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Analyticsintermediate

Scorecards & KPIs

Explain how OBIEE Scorecard functionality models KPIs, targets, strategy trees, and initiatives for performance-management reporting.

Scorecards are OBIEE's performance management side: tracking whether the business is meeting defined goals, rather than exploring data.

A scorecard is like a car's dashboard warning-light system: the engine light (a KPI) turns red based on a defined threshold, and a mechanic's diagnostic tree (the strategy tree) lets you trace that single red light back to a specific underlying sensor reading, rather than guessing at what's wrong with the whole car.

Key Concepts

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A KPI is a defined object, not a report.
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    actual      the measure
    target      a fixed number, another calculation, or a prior period
    thresholds  green within 5% of target, amber 5-15% below,
                red beyond
    trend       is it improving
    dimensions  the KPI can be evaluated by region, by product
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So "Revenue" is a measure, and "Revenue against Target" with thresholds and an owner is a KPI.
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A strategy tree arranges them. Objectives with KPIs beneath them, rolling up:
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    Grow Profitably
      Increase Revenue          <- KPI: Revenue vs Target   amber
      Improve Margin            <- KPI: Gross Margin %      green
      Retain Customers          <- KPI: Churn Rate          red
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The colour at the top is derived from the ones below it, with weightings. That is the difference from a dashboard of charts: the roll-up is defined, so "are we on track" has an answer rather than an interpretation.
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Initiatives are the actions intended to move a KPI, tracked alongside it. The scorecard then links a goal, its measurement, and what is being done about it.
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Who uses this. Finance, strategy and PMO teams, rather than general analysts. It is a governance tool, and that is what an interviewer is checking exposure to.
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The honest caveat. Scorecards need agreement before they need configuration.
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Defining a KPI means agreeing the measure, the target, who owns it, and what amber means. That is a business conversation, and it is where these projects stall — the tooling is the easy part.
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A scorecard built without that agreement becomes a wall of red that everybody disputes, and it is abandoned.
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The technical dependency. KPIs sit on analyses, so they inherit the semantic model's definitions and its security. A KPI is only as trustworthy as the subject area beneath it, which is the argument for building them on the governed model rather than on ad hoc data.
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What the interviewer is probing.1. "What distinguishes a KPI from a measure?" Probing: the concept. Stalls: "Nothing." Moves up: a KPI has a target, thresholds and a trend direction, so it carries a judgement about good and bad, not just a number.
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2. "What does a scorecard add?" Probing: the structure. Stalls: "A dashboard." Moves up: strategy structure — objectives, perspectives and initiatives with KPIs attached, so performance maps to goals.
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3. "What is the usual reason a scorecard project fails?" Probing: honesty. Stalls: "The tool." Moves up: no agreed targets or owners — the technology works, but a KPI nobody owns changes nothing.
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4. "How many KPIs should a scorecard carry?" Probing: judgement. Stalls: "As many as possible." Moves up: few enough that each is acted on; a hundred-KPI scorecard is a data dump with a dashboard on top.
Use cases:scorecardskpiperformance-management