. #498edf
  3. #8b49df
  4. #103765
  5. #8c836a
  6. #677682

Admins can name the X and Y axes with custom labels that appear outside the select list field/formula labels on the axes. It's also possible to configure the map to display lines between objects that appear more than once through multiple data points.