When you're working with DISC reports, especially if you're presenting them to others, it's sometimes helpful to have some foreknowledge of their contents. That's the purpose of the DISCdots, an unobtrusive pattern of black and white dots printed on the cover sheet of every Discus DISC report.

When you print a Discus report, as long as you choose to include a cover sheet, you'll see a small pattern of dots near the lower right-hand corner. These are the 'DISCdots', a combination of symbols that, to the trained eye, communicate all the essentials of the profile. The dots are divided into three distinct sections.

The pattern of six dots on the left combine to represent the most basic facts about a profile. For example, if the profile is compressed, or there is a significant difference between the Internal and External profile, these six dots will show different patterns to represent these different conditions. There are five possible patterns:

	Invalid profiles are those where the Internal and External Profiles show radical differences, to the extent that each profile is the inverse of the other.
	Divergent profiles are similar to Invalid profiles, in that there is a significant difference between the Internal and External profiles, but those differences are not so great as to make the profile series technically invalid.
	Extended profiles are those that show at least one factor extremely high or low.
	Compressed profiles are those where all four factors lie close to the central line of the graph. Discus will show the 'Compressed' symbol if this applies to any of the profiles in a series.
	Finally, profiles that don't fall into any of the categories listed above are identified as Clear. Clear profiles tend to form the majority.

The four dots on the right each correspond to one of the four DISC factors in the Summary Profile. These are laid out in the same order as they appear on a Style Card or Contact Profile, for ease of reference.

Each of the four dots can be one of three colors: black (representing a high factor), grey (a medium factor, close to the centre line) or white (a low factor). So, the example above represents a profile with high Steadiness, and low Influence and Compliance.

Finally, the small triangle or arrow symbol indicates the type of questionnaire used:

This symbol appears beneath the four dots representing the Summary DISC factors. Its orientation and position relate to the type of questionnaire used to create the profile, Phrase-based, Adjective-based, Remote or Direct Entry. The 'Direct Entry' symbol is also used for profiles imported from other sources.