Import and Export values

Introduction - Functions Overview - Purchase Program

In most cases you will need to import data into your Balanced Scorecard from an external file, such as an MS Excel spreadsheet. Here are instructions for how to import values into a Balanced Scorecard project.

• Check the latest version of this step-by-step guide online. 

Here is the source project file:

For testing purposes you can download this Excel file.

Step 1  – select the recipient for data import

Select an indicator or category, right-click on it and select the “Import Values” command in the contextual menu:

Step 2 – select the data source

Then select the source for your data, which could be an CSV file, MS Excel file or data that you will enter manually (copy and paste from your data source). If you enter data manually, you will be able to specify some custom delimiters for telling the program how to parse these data.

Step 3 – select the type of import

If during the first step you selected a category as a recipient for data, then you will be able to:

• Import data for this category (e.g., name, weight, description)
• Create a new indicator in this category and import data to this indicator
• Import values for several indicators

If during the first step you selected an indicator, then you will be able to:

• Use the first option “Import data for indicator”
• Create a new indicator, if you choose the “Import data for new indicator/category” option
• Import values for several indicators

Importing values

The most advanced option is importing values for several indicators:

Import several indicators at once

If you are importing several indicators, the program will need to know where to search for indicator names and parent categories.

• The name of a parent category and indicator might be in separate columns. In this case, select the first option.
• Another possibility is that the name of indicator and its category are in the same column, for instance in the format “Category\Indicator”. In this case you need to select the second option and specify the delimiter in the field below.

Associating columns in source data with indicators’ properties

For the next step you will need to tell BSC Designer the meaning of columns in the data that you are importing. For instance, you need to tell it that column 1 should be associated with the name of the parent category of the indicator, column 2 should be associated with the name of the indicator, column 3 should be associated with the value of the indicator, and so on.
It is important to specify which column contains the information about the indicator’s name and its parent category.

Additionally, you can tell BSC Designer that some of the columns in your data contain information about dates. Then BSC Designer will import the values of your indicators into a time point corresponding to the date column in your source data file.
If you are importing indicators for just one time point, you can select the “Use current date from calendar” option.

BSC Designer will show you a preview of the imported data:

When you finish the import process, you will see the imported indicators in BSC Designer. Click on the dates in the calendar to make sure that the right data were imported for the right dates: