Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Bi4Cloud provides Financial ratios, KPIs and common Financial Metrics.
Getting started with this is really easy because we have setup some common defaults. On the BI Admin screen you will see a new target icon.
Click on the KPI target to Create the Default KPI's to get started.
After it's clicked it will take around 30 seconds to calculate the default KPI's. These default KPI have been chosen to give you a feel for what can be produced.
KPI - Dashboard
This shows monthly Bar charts of Income , COS and Expense dollars with the Y-Axis left. It shows EBITDA dollars as a Line chart with the 1st Y-Axis on the right and it shows some commonly asked for ratios as percentages with the 2nd Y-Axis on the right.
Clicking a legend item toggles it's display on/off and your can export to PDF
KPI - Targets
Choose Target from the menu. This provides Monthly Actuals vs Target along with a color coded achievement of Red (bad) or Green (good) or Blue (no target defined).
The chart to the right shows Actual as horizontal dark blue bar and Target as a vertical red line. The green shading is qualitative ranges Low - Medium - High
If you don't see the "Dashboard | Target | YTD" menu you may need to scroll the page down to expose it.
Target Drill Thru
Press the button on right next to each target row to show a full year of activity along with the qualitative swim lanes.
KPI - YTD
The YTD - Year to Date provides a similar presentation as the Targets screen but includes more time periods of MTD, YTD and LTD
KPI - Edit and Customise
There are two ways to access the KPI Edit
- If you are viewing the KPI Charts you can get to edit using the Edit button on the right of the page
- If you are at the BI Administrator menu click on the Cool Stuff icon on the Company Tab
- Select KPIs
- There is also access in the menu when in Cool Stuff
Setting what to calculate and display
To control what to calculate and display select the Choose KPIs Tab
To calculate a ratio select the left tick box
To display in the Target screen select the tick box "Display Chart" on the right
To display in the YTD screen select the tick box "YTD Only" on the right
You need to press Save Changes.
You can re-order the items by selecting a row with mouse click-and-hold and dragging and dropping
You can see other available Ratios as well as Ratios for other Analysis codes ( ie. sub-dimensions including Jobs / Classes / Tracking Codes ) by choosing items from the Show Detail pulldown list.
Set Targets & Thresholds
To setup your own Targets and Thresholds .
- Click on Set Targets
- Click the Green Plus to to Add your targets
- Choose the KPI e.g. Revenue
- Choose Target Value Type
- Fixed - Enter one target to repeat each month
- Monthly - Enter targets for each month
KPI - Thresholds
- Lower Threshold - % of the Target
- Upper Threshold - % of the Target
- Max Threshold - % of the Target
- Alarm - % of the Target that raises an Alarm Level
More Advanced Features
You can also calculate your own ratios by using the Non-Financial KPIs and Calculated KPIs tabs.
What is a Beta Release?
We have a few more thing to complete with KPIs and so we are releasing this as Beta.
Whats Beta ?
It's Greek ! Alpha, Beta, Gamma.
The Alpha version is the internal development and testing version that we work on to build the KPI feature.
The Beta release is the KPI feature's public debut. A Beta cycle is intended to get exposure to real data and real users and get your feedback. When you use the KPI feature any outages (that's geek speak for bugs) are automatically logged and sent to us. You are welcome to try these new KPI features but please do so on the understanding that it's not yet perfect and it's not yet production quality. The purpose of a Beta cycle is to make a product bullet proof faster and for those of you who have the time and patience we appreciate your support.
There are a few things we are still working on and also some known issues. These are listed here.
If you find other issues not listed here please let us know by emailing support@bi4cloud.com.