Performance Indicators	Help Home Page

1. Overview
2. List of Indicators
3. Creating / Editing Performance Indicators
3.1 Performance Indicators Fields
4. Perspectives / Indicator Types
5. Creating New Performance Indicators
6. Performance Indicators Set Up Considerations
6 1. Averaging Percentages Problem
6.2. Changing indicator measurement intervals and past target reporting problem

1. Overview

Performance indicators (PIs) are the measurement parameters that ultimately drive the Escendency system and contribute the quantitative measurements that allow the organisation's vision to be measured.

PIs are attached to the measurable items of the strategy map during the setup of performance targets. PI's can be attached to any number of performance targets provided those targets are not running concurrently at anytime during their duration.

Statutory performance indicators (e.g. BVPIs for local government) and local PI's (internal to the organisation) are the two default types that come with the system. These indicator types can be edited, deleted or added to in the PI Types module).

Escendency identifies the statutory PIs that relate to a specific organisation and pre-populates them into that organisation's Escendency system. Measurements and equations are also pre-populated for those PIs that are defined by a formula (see Equation Builder help on setting up, editing and using equations). Such PI's are prefixed with lower case 'e' for equation (e.g. eBV199a) and are all set up as snapshot and annual by default, whereas those not associated with a formula are prefixed with a lower case 's' for simple (e.g. sBV002a). An organisation can choose to use, edit, delete or ignore these pre-populated PIs.

Escendency maintains an upto date list of all client organisations' statutory PIs and will update a client's performance indicator table as this list is changed.

NOTE: Escendency makes no apologies for statutory performance indicators preloaded onto a client's system that cannot be defined as having a value that is good for performance when low, high, or in a range. This is because such "indicators" are not correctly defined by the statutory body involved and are not indicative of performance per se (examples from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) include BV016b: Percentage of Economically Active People who have a Disability, BV017b: Ethnic minority representation in the workforce – local population, and BV216a: Identifying Contaminated Land). For these situations Escendency recommends using "Range" as an option.

2. List of indicators

View a list of performance indicators, and manage individual performance indicators (figure 1).

Figure 1: Example of a performance indicator list window. Note: a new system may not have any PIs listed. PI's are listed alphabetically numerically by title.

Records are split up into pages. Click a page number link to view another page of records. The number of your current page is highlighted in bold red text.

If there are a lot of pages, numbers will appear in a list that you can scroll along.

To change the number of records shown at a time, select a different number from the drop-down list at the top of the page.

To delete a performance indicator, click the "delete" link next to the indicator. A popup message will appear asking to confirm deletion. Press "OK", and its status will change to "deleted".

Checking the "Show Deleted, Suspended, Pending" checkbox will cause the list of records to include these records along with those currently open. Leaving the checkbox blank will cause the list only to show records currently open.

Click "Add" to add a new indicator, or click an existing indicator to view/edit it (figure 2).

Figure 2: Example of the performance indicator Add/Edit window.

Note: if the performance indicator is already created and has performance target/s associated the indicator cannot be fully edited until:

• All the indicators's performance targets have passed their end date
• All the performance targets' indicators and audit tasks have been completed
• The overnight job has run successfully; whilst doing this it will set finished performance targets' statuses to inactive

Caution! When setting up a new performance indicator it is very important to pay attention to the parameters used. Once a performance indicator is actively attached to a target it becomes impossible for users to change many of the indicator's parameters, e.g. measurement interval, measurement type, current value type, and high/low/range all of which have a significant impact on the way a performance target is reported and assessed. This point cannot be over stressed.

3.1 Performance indicator fields

• "Title": the indicators's title.
• "Reference ID ": an organisation's reference for more information about the indicators (e.g. "BV119c".
• "Description": long description for the indicators. Note: data enterers will NOT see this description; they will see the text entered in the "Measurement Task Definition" field below.
• "Document URL": e.g. for URLs of performance indicators stipulated by the DCLG. This will become a link to the external document in the Performance Indicator's library report in My Reports in the Control Panel.
• "Indicator Type": whether the indicator is a statutory BVPI (e.g. from the DCLG), or an indicator set up locally within the organisation. Note: Additional indicators can be added, or the current one's renamed, in the PI Types module.
• "Indicator Measurement type": Indicators can be simple or equation. The former comprise one measurement (for example, 'tonnage of waste sent to landfill') while the latter may require two or more components and are related to a formula (for example, 'percentage of waste collected composted'). These indicators are calculated automatically from simple indicators and/or measurement values that are compiled in an equation. See Equation Builder module help for more information on setting up this type of indicator. Note: Escendency systems come preloaded with equations and measurements for an organisation's statutory performance indicators.
• "Equation": if the indicator measurement type is an equation, then this drop down allows the relevant equation to be selected. The equation, if not preloaded, will need to be set up in the Equation Builder module.
• "Measurement type": the data type of the indicator's measurements (note: these are preconfigured in the system and cannot be edited):
  • "Numeric (integer)": whole numbers, e.g. 10
  • "Numeric (floating point)": numbers with a decimal point, e.g. 10.04
  • "Yes/no": i.e "yes" or "no" as to whether a target has been reached. Note: only use "snapshot" as the current value type for yes/no indicators.
  • "Currency (£)": pounds sterling. Users will not need to enter the £ sign.
  • "Percentage": a percentage. Users will not need to enter the % sign.
  • "Date": a date. The system will provide users with a date-picker widget. Note: only use "snapshot" as the current value type for date indicators.
• "Units of indicators": units that performance targets of the indicators are counted in, e.g. kilogrammes. This is different from "Measurement Type": a performance indicator of 1.5 kg has a measurement type of a floating point number, and a unit of indicators of a kilogramme. Units can be defined in the Units of Measure module. Note: if a different currency type is required other than pounds sterling (e.g. $) that currency can be set up in Units of Measure but the measurement type chosen would be numeric (floating point).
• "Category" is typically for those categories defined for BVPIs that come standard with the Escendency system. Categories can be deleted, edited or added to in the PI Categories module.
• "High/Low/Range" determines what value is good for the performance indicator, e.g. for "trees planted" a high value would be good, and for "burglaries per thousand households", a low value would be good. For some kinds of indicators, appropriate values would be in a range. These parameters are fixed in the Escendency system.
• "Current value type": There are three values types - Cumulative, snapshot, and average. The current value type chosen is determined by the definition of the performance indicator and the performance target that will relate to it. For example; total tonnage of waste sent to landfill would be a cumulative measure (BV 82d (i)), the average waiting time for assesments would be an average measure (BV 195), and identification of the number of contaminated sites (assessed at the end of a Council's fiscal year) would be a snapshot (BV 126a). These parameters are fixed in the Escendency system.
• "Measurement interval" is how often a user assigned to measure the associated performance target/s will be asked to enter data. The Escendency system comes with 8 defaults that can be edited, deleted or added too in the Intervals module.
• "Validation interval" is how often the assigned validator will be asked to validate (audit) data that has been entered. This must be larger than the measurement interval.
• "Reporting interval" is how often the performance measurements will be displayed graphically. For example, a reporting interval greater that a measurement interval will restrain the performance target graph to just displaying the reporting interval as well as reducing the number of phase target options during target set up (hence, it is usual to match the reporting interval to the measurement interval).
• "Status" indicates whether or not a performance indicator will be available for use. Only "open" indicators are available for use when creating new performance targets.
• "Aims/Purpose": This field mirrors the same field on the DCLG BVPI definitions.
• "Scale factor": if data entered will routinely be in large numbers, e.g. in thousands or tens of thousands (for example, kilograms of waste sent to landfill per month), setting a scale factor can save data enterers from having to enter large number of zeroes (and also reduce data entry errors). Enter a scale factor with an appropriate number of zeroes, e.g. for data to be measured in thousands set a scale factor of a thousand so that instead of entering "6700" the data enterer would enter "6.7".
• "Measurement Task Description/Formula (if applicable) ": Define how measurement data should be entered here because this field will be seen in the task description window when inputters and auditors are doing data entry tasks and when performance targets are set up and reported on. Note: it is this field which will be shown, not "Description" above, though both fields can share the same text. If the performance indicator type is defined by an equation it is suggested to also place the formula in this field.

4. Perspective/Indicator types

This button gives access to a list of perspective/indicator types that can assist with classification of the performance indicators (figure 3). The Escendency system comes with a default list of scorecard perspectives based on the BVPIs. These perspectives can be edited, deleted, added to in the Scorecard Perspectives module.

Figure 3: Example perspectives list to associate with a performance indicator. The example shows some additional perspectives to the Escendency defaults.

Select one or more perspective/indicator types, and press the "Save" button to save changes. Once back at the main edit window (figure 2) the user can save the changes made to the PI list (figure 1).

5. Creating New Performance Indicators

A new performance indicator can be created from scratch using the 'Add' button in the Performance Indicator list window (figure 1) or from an existing performance indicator by clicking the 'Save New' button in the Performance Indicator add/edit window (figure 2) provided the reference field has been changed. This is particularly useful for performance indicators that share identical field content. From release 3.10 perspectives from the original performance indicator are also copied over to the new one.

6. Performance Indicators Set Up Considerations

6.1 Averaging Percentage Problem

Caution should be used when setting up a performance indicator that is reporting an average percent:

Consider this example using DCLG's performance indicator BV82b(i): Percentage of Household waste composted. This example is particularly relevant because the values may vary signficantly seasonally (more compost in the 3rd quarter because of garden waste). If the measurement is taken quarterly we could have the following hypothetical values (in 1000 tonnes):

If the quarterly percentages are averaged, however, the value is not 25.00 but 23.52.

The situation above can best be resolved in two ways:

1. Using a simple indicator set to snapshot. The values entered each quarter would be calculated from the sum of the previous values (i.e. from the example above, 20/120, 50/240, 115/390 and 125/500) so that the reported values would be the percentage of waste composted to date as opposed to per quarter.

2. Using an equation indicator, also set to snapshot, attached to an equation comprising two summed measurements (tonnes of waste composted to-date and tonnes of waste collected). Each quarterly calculation would in effect mimic example 1. but require less overhead.

6.2 Changing indicator measurement intervals and past target reporting problem

If the interval of an existing indicator is to be changed ensure that it has not been used for a previous performance target otherwise the graphs for that target will not display correctly. Use 'Save new' feature in the indicator edit page instead (you will need to change the reference field first) and create a new indicator and edit the measurement intervals accordingly. Rename so the two indicators can be told apart and attach to the new target as needed (you can still use the target wizard but ensure that you repoint to the indicator with the new interval in step 1).