Metric indicator dimension

In IBM® Cognos® TM1® Scorecarding, a metric indicator dimension provides more information about your key performance indicators (KPI) or metrics. Examples of metric indicators include Score, Status, and Trend.

The metric indicators in a scorecard solution measure the performance, status, and trends in key areas of a business by comparing current results to target values. For example, the Actual, Target, and Tolerance indicators for a metric are typically used to calculate the related Score, Status, and Trend indicators.

Cognos TM1 Scorecarding provides a set of built-in, predefined metric indicators. You can use the predefined metric indicators or create your own. You can also use standard TM1 functions and special scorecarding functions to calculate your metric indicators.

Metric indicators can be shown as numeric values or visually as traffic light and trend icons. The metric indicator dimension is typically shown in the column dimension title of a standard scorecard or cube view.

Figure 1. Metric indicator dimension in a metric cube
Example of how the metric indicator dimension is typically shown in the column dimension title of a scorecard cube.

Renderer property for metric indicator icons

The Renderer property specifies the type of indicator icon to use as a visual reference to show the performance of a metric indicator. These icons display in metrics cubes and scorecard diagrams. You can set a different Renderer for each metric indicator.

The valid options for the Renderer property are provided in the following list:

  • Traffic light icon - Enter trafficLight in the Renderer property.
  • Metric trend icon - Enter metricTrend in the Renderer property.
  • Numeric - Leave the cell blank to display a numeric value instead of an indicator icon.
Traffic light status indicator
A traffic light or status indicator is an icon that shows the status of a metric indicator. The status is indicated by the color and the shape of the icon as described in the following table.
Table 1. Metric indicator traffic light status icons
Traffic light icon Description
a green circle status icon A green circle icon indicates a satisfactory status for the associated metric indicator.
a yellow diamond status icon A yellow diamond icon indicates caution about the status for the associated metric indicator.
a red square status icon A red square icon indicates a warning about the status for the associated metric indicator.
an icon consisting of a set of gray status shapes This image represents an incomplete status, for when there is no data for the Actual or Target metric indicators. A score or status cannot be calculated when one of these values is missing.
Trend indicator
A trend indicator shows how the value of one column compares to the value of another column. For example, a trend indicator shows the trend from the previous period to the current period by comparing values between periods. The trend indicator shows if the value is greater than, unchanged, or less than the value from the previous period.

Table 2. Metric indicator trend icons
Trend icon Description
a green triangle pointing up A green upward facing triangle icon indicates that the trend value is greater than the previous period.

For example, the value is greater than the previous month or quarter.
a horizontal gray bar A gray dash icon indicates that the trend value is unchanged.
a red triangle pointing down A red downward facing triangle indicates that the trend value is less than the previous period.

For example, the value is less than the previous month or quarter.
Blank cell Indicates that the trend is incomplete for that period. A trend cannot be displayed when there is an incomplete status. For example, a trend cannot be displayed for the first time period, such as Q1 (quarter one). Previous data does not exist, even if the metric has a value for Actual, Target, Score, and Status.

Default metric indicators

Cognos TM1 Scorecarding provides a collection of built-in metric indicators that are ready to use. When you create a metric indicator dimension, these members are automatically created and populated with suggested indicator names and calculations.

CAUTION:
You can use the built-in metric indicators only as-is. Do not edit or delete them because they are required for scorecarding. If you need your own metric indicators, add them in addition to the built-in ones.

Cognos TM1 Scorecarding includes the following built-in metric indicators:

Table 3. List of default Metric Indicators
Metric indicator name Description
Status

A calculated value that represents the performance of the score for a metric.

The returned numeric value is displayed as a traffic light indicator icon to visually show status in grid views and diagrams.

  • green circle status icon 1 - excellent (on target or above)
  • yellow diamond status icon 0 - average (within 1 tolerance of target)
  • a red square status icon 1 - poor (more than 1 tolerance from target)

Uses the SCORESTATUS metric indicator function:

=SCORESTATUS('Score')
Trend

A calculated value that represents how a metric's performance has changed since the previous period.

Evaluates a metric’s score and returns a value to indicate the current performance of the metric

The result reflects only a positive or negative trend if the score changes more than 5% of tolerance.

By default, this indicator is configured to display as a metric trend indicator icon to visually show the trend in grid views and diagrams.

  • green triangle pointing upward 1 - trend is getting better
  • horizontal gray bar 0 - no change in trend
  • red triangle pointing downward 1 - trend is getting worse

Uses the SCORETREND metric indicator function:

=SCORETREND('Score')
Actual

A value for the Actual indicator is derived from operational data.

Populate this value from your existing Cognos TM1 data.
Target

A target value defines a level of expected performance.

Populate this value from your existing Cognos TM1 data.
Tolerance

A tolerance value defines an acceptable range for a result that deviates from a set target.

Enter this value or populate it from your existing Cognos TM1 data.
Variance

Calculates the difference between the Actual and Target indicators.

Uses the calculation: ='Actual'-'Target'
Variance Percent

Calculates the percent of difference between the Actual and Target indicators.

Uses the calculation: =('Actual'-'Target')/'Target'
Score

Calculates a metric’s score, which is based on the actual, target, and tolerance indicators.

This value indicates whether a metric is on target, higher than the target, or less than the target, and by how much. It reflects the distance from the target as measured in units of tolerance. Values are reported in the range of -10 to 10 where a value of 0 indicates that the metric is on target. A positive score indicates that the metric is performing well. A negative score indicates that the metric is not performing well.

Uses the SCORE metric indicator function:

SCORE(Actual,Target,Tolerance)
Score Change

Calculates the change in score by comparing the current value to the value from the previous time period.

Uses the Cognos TM1 LAG function as follows:

='Score'-LAG(0,'Score')
Actual Trend Not currently used.
Actual Change Percent

Calculates the change in percent for the actual indicator by comparing the current value to the value from the previous time period.

Uses the Cognos TM1 LAG function as follows:

=('Actual'-LAG(0,'Actual'))/LAG(0,'Actual')
Status_1_Count Internal use only.
Status_0_Count Internal use only.
Status_-1_Count Internal use only.

User-defined metric indicators

Create your own user-defined metric indicators to measure the performance of a metric against a comparable metric, such as an industry-wide standard measurement.

For example, you might want to define metric indicators to monitor the performance of a forecast metric. In this scenario, you create a collection of derived and calculated metric indicators.

Create the following derived metric indicators and populate the indicators with existing forecast data.

  • Forecast Actual
  • Forecast Target
  • Forecast Tolerance

Create the following calculated metric indicators and use metric indicator functions to populate them.

  • Forecast Score - Use the SCORE function to calculate this value.

    For example: =SCORE('Forecast Actual','Forecast Target','Forecast Tolerance')

  • Forecast Status - Use the SCORESTATUS function to calculate this value.

    For example: =SCORESTATUS('Forecast Score')

    For the Renderer property, enter trafficLight to display a traffic light icon for this metric indicator.

  • Forecast Trend - Use the SCORETREND function to calculate this value.

    For example: =SCORETREND('Forecast Score')

    For the Renderer property, enter metricTrend to display a trend icon for this metric indicator.

For more information about creating and calculating metric indicators, see the following topics.

Metric indicator calculations and functions

You can use standard TM1 functions and a special set of metric indicator functions to define calculations for your metric indicators. A calculation for a metric indicator can provide a status, score, or trend value that is based on the other indicators for that same metric.

For example, you can use the metric indicator SCORE function to calculate a score for a metric depending on the Actual, Target, Tolerance indicators for the metric.

=SCORE('Actual','Target','Tolerance')

For more information about using calculations with your metric indicators, see the following topics: