The “Update Info” Panel in BSC Designer
It’s important to keep the data on your Balanced Scorecard up to date.
If you’re just using one scorecard, that’s easy. BSC Designer allows you to set an update interval for each scorecard—a set of deadlines by which you’ll need to update the values of all of your indicators. Some scorecards may be updated monthly, others more often.
- Learn more in the online manual;
- Learn more about testing and updating of indicators in the online eTraining;
But if you create a cascading Balanced Scorecard, one high-level scorecard may delegate indicators to dozens of lower-level scorecards. As a result, the indicators on a single scorecard may be updated on very different schedules. Keeping track of all of those deadlines can be confusing.
That’s why we’re introducing a new feature: the “Update Info” Panel. Beginning with BSC Designer 4.6, you can define update intervals for any indicator you like. Managers can easily control when new indicator values will be required. And everyone with access to your BSC project will be alerted when it’s time to update the values of the indicators they’re responsible for. That means top managers, line managers, and employees can all work together more easily and more efficiently than ever.
Assigning an update interval to an indicator is easy. Simply open the indicator, and click on the “Panel ‘Update Info’” button to add a new panel to the “indicator properties” display. This new panel will show you how often this indicator should be updated, when it was updated last, or if it has never been updated. To change your update schedule, just enter your new interval in days. For instance, you’d choose“30” days to update this indicator once a month.
Once you assign an update interval for a particular indicator, everyone who uses the scorecard on which the indicator appears will be alerted when it’s time for an update. If this indicator has been delegated to one or more lower-level scorecards, users of those scorecards will be alerted, as well.
On the date you chose, these users will see a clock icon next to the indicator’s name, indicating that this indicator needs to be updated today. Your employees will know that it’s time to retrieve the current values, perform the appropriate analyses, or deliver the appropriate data so that their managers can update the indicator.
The clock icon will also appear if you have set an update interval but the indicator has never been updated.
If the due date passes and the indicator has not been updated, a yellow “alert” icon appears, signaling that this indicator requires urgent attention.
You can also review your indicator update intervals on the Analysis tab, at the bottom of the page. Here, you’ll see the indicator’s current value, the date when it’s scheduled for its next update, the date of its most recent update, and how often it should be updated.
With our new “Update Info” feature, managing large cascading scorecards is easier than ever. You can delegate as many indicators as you like, and share them between as many scorecards as you like, without confusing your staff, without missing deadlines, and without using any extra tools to send out reminders to your team.
