Automatic status updates, or color-coding, of metrics, allows you to set the RAG status of the METRIC - red, amber or green. This is based on the comparison of year-to-date actual metric values with year-to-date target metric values. Remember the year-to-date calculation is influenced by the metric-characteristic cumulative or non-cumulative.
In general, there are 3 possible METRIC cases:
- It is desirable that the actual metric value is higher than the target metric value. For example: revenue or income.
- It is desirable that the actual metric value is lower than the target metric value. For example: cost or defects.
- It is desirable that the actual metric value falls within a limited range of the target metric value. For example: inventory - too high is too expensive, too low jeopardizes service levels; or receivables - too high is a collection risk, too low might impact sales.
The Scientrix platform caters for all 3 cases by providing high and low thresholds for the absolute or percentage deviation of actual year-to-date values from target year-to-date values. Here is a decision tree to help set thresholds. You can download the image in the text below.
The RAG status for the metric will then be calculated comparing the year-to-date actual value with the year-to-date target value taking into account the thresholds set for yellow and red. Do not set the target as zero when using a percentage threshold as this will lead to a division by zero.