KPIs in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Submitted By: Bob Mixon, MSD2D SharePoint Community Manager and Managing Director/ShareSquared, Inc.
Posted On: 3/26/2007

Description:

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are metrics used to quantify objectives to reflect an organization's strategic performance. See the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_performance_indicators for more information about KPIs.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has built in features that allow you to manage and display KPI information in various ways.  KPI indicators can be derived from a SharePoint list, an Excel Workbook, data in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and manually entered information.  I'm going to show you how to create a KPI list and manually populate it with data.

Lets create a Sales Analysis KPI list and see what results can be displayed.  To get started, choose a site that's currently not in production use, such as a private sub-site.

1.   Click View All Site Content.

2.   Click Create.

3.   On the Create page, select KPI List.

4.   Name the list Sales Analysis.

a.   Providing a description is optional.

b.   Choose whether you want to have the list displayed on the left vertical navigation bar (QuickLaunch).

You now have an empty KPI list that is ready for you to add list items to.  We will be adding a few KPI items using manually entered information.  From the New menu, select Indicator using manually entered information, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1.

Repeat this process three times, adding three indicators of the same type.

Indicator #1: Pipeline ($)

1.   Set the name to Pipeline ($).

2.   Set the indicator value to 330000.

3.   Select Better values areHigher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 500000.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 300000.

Indicator #2: Conversion Rate (%)

1.   Set the name to Conversion Rate (%).

2.   Set the indicator value to 65.

3.   Set Better values are Higher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 80.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 50.

Indicator #2: Revenue ($)

1.   Set the name to Revenue ($).

2.   Set the indicator value to 250000.

3.   Set Better values areHigher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 500000.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 300000.

You should have a KPI list that looks similar to the one in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

There are two built-in Web Parts that you can use to display your KPI data.  The Key Performance Indicators Web Part will display all indicators in the KPI list, as Figure 3 shows.  The KPI Details Web Part will display details of a single indicator in your list.

Figure 3.

You can also separate each individual indicator out and display specific details.  In the example that Figure 4 shows, I've added three KPI Detail Web Parts, each showing a single indicator.

Figure 4.

Now, the next time you're asked to provide KPIs on a dashboard, you'll know how to do so.

Until next time…

Description:

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are metrics used to quantify objectives to reflect an organization's strategic performance. See the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_performance_indicators for more information about KPIs.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has built in features that allow you to manage and display KPI information in various ways.  KPI indicators can be derived from a SharePoint list, an Excel Workbook, data in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and manually entered information.  I'm going to show you how to create a KPI list and manually populate it with data.

Lets create a Sales Analysis KPI list and see what results can be displayed.  To get started, choose a site that's currently not in production use, such as a private sub-site.

1.   Click View All Site Content.

2.   Click Create.

3.   On the Create page, select KPI List.

4.   Name the list Sales Analysis.

a.   Providing a description is optional.

b.   Choose whether you want to have the list displayed on the left vertical navigation bar (QuickLaunch).

You now have an empty KPI list that is ready for you to add list items to.  We will be adding a few KPI items using manually entered information.  From the New menu, select Indicator using manually entered information, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1.

Repeat this process three times, adding three indicators of the same type.

Indicator #1: Pipeline ($)

1.   Set the name to Pipeline ($).

2.   Set the indicator value to 330000.

3.   Select Better values areHigher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 500000.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 300000.

Indicator #2: Conversion Rate (%)

1.   Set the name to Conversion Rate (%).

2.   Set the indicator value to 65.

3.   Set Better values are Higher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 80.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 50.

Indicator #2: Revenue ($)

1.   Set the name to Revenue ($).

2.   Set the indicator value to 250000.

3.   Set Better values areHigher.

4.   Set Met or exceeded goal to 500000.

5.   Set Met or exceeded warning to 300000.

You should have a KPI list that looks similar to the one in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

There are two built-in Web Parts that you can use to display your KPI data.  The Key Performance Indicators Web Part will display all indicators in the KPI list, as Figure 3 shows.  The KPI Details Web Part will display details of a single indicator in your list.

Figure 3.

You can also separate each individual indicator out and display specific details.  In the example that Figure 4 shows, I've added three KPI Detail Web Parts, each showing a single indicator.

Figure 4.

Now, the next time you're asked to provide KPIs on a dashboard, you'll know how to do so.

Until next time…