Along with performance measures, indicators are measures that help quantify achievement or success. Indicators are typically used to quantify the achievement of a result.
Note: Users with admin permission can change or add names, icons, or other properties, of all scorecard objects.
Examples of an indicator could include:
- Number of babies born with low birth weight
- Amount of carbon dioxide emission
- Percent of children with active asthma
- Violent crime rate
One or more indicators, listed with an I icon, are typically included in a result container. Once set up, you can enter data for the indicator and set forecast values.
When creating or editing a container, you can click New Measure to create an indicator from scratch, or you can bring in an existing indicator, which could be edited if needed.
When creating an indicator from scratch, assign a name and add tags if desired. If the data is a number, you can leave the Unit of Measure field blank. But if the data is presented as a percent, or a dollar amount, or another type of unit, enter the % or $ or other symbol in this field. The Before box can be checked to add the unit before the number, as in the case of dollars.
Data reporting frequency can be the default monthly, quarterly, annually, or half-year. Users with admin permission can set up additional frequencies.
The last indicator field is polarity: the trend in data that indicates success. You can also choose not to display polarity, or that the indicator has no polarity.
Note that you can also create a new indicator from your Indicators list, which provides the same fields, but in a more open and robust format. This is shown at the end of this article.
To view all indicators that are set up so far in your system, choose Objects / Indicators.
You can search for an indicator by entering any part of the indicator name in the search field. An indicator can be viewed, copied, or deleted. Use caution when deleting an indicator, because a deleted indicator will be removed from all scorecards that contain that indicator.
You can also search indicators by one or more tags.
Checking the Show Disconnected Only box will filter the list to include only indicators that are not used in any containers or scorecards. This is handy if you want to clean out all unused indicators from your system.
When one or more indicators are selected, by checking the box to the left, you can delete them all at once.
A new indicator can be created on this page as well, though it’s more common to create indicators as part of the container creation process. The main reason to create an indicator from scratch here, and not as part of a scorecard, would be to use a measure as data for a calculated measure.
Clicking an indicator name opens the indicator’s details page. Here you can enter data values or notes, and see how the indicator is performing.
