Balanced Scorecard Designer

What is a KPI-based management and Balanced Scorecard Concept?

KPI management is an effective business concept that is based on measuring the performance of a company. The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) can be defined as “effectiveness measurement indicators” that show important company activities which achieve Strategic Goals. This appears to be very simple — you define what you want your company to become (i.e., how is it going to grow, what are the priority objectives) and then create indicators to measure how fast you are achieving the Strategic Goals; such as what are the vulnerabilities and strong sites of the processes, what is needed to be changed and what works just fine as it is.

Balanced Scorecard is a control and executive corporate system that allows a company to develop an effective method by using not only a good measurement system, but by also paying attention to other aspects of business theory.  It is part of the KPI based Management and it was put together by Harvard Business School professor Dr. Robert S. Kaplan, along with business consulting specialist David P. Norton in 1990.

Perform precise planning. According to Balanced Scorecard, the business needs to turn the strategic planning process into one of the key functions. It needs a precise theory that produces exact measured values which make it possible to create realistic forecasts.

Balance your business activities by using not only financial measures, but also with marketing, process and human resources. The Balanced Scorecard concept focuses on an organization’s strategy from four different points of view or perspectives, with each of them potentially containing its own sub-perspectives and exact goals. The perspectives are the following:

• Financial perspective;
• Customer perspective;
• Innovation and learning perspective;
• Internal process perspective.

A well-implemented BSC provides linking between internal business processes and a company’s strategic goals that is needed to attain advanced strategic effectiveness with the company’s success as the outcome.

Balanced Scorecard is aimed to link the strategic and operational activities of the company so effectively, that every employee (even at the lowest hierarchy level), can understand exactly what the strategic goal he or she is helping to achieve when working on any task.

BSC Designer

Balanced Scorecard Designer is a software tool that provides automatic use of the Balanced Scorecard concept and other KPI-based management systems. Its most important advantage is the ease in which it can be understood and used, as well as all of its powerful features. BSC Designer makes it possible to create projects that would support any KPI-based Management concept (including Balanced Scorecard).  It automates most implementation and maintenance processes, leading to a reduction of costs for the concept’s use and also  improving its benefits.

BSC Designer is available in three desktop editions that have different pricing schedules which include: BSC Designer Light (freeware with very limited functionality), BSC Designer Standard (allowing for many more functions and having a mid-level pricing) and BSC Designer Pro (a fully-functioning tool for real professionals that absolutely warrants its higher price). We provide different editions of our tools so that they can become good solutions for almost any business activity, from small home businesses to huge corporations.

BSC Designer Online is a great solution for multiple project uses. It is perfect for users who travel a lot and for transnational and online businesses. BSC Designer makes it much easier to coordinate through the Internet.  This powerful edition can be purchased though special credits, allowing customers to use it with a limitation on time and the number of projects that they can work on.  You can check out the difference between functionality of the all four editions of BSC Designer (both online and desktop ones) in this comparative chart.

Basic KPI Management Functions

Basic KPI management provides a group of functions and tools that forms the entire set of software products called BSC Designer. Those functions are available in all four editions of BSC Designer: Light, Standard, Pro and Online.

All four editions of BSC Designer provide you with an easy-to-use and understandable tree of subcategories and indicators. The tree can be presented in both simple and column view modes. You can create and edit indicators’ and categories’ names and descriptions with just a few clicks! Read more about the Tree of metrics

Manage the importance of categories and indicators by changing their weight values. By default, the weights are set to “1,” but you may change the weight of every element in a range from “1” to “10”: the higher the weight value, the more important the elements are. You may also change the Max Weight number to customize the range of weight values. Read more about Weight concept in BSC Designer here

Look at stop lights and other signal icons to capture the indicators that happen to require your attention more than others. Signal icons also portray the dynamics of performance changes. Find more information about stop lights and other signal icons

Manage measure units of the indicators, select “Score” or “%” as the measure unit or create your own (for example, “$ / hour”).
Learn more about measure units

Manage indicators in time, using the calendar and time points. Each of the indicators may be changed once per day. After the project is filled with values for different time points, the dynamics are shown in the Time Chart which is available for each of the indicators and categories (including the entire project). Learn more about Time points management

Standard and Pro Edition Functions

“Standard” functions – group of functions available in BSC Designer Standard and Pro editions. It includes several different types of reports, diagrams and charts, as well as other useful features.

One of the most useful and detailed reports that reveals the dynamics of the performance and the details for the elements of the tree is the HTML report. It only takes a few clicks to generate an HTML report. You can then print it, send it to anyone via email, upload it to the remote server so you can share it worldwide or just collect it. This report is also available in BSC Designer Online.  Check out the full report. Find the full description of HTML Report

Export to MS Excel (Excel Report) is helpful to export the data from BSC Designer to MS Excel so that it can be used to share the project’s data with colleagues or other individuals that are involved who do not have BSC Designer (i.e., outsourcers). By using the Excel project, you can manage the basic aspects of indicators and categories, such as weights and values. In other words, MS Excel Report can be used as an alternative to BSC Designer for those that are not equipped with the tool, however it does not provide the same functionality as BSC Designer. Learn more about MS Excel report

Export to MS PowerPoint or PowerPoint Report — this is a perfect function for making presentations.  With just a few clicks, you will be provided with a *.ppt file that contains slides that show the basic information about the project, the project’s overview (a chart that shows names and descriptions of the project’s elements) and a full review of every element in the project’s tree (including Time chart and Gauge diagram). This function could be really helpful to make clear, informative presentations of the activity’s performance to Top Management, as well as to Shareholders and Investors. Read more about MS PowerPoint Report

Optimization graph visualizes the optimization direction of KPIs which also reveals the current value with its percentage for the indicator. Optimization graph does not work with such tree elements as categories and the project; only indicators’ data can be visualized with its assistance. This graph can be very helpful to see what function is being used to measure the metric’s data. In a Standard edition, it could be linear minimizing or maximizing functions, but in the Pro edition you will be able to create your own functions that will also be presented on this type of graph. Read more about Optimization graph

Diamond diagram is a unique diagram based on the radar chart method. It can be helpful to see which part of the whole project or a subcategory appears to be weak and which parts are the strongest (according to their actual performance and targets). By determining the weaknesses through this diagram, you will be able to pay more attention to them which makes your business performance balanced. Learn more about Diamond diagram

Use KPI attachments to associate files with indicators. Any type of file can be associated with indicators to provide you links to additional information such as: task assignments, charts, detailed instructions and authorization data (long text files), multimedia files (images, sounds, videos) and many more. The attachments are not used in performance calculations, but are aimed to put together links for all of the additional information that relate to the task that is associated with the indicator. Learn more about KPI attachments

Professional Edition Functions

Professional functions are available only in BSC Designer Pro edition. They include additional types of reports and charts, more options for you to customize functions for your specific needs, unique features that link indicators and categories between different projects, database linking to projects using SQL, transferring data, and many other functions to meet almost any demand that your business might need for Balanced Scorecard.

Report for selected item makes it easier to work with HTML reports – it is possible to select any item, such as a subcategory or indicator, and create an HTML report that provides a single description without mentioning the rest of the items in the project. This function is helpful in many cases, including reporting to an upper manager / investor / shareholder about the exact task or group of tasks, as well as how it’s been changed during the last year (for example, financial growth). Find more about reporting for selected item

Overview report makes it clear how the map of operational goals looks like. It does not show any values; simply the names of the categories and indicators and their descriptions that are put together in an easy to understand colored diagram. Read more about Overview report

Dashboard report can be an alternative to the common HTML report, presenting other types of diagrams, such as the “Diamond” diagram’s usage instead of “Time” chart. You can choose what type of report is needed in different situations and for different purposes. While common HTML reports aim to present the performance’s dynamics that might be interesting for shareholders, Dashboard report refers to the current project’s performance values which may be better suited for an upper executive manager. Read more about Dashboard report

The ability to customize the HTML report helps to accommodate your specific needs. You can select the types of diagrams and charts that are to be shown and the order of presenting them — all with just a few clicks! Now you can make the HTML report look just like Dashboard – you may choose the diagrams and charts among all six types that exist in BSC Designer. Learn how to customize the HTML Report with BSC Designer Pro

Gauge diagram is another visualization method of performance. With this diagram, it is easier to ascertain actual performance and compare it to where it should be. It also has colors that clearly reveal the actual performance as “bad”, “middle” or “good” (the boarders of the colors can be set by the user). Read more about Gauge diagram

Pie performance chart is an easy to understand circle graph that shows the performance percentage for the whole project, as well as for all of the subcategories. When viewing this chart, it becomes clear which component makes a business project stronger and weaker. Learn more about Pie performance chart

Secure your data with passwords function of BSC Designer. Different types of passwords can be set to protect pertinent data from being viewed or edited. Since BSC Designer mainly deals with most vulnerable information, this function can be very helpful in securing it.
Read more about corporate data security and passwords in BSC Designer

Weight chart makes the exact weight for every element in the entire project apparent. It can be easily understood that the “Financial perspective” category has a weight value of 40% for the whole project. But sometimes it’s hard to calculate the exact meaning of the indicator that is part of the subcategory, which in turn is a part of another subcategory, the Financial Perspective and the whole project. But with the help of the performance chart, this problem can be solved; you will see the weight of each element (subcategory or indicator) in regards to the whole project. Learn more about Weight chart

The Strategy Map tab combined with the operational dashboard makes it easy to create and edit  the Strategy Map (while reviewing the strategy) which is an extremely important component of the Balanced Scorecard concept. In other words, you can use BSC Designer Pro not only as a dashboard for operational tasks, but also as a full Scorecard, which also includes strategy planning tool such as Strategy Map. Read more about the Strategy map

In the Pro edition, mathematical formulas for measuring performance values are not limitedto the basic linear functions (as it is in Standard), but can be customized to fit your needs in regards to finding out how to measure each of the indicators. An easy-to-use Formula Builder makes it possible for specialists (i.e., financial managers) to set formulas for each indicator or to use the standard ones. Read more about Formula Builder

Have the ability to delegate and import indicators which will allow you to easily organize the Cascading Scorecards. Since the tool is installed on every computer that is involved in the chain, the process of building the links between BSC projects will not take much time. When the cascading is used, a CEO can see up-to-date information about their VPs actual performance, VPs could give tasks and monitor for the lower level of management hierarchy, and so on. Check out the example of building cascading scorecards, described in the following articles: Cascading process in company with BSC Designer; Improved Cascading.

Establish linking between the BSC project and almost any type of existing database using SQL Indicators. This tool becomes very useful when you need to connect to ERP’s or other databases that support the whole company’s processes or just a few activities (i.e., accounting). With the easy-to-use SQL query builder, even non-IT professionals can handle it (if the database is in suitable format, please contact our support service to learn more). This function is also available in BSC Designer Online edition. Read more of how to set up SQL indicators

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Exporting data from the BSC Designer project is an important function, widely used by our clients while maintaining the Balanced Scorecard concept within the company. The tool allows a wide range of easy to create and understandable reports, including several types of HTML – based reports (Export to HTML, HTML report for selected item, Overview report, Dashboard report for the whole project and for selected item, Strategy Map report), Microsoft Office Suite –based reports (Exporting data to MS PowerPoint and MS Excel). Those reports not only export data from the BSC Designer project (*.bsc file) but also build diagrams and charts, showing different aspects of data, presented in the project.

MS Excel report (“Export to Excel” function) with BSC Designer

This article is aimed to describe the most unusual and unique report, which in some way cannot even be called report, because it contains lots of digits, but no graphs or diagrams. MS Excel Report (or “Export to Excel” function) really has unique structure and the situations, it could be used successfully, might differ from the cases, the other reports (like HTML or MS PowerPoint) could be used. The purposes of Excel Report’s usage might be the following:

How to create MS PowerPoint Report with BSC Designer

Let’s create and explore the MS Excel report with BSC Designer to learn more about this powerful and unique function. A real example of creating MS PowerPoint report will be described and shown.

Launch BSC Designer (Standard or Pro version) and open one of the projects (the default one will be used in our case). Then change some of indicators maximal and minimal values – it will be needed to show the potential of Excel report. The next step to be recommended is filling the project with random values. This function also allows the report to show all its functionality by filing the project with values for the selected period of time. If you already had a chance to use time points in your project (if your project is already filled with values for different dates), it would be better for you to skip this step. Check out the article called “How to manage time points with BSC Designer” to learn more about the calendar function and time points management, it provides. To fill the project with random values, click on “Tools” button on the top menu and select “Fill with random values” sign. That is it, we have just filled our project with values for different time points within the selected period.

Now, when the project is filled up with the different values of the indicators and their parent categories, it could be presented in report. So it’s time to create the MS Excel report. Click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Export to MS Excel” sign. Please make sure you have MS Excel program (the part of the Microsoft Office suite) installed on your computer and registered, otherwise BSC Designer will not be able to export the information. After “Generate” button was clicked, MS Excel will be launched and the report, created by BSC Designer, will be opened. Congratulations! The report has just been created! Now every of its features will be shown and described. If you are not BSC Designer user yet and you are not able to create the report, you may download the full version of the report, described in this article.

The top field of MS Excel report with BSC Designer

The top field of the Excel report contains the basic information for the project. First of all it presents the project’s name (it is “Balanced Scorecard” in our case) and its description (in our case it is “The default project filled with random data created to show how to operate with BSC Designer software”). This information could be changed by the user manually while editing Excel file or, but also it could be changed in BSC Designer program, so this information will be exported correctly not only to MS Excel, but also to MS PowerPoint and HTML formats of reports. To change this information, open BSC Designer, click on “File” button on the top menu and select “Document Properties” sign. Then input the author’s name and type correct project’s name (for example, Financial Scorecard) instead of “Balanced Scorecard”. Press “OK” button to apply changes.

Then the report shows the performance values for the main categories and the whole project’s total performance. Please note, oppositely to other reports, showing performance values (Export to HTML, HTML report for selected item, Dashboard report for the whole project and for selected item, exporting to MS PowerPoint) MS Excel report does not ask user to select the reporting period – it shows the value only for the date, which is currently selected on the calendar (read more about the calendar function and time points management in the article: How to manage time points with BSC Designer).

Now let’s move to the “Help” field – it says: You can change the values in “weight” column, the value must be between 0 and 10; You can change the values in “Value” column; That is really one of the most important point of MS Excel report with BSC Designer – it actually could be used as an alternative tool to manage *.bsc projects. Changing the values and the weights, it will automatically recalculate the project’s performance. All the formulas to recalculate the performance already exist in the *.xls / *.xlsx file, created by BSC Designer. So the project might be operated with Excel even without using BSC Designer at all. Certainly, the functionality of using this configuration of Excel project is limited by values for indicators and weight management, but it could be enough in some cases. For example, this file could be shared with colleagues or other people involved (for example, outsourcers), who are not equipped with BSC Designer, but equipped with MS Office with MS Excel in it. Excel version of BSC Designer project, i.e. MS Excel report, does not support management of a time points and that is why the time dynamics cannot be displayed in it. We will show the example of changing values and weights directly in Excel (not BSC Designer) later, after the columns of data will be described.

The left part of the chart (the beginning)

Let’s start describing the chart, presenting one of the categories. All the columns, presented on the image are actually easy to understand: “Perspective” field shows the name of the category, “indicator” field shows the name of the indicators, “Description” field shows description for the categories and for the indicators. “Weight” column shows weight values for the elements: yellow color for the categories and green for the indicators; those values could be changed manually while editing MS Excel project, changes of weight values will cause the changes of their parent items (categories or subcategories) performance values: the more is the weight of the item (the range is from 0 to 10), the more important it appears to be for the parent category. For example, the category with the three indicators in it, having weight values of 1, 2 and 10: the changes of the first two indicators’ (weight = 1, weight = 2) values will have much less effect on the category’s performance, than any changes of the last indicator’s (weight = 10) value. “Value” column shows the values of the indicators and the calculated value of the categories. Changing the values of the indicators will affect the performance values of their parent categories and the whole project. The values, showing on this column are exact values, had been set in the BSC project (without linking to “Min” and “Max” values).

The right part of the chart (the end of it)

Continuing describing the informative chart for the category, we are moving to the right part of it. The picture presents 4 more columns. “Target Value” column shows the goal for the indicator – the ideal number, which is needed to be reached in order for company to achieve the strategic goal (or part of it), measured by the indicator. It could be minimal number for the indicator or the maximal, depending on the optimization direction (read more about optimization direction of the indicator in the article “How to manage indicators and performance values with BSC Designer”). “Target Description” column presents the information from the same field of BSC Designer Project, located on the bottom panel for every of the indicators – this information does not participate in the calculations. “Absolute Weight” column shows the coefficient of weight value of the item, referring to the whole project’s performance. The numbers here depend on both the indicator’s own weight and its parent category’s weight. This column shows technical measuring information, which is not presented in BSC Designer’s project, but it is presented here in Excel Report to give users a possibility to improve the file or to link it to some other database if needed; usually such procedure is performed by technical professionals of the company or outsourcers. One more column, presenting technical information is named “Absolute Performance”. This is an absolute value, which depends on absolute weight value of the item, its current value, minimal and maximal values and the direction of the optimization and the formula of the optimization (read more about customizing formulas for the indicators in the article “ How to build performance formula with BSC Designer ”). For example, with maximizing direction of the optimization and the standard formula of calculation, the formula of calculating Absolute Performance value will be the following: (Absolute Weight) * ( Value – Min ) / ( Max – Min ). The value, opposite to target one is also presented in the chart, it is located under unnamed column, left to “Absolute Performance” column, lettered “M” in our example. This value is minimal when the maximizing direction of optimization is selected and maximal for minimization direction of optimization.

Editing file in MS Excel

We have promised to describe how to manage values of the items and their weights in MS Excel without using BSC Designer. First of all, let’s change the weights values for the indicators of the category called “Education and Growth Perspective”. When the report was created, the weights of the indicators were the following: 2, 7, 1. Their parent category’s value with those settings was “58.13”, % and the whole project’s value was “64.92”, %. Now we will change the weight values for the indicators to 4, 6, 9 directly in MS Excel. After the new weights are input, MS Excel project recalculates the performance of the category into “69.55”, % and the performance of the whole project into: “67.20”, %. The same way we could change the values for the indicators – after new value will be added, MS Excel will recalculate the performance values of the categories and for the whole project.

Editing weights – before changing

Editing weights – after changing

Here you may download the full version of MS Excel report, which had been shown in this article to look through it or it might be even better to create your own report using BSC Designer right now!

Alternatives

As you see, MS Excel report is not just a report but a project, living is own life. BSC Designer does not just transfer its data to MS Excel but also provide users with an opportunity to change weights and values so the project’s value will be automatically recalculated. Certainly, such MS Excel project does not provide users with an important function – time points. That is why it is not going to be easy to see the dynamics of values in time, using only MS Excel. MS Excel report is unique when it comes to creating some huge database on Excel project’s base or integrating data from BSC Designer project to the existing database of the company. It sure needs lots of knowledge referring to database management and SQL computer language and only a high ranking specialist could perform this.

AKS-Labs also provides its customers with one more alternative to paid versions of the tool. The free one is called BSC Designer Light and, oppositely to MS Excel project, it allows to work with time points. This version is limited by functionality but it still could be more useful in some cases, such as: sharing the project’s data with colleagues or other people involved (for example, outsourcers), who are not equipped with paid version of BSC Designer; changing the basic aspects of project’s data and perform simple indicators and categories management (including time points management) functions without paid version of BSC Designer. There is no opportunity in BSC Designer Light to create such informative reports as HTML report, PowerPoint report, Dashboard report, available in BSC Designer Standard and BSC Designer Pro and there are more limitations of functionality (check out the full chart, presenting the difference between functionality of versions on this page).

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Reports play significant role in Balanced Scorecard system maintenance. There are lots of ways to show the information, measured by the dashboard to the one who created the exact task and knows every detail of it, but what if it comes to the need of presenting information to the investor or the shareholder, who might not know all the detail of the process?

First of all, when it comes to presentation, the first tool that comes to mind of most of MS Windows OS users is certainly MS PowerPoint, the part of the Microsoft Office suite. PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers because of its availability, simplicity and usability.

The second thing is when the tool is determined, it needs to export the information to it and in most of cases, and just copying the data from the dashboard and pasting it to PowerPoint does not make lots of sense. It sure is much better when the dashboard has its own function to export the information to PowerPoint the way, it could already be presented.

That is why BSC Designer allows the function of exporting the information to MS PowerPoint (also called “PowerPoint report”). This function could be really helpful in the following cases:

• To report about the activity’s performance to senior managers;
• To keep the report files in achieves for internal or external inspections needs;
• To make clear and informative presentations of the activity’s performance to the top management, management company as well as to shareholders and investors.

How to create MS PowerPoint Report with BSC Designer

Now let’s try to create MS PowerPoint report to see what it contains. A real example of creating MS PowerPoint report will be described and shown.

Launch BSC Designer (Standard or Pro version) and open one of the projects (the default one will be used in our case). The next step to be recommended is filling the project with random values. This function allows the reports to show all its functionality by filing the project with values for the selected period of time. If you already had a chance to use time points in your project (if your project is already filled with values for different dates), it would be better for you to skip this step. Check out the article called “How to manage time points with BSC Designer” to learn more about the calendar function and time points management, it provides. To fill the project with random values, click on “Tools” button on the top menu and select “Fill with random values” sign. All right, we have just filled our project with values for different time points within the selected period.

Now, when the project is filled up with values of indicators for different dates, the dynamics appeared for the project, so it could be presented in report. Now let’s create the PowerPoint report. Click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Export to MS PowerPoint” sign. The new dialog window will appear; select the reporting time period (it will be “last week” in our case) and click on “Generate” button. Please make sure you have MS PowerPoint program (the part of the Microsoft Office suite) installed on your computer and registered, otherwise BSC Designer will not be able to export the information. After “Generate” button was clicked, MS PowerPoint will be launched and the report, created by BSC Designer, will be opened. Congratulations! The report has just been created! Now every important slide of it will be described in details.

What does MS PowerPoint Report contain

Now when the report is ready let’s see what it contains and where does the information come from. Please note, if the report, created by you is not alike the one, that is shown below, it means you have an old version of BSC Designer Program. In this case, it is recommended to download the latest version of the program directly from our site and reinstall the software. The download page could be found here. Now we will start with MS PowerPoint presentation slides.

The first slide shows the general information: the name of the project reporting, the reporting time period and the author’s name. The name of the project and the author’s name could be changed manually in PowerPoint, but also it could be changed in BSC Designer program, so this information will be exported correctly not only to MS PowerPoint, but also to MS Excel and HTML formats of reports. To change this information, open BSC Designer, click on “File” button on the top menu and select “Document Properties” sign. Then input the author’s name and type correct project’s name (for example, Financial Scorecard) instead of “Balanced Scorecard”. Press “OK” button to apply changes and recreate the report (“Reports” -> “Export to MS PowerPoint”), if needed, so it could present correct information.

The second slide of the MS PowerPoint report presents the overview for the project. It actually contains the same image, the Overview Report presents (read more about Overview Report in the article: Reports with BSC Designer: Overview and Dashboard). To be short, both the Overview Report and the second slide of the MS PowerPoint report show the map of the elements (categories, subcategories and indicators), the project contains, mentioning their names and descriptions. This chart does not contain any information concerning performance values (BSC Designer and even the describing report allows several other tools to present the performance values) but shows only the overview for the project to provide better orientation and understanding the reporting project. If you want to change the information presented in this slide (or in the Overview Report), change the names and the descriptions for categories and indicators, your project contains and recreate the report (“Reports” -> “Export to MS PowerPoint”).

The third slide starts the report of the main category (the whole project; it is named “Balanced Scorecard” by default). It contains the general information concerning the performance values presented in textual format, including:

• Start Value – the value, the category had at the beginning of the reporting period;
• End Value – the value, the category had at the end of the reporting period;
• Dynamics – the difference between the Start Value and the End Value (Dynamics = End Value – Start Value).

Also there is a chart presented on the slide, which shows the performance data overview for every of the elements, included in the reporting category.

There are no maximal and minimal values in this slide because all the categories in BSC Designer are calculated within minimal value of ”0” and maximal value of “100” and the measure unit for the them can only be “%”. That does not mean you cannot select measure units at all but the functions, allowing editing performance values’ details, are available for the indicators (read more about editing performance values for the indicators in the article “How to manage KPIs using BSC Designer’s functions”). The categories, on the other hand, are aimed to automatically calculate the performance of the indicators and subcategories they include and show this information in a form of a point in the range from 0 percent to 100 percent.

The next slide continues the report of the main category. It presents the time performance chart for the category within the reporting period. More information about the time chart could be found in the article “How to visualize data with BSC Designer: diagrams and charts”. Time chart clearly shows the dynamics of the category’s performance and looks much more presentable, then just digits.

As for the colors of borders, they could be green, yellow and red. “Good” performance values area is marked with green light, red area is for “bad” performance and yellow area shows that the performance is not “bad” already but is not yet “good”. Certainly both “bad” and “good” terms have their own performance percentage value. By default, green area are covers the graph within the interval of 80 – 100, %%, yellow color is for 21 – 79, %% and red colored area covers the graph within the interval of 0 – 20, %%. Those boarders could be changed by the user, find out how to do this in the paragraph named “Stop Lights” of the article “ How to visualize data with BSC Designer: signal icons ”.

This slide finishes the report for the main category with the second graph, presented for it – the gauge diagram. This slide is also aimed to present the information for the category’s performance value in a form of understandable image, to make it more clear and presentable. Definitely, Gauge diagram shows the percentage of performance value for any item of the tree (both the categories and the indicators). The hand shows current performance value (End Value of reporting period to be exact) comparing to “min” (the left starting point; it is 0 percent in our case) and “max” (the right finishing point; it is 100 percent in our case) values. Read more about Gauge diagram in the article: “Gauge diagram added! HTML reports updated!” The colors boarders of gauge diagram could be managed the same way as it was described above.

This slide is an overview for the part of report, presenting one of the indicators value. Just like the same slide for the category, this one contains Start Value, End Value and Dynamics. But the indicator’s slide also shows: Score (the value of the indicator, measured with its own measure units without referring to determined minimal and maximal values), “Min” and “Max” values (oppositely to categories, indicators might have any minimal and maximal values set by the user), “Parent” field (shows the category or subcategory, which is parent for the indicator), Measure unit (it could be %, Score or any other measure unit added and selected by the user), Optimization method (also called Optimization Direction: shows the direction, the indicator’s value aims to; read more about optimization directions for the indicators in the article “ How to manage indicators and performance values with BSC Designer ”) There are also time performance chart and gauge diagram slides, presented in MS PowerPoint report for indicators. We won’t describe them in detail, because they are almost the same as for the categories.

Here you may download the full version of MS PowerPoint report, which had been shown in this article to look through it or it might be even better to create your own report using BSC Designer right now!

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According to our surveys, one of the most important BSC Designer’s functions for our clients is reporting. Visualizing data and exporting it into convenient format makes it possible for employees to easily present the information to the higher level of management as well as to investors and shareholders. The latest version of the tool allows users to create: several types of HTML – based reports (Export to HTML, HTML report for selected item, Overview report, Dashboard report for the whole project and for selected item, Strategy Map report), MS Excel report and MS Power Point report. Common HTML report is already available for BSC Designer Standard. In the previous article called “Reports with BSC Designer” a common HTML report was described; it actually is still available in BSC Designer Standard and Pro. But now BSC Designer Pro allows to customize this report using its special HTML Report Builder.

But our program’s development had not stopped on this wide range but created feature to improve the tool’s report functioning even more!

We are glad to introduce you the function of customizing the HTML report! Now with BSC Designer Pro you are available to:

• Set maximal number of characters in description length for Overview report (so even long element’s descriptions will fit to the Overview report);
• Select the location of graphs, presented in HTML report separately for categories and for indicators (select between placing graphs in one or two columns; you can choose different orders for categories and for indicators);
• Select what types of graphs to present in HTML report separately for categories and for indicators (select the order of different types of graphs placement and specify what exact types of graphs you need to present data separately for categories and for indicators).

How to work with Report settings (Report builder)

Let’s see how to set up reports using BSC Designer Pro. A real example of creating HTML reports, which are set up in different ways will be described and shown.

Launch BSC Designer Pro and open one of the projects (the default one will be used in our case). The next step to be recommended is filling the project with random values. This function allows the reports to show all its functionality by filing the project with values for the selected period of time. If you already had a chance to use time points in your project (if your project is already filled with values for different dates), it would be better for you to skip this step. Check out the article called “How to manage time points with BSC Designer” to learn more about the calendar function and time points management, it provides. To fill the project with random values, click on “Tools” button on the top menu and select “Fill with random values” sign. All right, we have just filled our project with values for different time points within the selected period.

When we have got values of indicators for different dates, the dynamics appeared for the project, so it could be presented in report. Now let’s try to create HTML report without changing anything in report settings. Click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Export to HTML” sign. The new dialog window will appear; select a time period of one week and make the report advanced. Check out the article called “Reports with BSC Designer” to learn how to work with pre-settings of the HTML report and what every option presented here actually mean. Opening the report, which has just been created, we will see HTML file, which includes information for all the elements starting with Balanced Scorecard (the whole project) and finishing with the indicators. As for graphs, presented in this report, we will see the following:

Diamond diagram, Time chart, Pie diagram and Absolute Weight chart
are presented for the categories

Time chart, Optimization chart, Absolute Weight chart and Gauge diagram
are presented for the indicators

Here you may check out the full report for the default project filled with random values and time points with default HTML report settings.

Opening Report Builder

But using Report Builder, available in BSC Designer Pro, we can now change the order of placement and the types of graphs appeared in the HTML report! To enter the Builder click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Report Options” sign. The following window will appear:

Report builder of BSC Designer Pro, default configuration

The configuration, the Report Builder shows when you open it for the first time, is default one. According to these settings, the previous HTML report was created and it also is the only configuration, available in BSC Designer Standard (Standard version does not include this Builder).

Now the builder options will be described and the examples of different configurations will be shown.

“Max description length in Overview Report” option

“Max description length in Overview Report” option does not change HTML report somehow – its purpose is to make an Overview report (find more information about Overview Report in the article “Reports with BSC Designer: Overview and Dashboard”) to present all the text of descriptions for project tree elements (both the categories and the indicators). The number, you will input to this field, will be the maximal number of characters of description, presented in Overview Report.

Let’s try to change max description length in Overview report so such description as “All the financial and accounting related data, showing the financial situation in company. The values of indicators of this category help informing the answer to the question “How do we look to shareholders?” for the category named “Financial Perspective” will fit in Overview report. Our example for description contains 196 characters, when the default configuration is set up to maximum of 80 characters. Input “196” (or bigger number) instead of “80” into “Max description length in Overview Report” field in the Report Options dialog field and click “OK” button to apply changes. Now let’s try to create the Overview report (“Reports” -> “Overview Report”), all the description text should now be presented:

Overview report now presents all the description’s text

Here you may check out the full version of the Overview Report for the project.

1 or 2 columns placement

The choice between 1 column and 2 columns placement is a choice of the order for graphs to be placed in HTML report. By default it is configured for the two columns placement (which could be more convenient to view on a computer’s display) but it could be changed to one column placement (which could be more convenient to view in printing version or in some other cases). As you can see on the image above, there are separated options for categories and for indicators, so you are able to select one column placement for categories but two columns placement for indicators or otherwise. Customize the appearance of graphs, presented for elements in the HTML report the way, you actually want!

Let’s change the order of graphs placement this way: leaving 2 columns placement for the indicators but selecting 1 column placement for the categories. Click on “OK” button in the Report Options dialog field to apply changes and create HTML report (“Reports” -> “Export to HTML”).

Configuration of HTML Report with different orders of graphs placement for the categories and the indicators

Charts placement order for the categories have been changed, it is now 1 columns placement order

Charts placement order for the indicators have not been changed, it is still 2 columns placement

Here you may check out the full version of the HTML Report for the default project, filled with random data and time points, with Report Option configured this way.

Selecting types of graphs and the order of diagrams and graphs appearance

The most useful function, Report Builder provides is selecting types of diagram to appear in reports. Actually at the moment the tool offers 6 diagrams and charts to present different aspects of project’s data. Find more details about any of the diagrams in the articles: “How to visualize data with BSC Designer: diagrams and charts (Part 1 and Part 2)” and “Gauge diagram added! HTML reports updated!”. Here we will just mention the list of the diagrams and charts available in BSC Designer:

• Time chart presents data both for the categories and for the indicators. Available in both Standard and Pro BSC Designer versions;
• Optimization chart presents data only for the indicators. Available in both Standard and Pro BSC Designer versions;
• Pie diagram presents data both for the categories and for the indicators. Available only in BSC Designer Pro version;
• Absolute Weight chart presents data both for the categories and for the indicators. Available only in BSC Designer Pro version;
• Gauge diagram presents data both for the categories and for the indicators. Available only in BSC Designer Pro version;
• Diamond Chart presents data only for categories, which include at least three elements (indicators or subcategories). Available in both Standard and Pro BSC Designer versions.

Now let’s reconfigure the HTML report so it could show some other types of diagrams and charts, than it was with the default settings. Open the Report Builder (“Reports” -> “Report Options”) and select some types of diagrams and charts separately for the ceategories and for the indicators. Let it be Pie diagram, Time chart, Optimization chart and Gauge diagram for indicators and Diamond chart, Time chart, Absolute Weight chart and Gauge diagram for the categories. When the types of diagrams and charts are selected, click “OK” button to apply changes. After the configuration is applied, create the HTML report to see how it looks (“Reports” -> “Export to HTML”).

Configuration of HTML Report with different types of graphs appearance for the categories and the indicators

The HTML report, created with this Builder configuration: graphs for the categories

The HTML report, created with this Builder configuration: graphs for the indicators

Here you may check out the full version of the HTML Report for the default project, filled with random data and time points, with Report Option configured this way.

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What exporting functions allowed in BSC Designer

Continuing articles referring to reports with BCS Designer program more types are to be described. Previous article “Reports with BSC Designer” presented common HTLM reports but there are also several ways to export BSC project’s information in order to keep it or present it to someone.

The following functions referring to reports will be described in this article:

• Overview report function;
• Dashboard report function;
• Dashboard report for selected item function;

Overview report

Oppositely to common “HTML report” function overview report does not show any values. Its aim is to visualize project’s tree with descriptions for every element. Overview HTML document presents easy to understand diagram with all tree’s elements noticed and described. Description for elements might be input by the user (read more about descriptions in the article “How to manage KPIs using BSC Designer’s functions”). Overview report might be useful to gain overall knowledge on what the balanced scorecard project stands for, how to operate with it. Executive managers performing overall monitoring as well as shareholders and investors could find this type of report very helpful.

Note! How to change the whole project’s description

It is known from our previous articles where to fild description field for such items as categories and indicators. But the way to change description for the whole project is different. In order to do it click on “File” button on the top menu and  select “Document properties” sign. New dialog window will appear with the following fields. Find “Description” field and type or paste the project’s information. Aslo “Author” field might be filled with project’s creator’s name and position and “Name” field might be overwrited in order to change project’s name in tree and reports. After that press “OK” button to save changes.

Document’s properties dialog field

It does not matter for “Overview report” function what element is actually selected in a tree because it works with the whole project. In order to perform create this type of report click on “Report” button of the top menu and choose “Overview report” sign. The document appeared as a result of this function’s performing is not sophisticated so no program’s settings dialog window will appear. System’s dialog window will ask you to select the file’s path. It is recommended to use names written in English in order to prevent any errors, for example: “overview.html”. After the file is saved it might be opened by any web browser or sent to anyone via email. Pay attention to send web page’s source folder along with *.html file itself for all images to be viewed correctly.

The whole project’s overview HTML report

Dashboard report

Dashboard report is an alternative to common HTML report (described in previous article “Reports with BSC Designer”). It is also based on hyper text format language and could be viewed and sent the same way as HTML report but has some differences inside. One of the main differences is “Diamond” diagram usage instead of “Time” chart. As it was noticed in the article “How to visualize data with BSC Designer: diagrams and charts (Part2)” diamond chart works only with elements that contain at least 3 sub elements inside. That is why if any category does not have at least three indicators inside the following sign will appear in the report: “Diamond type chart is available for 3 and more sub items”. It does not mean the report will not be created but it will just not be able to show diagram’s image for those elements.

Not enough sub categories sign

Dashboard report might be used in the same cases as common HTML reports. It could be sent to a higher manager to show the current working progress as well as to investors and shareholders to present current company’s performance values. Surely it is up to program’s user what type of report needs to be used in different situations and for different purposes. While common HTML report aims to present the performance’s dynamics which might be interesting for shareholders dashboard report is referring to the current project’s performance values which might suite better for executive officer.

In order to perform dashboard reporting function click on “Reports” button in the top menu and select “Dashboard report” sign. Then select the date to report in new dialog window appeared. After that system’s dialog window will appear asking to select the file’s path. When the file is saved it might be opened by any web browser or sent to anyone via email as well as any other HTML based report.

Dashboard HTML report for the whole project (part of it)

Dashboard report for selected item

Dashboard reports are able to present not only overall project but one of the items selected in a tree as well. Any sub category could be selected and reported using “Dashboard report for selected item” function. Dashboard report does not work for indicators because of “Diamond” diagram usage in it. This function might be used in order to report any performance values but not the whole project. For example dashboard report for the “Financial perspective” category will present textual data and graphs for this category and for every element it includes.

In order to perform dashboard reporting for selected item function click on “Report” button of the top menu and choose “Dashboard report for selected item” sign. The second step is to select the date to be reported in new dialog window appeared. Then select file’s path in system’s dialog window appeared. After that the report will be created and ready to be viewed or sent to anyone.

Dashboard HTML report for one of the categories (part of it)

Other report types

To fill the list of reports available with BSC Designer software product several more reporting functions are to be noticed. There are common HTML reports among them that were described in previous articles as well as some other types that are going to be described in coming soon how to articles. It is certain that the range of reports using BSC Designer is really wide.

The full list of other reporting functions is:

• Export to HTML function;
• HTML report for selected item function;
• Export to MS Excel function;
• Export to MS Power Point function;
• Strategy map report function.

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Intro

There are many ways for performance values in BSC Designer’s project to be visualized. Most of them were described in the article “How to visualize data with BSC Designer: diagrams and charts”. Specific diagrams and charts are good for executive managers and sometimes specialists but what about people like shareholders and investors who need to be reported about company’s progress rate? Reports might also be needed for company’s members to inform higher level managers. Reports for indicators and categories could also be used as detail information source to be analyzed and monitored.

BSC Designer software offers a wide range of report types. It could be several kinds of html reports differing by its detail presentation and data sources; also information might be exported into MS Excel and MS Power Point. With help of the program’s report functions it could be so easy to ctreate understandable materials to make presentations and reports.

HTML Reports

HTML is a good format to present both text and image information in one file. Also HTML files could be easily sent via email. All this makes HTML one of the most popular formats for reporting.

This article will describe the following kind of HTML reports functions allowed in BSC Designer:

• Export to HTML function;
• Report for selected item function.

Note!

Make sure you are experimenting on scorecard with various values for various time points. It is recommended to perform “Fill with random values” function before studying how to make reports. You may read more about this function in the article “How to manage data sources with BSC Designer”. When the project is filled with values no errors will appear while reporting and it is better for understanding the logic of reports as well.

Export to HTML function

Exporting to HTML function creates a document describing the whole project’s values. According to the type of HTML report this document could also include charts and diagrams, details for indicators and other properties and visualization tools.

To perform this function click on “Reports” button in the top menu and select “Export to HTML” sign. The new dialog window will appear asking to select report’s settings. Let’s see what exact parameters HTML report might have.

Report’s settings dialong window

Select report period field

“Period” field allows selecting time period (before the selected date) that needs to be reported. It could be last week, last month and last year. But also it could be a custom period selected by user in “From” field.

Report Types

There are three HTML report types in BSC Designer differing by details usage:

• “Mini” report contains an organized text charts presenting such parameters as Name, Start value, End value, Dynamic and few more for every element of Balanced Scorecard project;
• “Standard” report shows everything what “Mini” version has in it, but also it presents time graphs showing dynamics for every item in the tree;
• “Advanced” report equals “Standard” version plus chart showing exact values of an item for every date within selected period of time.

How to save and view report

After all settings had been selected click on “Generate” button and select file’s path and name. It is recommended to use names written in English in order to prevent any errors. After the file is saved it might be opened using any web browser or sent to anyone via email. Pay attention to send web page’s source folder along with *.html file itself for all media to be viewed.

An example for Advanced HTML report (part of it)

Report for selected item function

HTML reports could present not only overall project but one of the items selected in a tree. Any indicator or sub category could be selected and reported. In order to make report for the selected item click on “Report” button of the top menu and choose “Report for selected item” sign. After that the same dialog window as for “Export to HTML” function will appear. Select time period and the type of report and save the file. The feature of “Report for selected item” function is that all child items in the tree for the selected one are presented as well. For example HTML report for category will include every indicators and sub categories (with its indicators) it has inside. Logically “Export to HTML” function is a particular case of “Report for selected item” function with Balanced Scorecard (the whole project) item selected in the tree.

Report for one of the categories (Financial Perspective)

Other report types

There are also other types of reports available in BSC Designer software product. More articles aimed to describe the following program’s functions referring to reports are coming soon:

• Overview report function;
• Dashboard report function;
• Dashboard report for selected item function;
• Export to MS Excel function;
• Export to MS Power Point function;
• Strategy map Report function.

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