With IBM® Cognos® Metric Studio, you
can track the performance of your organization against its objectives.
At a quick glance, decision makers at every level of the organization
can see the status of the organization, and then react or plan.
A metric is an indicator of key measures that compares actual
results to targets. A metric also records who is responsible for the
results and the impact of the metric. A scorecard is a collection
of performance metrics and projects that reflects the strategic goals
of a unit in an organization.
This exercise shows how to
- Review a strategy map for a visual representation of the strategy
and the objectives of that strategy for an organization
- Review and understand the performance of a metric on a scorecard
- Create an action on a metric
- Add a metric to your watch list
You are a sales manager for a region for the Sample Outdoors
Company. You regularly look at a scorecard that contains metrics about
your sales area. The metrics give you an instant idea of how the current
sales compare to the sales targets set by the company. Return quantity
is one of the metrics.
To perform this exercise, you must have
the appropriate licensing and security permissions for this functionality.
Things to notice:
- Metrics appear as either Poor (red), Average (yellow), or Excellent (green).
- For each metric, you can see whether the trend is improving, staying
the same, or getting worse.
- When you move your pointer over the title of a metric, you see
a history chart that shows the performance of the metric. A fly-out
menu extends when you pause your pointer over a metric or a diagram.
Procedure
- Open IBM Cognos Connection:
- Start your Web browser.
- In the address bar, type the URL supplied by your administrator,
and then press Enter. The URL looks something like this: http://servername/cognos
- In the IBM Cognos Welcome page,
click Manage my metrics.
- Click Samples, Models, GO Metrics.
- View the strategy map:
- In the left pane, click the Scorecards tab, and click GO Consolidated.
- In the right pane, click the Diagrams tab.
In the GO Strategy map, notice
how you can quickly evaluate the performance of each of the goals
of the organization. The large indicators show the status for a specific
strategy. The smaller indicators that appear below a strategy show
the trend. The values for metrics that are not performing well appear
in red. Status and trend indicators that appear in red indicate possible
problem areas.
For example, in the Production and
Distribution function of the strategy map, in the Control product quality metric, Return quantity
% is red, which shows a poor performance metric.
- Explore the scorecard:
- In the left pane, click the Scorecards tab.
- Expand GO Consolidated.
You see that the Sample Outdoors Company has scorecards
for each of the four functions of the company: Finance, Sales and
Marketing, Production and Distribution, and Human Resource.
- Expand Production and Distribution, and click Asia Pacific.
- Click the Metrics tab.
All the metrics associated with the Asia Pacific region
are shown. Notice that the Asia Pacific Return by reason
% Wrong product ordered metric is red. You might want
to explore this metric further to see what is causing the problem.
- Click Asia Pacific Return quantity %, and click the Diagrams tab.
- Expand the metrics in the diagram by clicking the arrow
next to the Asia Pacific Return by reason % Failed Orders metric.
You can see what data is in the Return quantity % metric. You can also see which return
reason has a critical issue.
- Pause your pointer over Asia Pacific Return
quantity % to see more information about that metric.
- In the left pane, under Production and Distribution, click Asia Pacific, and then click the Metrics tab to view the metric related to return quantity.
Notice that the status of Asia Pacific
Return by reason % Wrong product ordered metric is poor.
- Click the Asia Pacific-Return by reason %-Wrong
product ordered metric.
In Metric Studio,
the tabs represent the questions you might ask yourself, as you try
to solve a problem or understand a piece of information.
- On the right pane, on the History tab, click List.
The
information on the History tab answers the
question "When?". You see the actual and target values for the metric
data for previous periods. You also see quarterly and yearly summaries.
- Click the Diagrams tab.
The information in the Diagrams tab helps you understand the question "How?" by comparing your metric
with other metrics. Impact diagrams show the relationships between
the Return by reason % metric and other metrics.
- Create an action for one of your business analysts to have
her investigate the performance of product returns:
- Click the Actions tab.
- Click New Action . Tip: You must select a metric
to see the New Action icon.
- In the Name box, type Kazumi Uragome, the person who will own the action.
- To let Kazumi know what to do, in the Description box, type Please investigate.
- Beside the Planned Finish box,
click the calendar icon, select a date one week from today. Tip: You
may need to scroll down to see the Planned Finish box.
- Click OK.
- Add the Asia Pacific Return reason % Wrong product
ordered metric to your watch list so that you can easily
monitor it in the future:
- In the left pane, in the Production and Distribution scorecard, click Asia Pacific, and click
the Metrics tab.
- Click the Asia Pacific Return reason % Wrong
product ordered metric.
- On the upper toolbar, click Add to Watch List , and click OK.
- In the left pane, click My Folders and click Watch List.
The Asia Pacific Return by reason % Wrong
product ordered metric appears in your watch list.
Example
- Add a comment to the metric to communicate information to users
of the metric.
Tip: Beside the metric, in the comment column,
click the ellipsis (...) button. After you add a comment, a comment
icon appears.
- Add an email notification so that you will be notified when the
metric changes.
Tip: Beside the metric, click the email
alerts button. The email alerts button changes to show that email
alerts is now turned on. You can also specify when and how often you
receive email notification about changes to metrics in the watch list,
by changing the email alerts properties.
What to do next
For more information about using scorecards, see the
Metric Studio online help.