Key Performance
Indicators, or KPIs, scorecards, and dashboards are covered in detail in Chapters 4
and 5 but are covered from a very high level here.
A rich-client application, Dashboard Designer, is the tool used to create KPIs,
scorecards, and dashboards. A KPI is a metric that is tracked by the business to
monitor the health of a particular piece of the business. For example, a company
might track KPIs for sales, inventory turnover, employee head count, customer
satisfaction, market share, employee training, and so forth. Rather than just being
numbers, KPIs have the actual value (such as the actual sales), a target (the sales
forecast), an indicator (how the actual value compares to the forecast or budget),
and a trend that shows whether the KPI is trending up, trending down, or is flat.
Multiple KPIs are placed on a scorecard. A scorecard provides an overview, so
in a single glance a person can see how the business or division is performing. The
indicators are often graphical images such as colored circles, smiley faces, arrows,
or the like, so that users can quickly grasp the meaning without having to concentrate
on the numbers themselves. Aside from showing just the KPIs, a scorecard can show
scores. A KPI has an actual and a target, and the better the actual compared to the
target, the higher the score in most cases. This means that KPIs can be given scores
and that these scores can roll up to higher level scores. This also means that different
products, locations, or employees can be scored against each other for the purposes
of ranking.
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