KPI Platform guide
The KPI Platform turns strategy into a cascade of KPIs, makes every KPI owned, and connects it to the organisation units that deliver it, the meetings where it is reviewed and the dashboards that show it.
Getting started
Sign up from the KPI Platform page and create your company; you become its administrator. On the empty overview, choose Start guided setup. The wizard has four steps, each of which saves as you go and can be skipped:
- Organisation: the group or company at the top, then departments and business lines.
- Themes and goals: the themes of your strategy and the strategic goals under them.
- KPIs: tactical and operational KPIs under those goals, with an owner, a unit and this year's target.
- Meetings: the recurring meetings where KPIs are reviewed.
KPI framework
KPIs sit on four levels, from broad to concrete:
- Theme: a strategic theme that groups goals, for example Profitable growth.
- Strategic: a goal at group level, such as Market position.
- Tactical: how a department contributes, such as Market share index.
- Operational: what is measured day to day, such as Life market share.
Every KPI except a theme hangs under a parent. A parent must be at the same level or higher, and a KPI cannot be moved under one of its own children. Deleting a KPI also deletes the KPIs underneath it; the confirmation page tells you how many.
Each KPI has an owner (a colleague, or a name or role for people without an account), a unit and a target per year. Every target change is logged with who changed it and when, visible on the KPI page. Use the year selector on the framework to see the targets of another year. A company admin can move KPIs up and down among their siblings.
Organisation
Organisation units form a tree: divisions, business units, sectors, departments, teams, regions and functions. Each unit has an orientation:
- Horizontal units, such as Finance or HR, serve the whole organisation.
- Vertical units, such as business lines or regions, own their own results.
The orientation is suggested from the type and drives the goals matrix. Assign KPIs to one or more units; a KPI assigned to several units is marked as shared. Deleting a unit deletes its sub-units, but the KPIs only lose the assignment.
Meetings
A meeting has a frequency (daily to annual), a level and a chair. Only KPIs at the meeting's level can be linked, so the board reviews strategic KPIs and the weekly standup operational ones. The meetings page shows a matrix of frequency against level, so gaps in your governance rhythm stand out.
Dashboards
Register the reports where KPIs are shown, in Power BI, Qlik, Tableau, Looker, Excel or another tool, and link the KPIs each one shows. Everyone can then find, from a KPI, the report to open.
Visualisations
- Goals matrix: rows are horizontal units that own tactical KPIs, columns are vertical units. A cell holds the operational KPIs under a row's tactical KPIs that are assigned to the column's unit, as dots coloured by the theme or goal they serve. The last column holds the KPIs a department measures itself. Click the goal pills to filter.
- Coverage heatmap: the number of KPIs per unit and level. Empty cells show missing coverage.
- KPI tree and Org chart: the cascade and the organisation as diagrams.
- By unit and By meeting: what each unit owns and what each meeting reviews, with KPIs that have no unit or no meeting listed separately.
Excel import and export
Under Import / export you can download an empty template or your current framework, and import a workbook. The workbook has three sheets:
| Sheet | Columns |
|---|---|
| KPIs | Name, Level, Description, Owner, Target Value, Unit, Parent KPI Name, Org Node Names |
| Org Nodes | Name, Node Type, Owner, Orientation, Description, Parent Node Name |
| Meetings | Name, Description, Chair, Frequency, Level, KPI Names, Org Node Names |
Refer to parents, units and KPIs by name; separate several names with commas. Dutch headers and values (Naam, Niveau, Strategisch, Maandelijks, ...) are accepted. The target goes into the current year. After uploading you see a preview with warnings; nothing is saved until you confirm, and rows whose name already exists are skipped.
Roles
Everyone in a company with the KPI Platform can view the framework. Company administrators create, change and delete KPIs, units, meetings and dashboards. The owner of a KPI may edit that KPI and its targets, but not move or delete it.
With Normly
When your company also uses Normly, you can link a KPI to the Normly tables that hold its data. The KPI page links to the table, and the table shows which KPIs use it. Switch between the two products with the switcher at the top of the sidebar.
To read the framework from Power BI or your own scripts, see the KPI Platform API.
FAQ
Can I change a KPI's level? Yes, as long as its parent stays at the same level or higher and none of its children end up above it. Otherwise move the parent or children first.
Why can't I link a KPI to a meeting? Meetings only take KPIs at their own level. Change the meeting's level or pick KPIs from that level.
Do I need to save? Every form saves when you submit it; there is no separate save step.
Can I start with only the KPI Platform and add Normly later? Yes. Contact us and we enable the second product for your company; your data stays where it is.