💬 The Processes Space

Fill in the information for a process

In order to guide you through the set-up of a process, we show, step-by-step, what each field corresponds to in the back-office, and which elements these refer to on the presentation page of a process. Those that require an explanation will be described.

To create a new process, you must go to the tab "". Processes". This takes you to the processes management page. To create a new process, press "New Process ". A process will be created that can be edited in its sub-menu "Information." 

General information

In the first box, entitled "General Information", you can set the Title of your process, its sub-title, its URL, a hashtag, the summary, description, and announcement message of your process. 

For the summary, it is important to write a fairly short text and to take into account its presence on the homepage. This is the second piece of information the user will see after the title of the participatory process. It is therefore important to ensure that the content is relevant and fairly general. The text of the summary is displayed by default in a slightly larger font than the description.

The description is the main content for presenting the context, objectives and forms of your participatory process. It should therefore be made as clear and as attractive as possible (neither too vague nor too long). Ideally, the text should contain an encouraging welcome message, a reminder of the context, the forms of contribution, a short calendar (and a link to the phases page) as well as a contact address in case of questions (or a reference to the FAQ). 

Here are a few tips on how to do this:

• You can put titles to make the text more structured and more clear for platform users.
• You can also put hyperlinks to reference the resources of your choice. These can include platform pages/content such as a charter, FAQ, or a direct link to the proposal submission or survey response form.
• You can embed an image by dragging and dropping it from your desktop or from any webpage. Warning: it is not possible to choose the size and the centering of the image and it is recommended to use the Firefox browser to do so (let us know if you have any questions).

The announcementis a field that will be displayed in a colored box at the top of the "Presentation" pages or the different features. It is very useful to highlight important news concerning the process or as a reminder of the rules of contribution (example: a date, a time, an announcement on the opening / closing of a survey related to the current stage). Short announcement messages are preferable in order to keep the information compelling and to not overwhelm the user with overly complex content. You can also use the announcement message on the presentation page to encourage participants to "Follow" a process using the button displayed at the top of the right-hand column. 

Below, you can see the different texts set-up above on the presentation page of the process. 

Duration of the process

Next, you must configure the duration of your process in the "Duration" box. The start and end dates that you have set will be visible to the user in the box on the right side of the process' presentation page. 

Images 

The following box, entitled "Images", allows you to customize the images of your process. The homepage image is the thumbnail image on the homepage of your platform. The platform constantly adapts the image to the size of the screen, always keeping the center of the image as a reference. Therefore, it is advisable to choose large format, relatively square images (e.g. 800x800 px with the essential elements in the centre rather than on the edges).

The header image corresponds to the image in the process space, displayed in the banner including the title, hashtag and subtitle of the process. 

Metadata

The metadata informs users about the scope of the process, its organizer, etc. This is displayed on the user space in a box on the right-hand side of the presentation page. 

Here you can tell users the organizer of the process, theorganizational space (geographical area concerned by the process), thescale (municipal, regional, European, etc.), the participants, the objectives and the terms and conditions of the process. These are intended to detail how users can participate in the process. On the user space, this information is displayed in the following way: 

Filters, visibility and statistics

The "Filters" box allows you to choose whether or not to activate the application scopes. Previously set up in the "Settings" tab of the administrator space, these allow you to associate one process to a particular application scope. Most often, these perimeters are geographical. 

The "Visibility" box allows you to enter your process in a process group (see the article on process groups). You can also turn your process into a private process one by checking "Private space". This way, only the users that you have added to the space will be able to actually see the space and contribute to it. The "Highlight" button allows you to pin the process at the top of the page in the index page for all processes and to display it as the first thumbnail on the platform's home page.

Finally, in the "Other" box, you can choose whether or not to activate the "Show statistics" button. When this is activated, they are displayed at the bottom of the process' presentation page, and allow the users to follow the evolution of the process' results. 

You can also ask us to activate the statistics for the participation history in order to obtain the statistical trends concerning the process: 

Once these fields are filled in, you can Update your processor Publish it. 

Configure the steps of a process

The phases of a participatory process identify the different steps of your participatory process. As you will see below, you will have the possibility to configure the participatory modules according to these steps.

When a step is active, a green dot is displayed to the left of its title (see below). To activate a step, click on the gray dot, which turns blue when the cursor passes over it. The "Pencil" icon allows you to return to the step's setup page after it has been created. 

To create a step, click on "New step", and fill in the fields below. Only the title field is mandatory. However, we advise you to document your steps in detail so that users can more easily understand the timing of the process. A good practice to streamline navigation is to integrate the link of the active features directly into the description of the steps.  

Grouping the processes (e.g. by theme).

A group of processes allows you to categorize several processes on the same theme or divide a large process into subgroups according to their geographical location.

To set up a group of process, click on "Groups of Processes" in the lefthand menu.

Then click on "New" in the processes dashboard. The groups of processes set up screen will open

You can link processes that have already been created to the group.

At this stage, the characteristics of the groups are still limited. The only noticeable change is the appearance of an process groups in the index level of all processes. By selecting this, you will access the preview of processes within the group as if it were a sub-menu.