What Are KPIs?

KPIs are measurements that define and track specific business goals and objectives that often roll up into larger organizational strategies that require monitoring, improvement, and evaluation. KPIs have measurable values that usually vary with time, have targets to determine a score and performance status, include dimensions to allow for more specific analysis, and can be compared over time for trending purposes and to identify performance patterns.

See the following list of specific uses for KPIs in Oracle BI EE:

• Evaluate metrics against their targets and alert the appropriate users through agents when targets are not met.

• Create an analysis from a KPI and add that analysis to a dashboard. An analysis that is created from a KPI can allow the user to drill into different levels of details based on the KPI's dimensions.

  For example, to a KPI called "Product Sales," you can add the Region and Fiscal Time dimensions to view Product Sales figures by region and time periods such as financial quarters. This addition enables you to gather multi-dimensional subsets of data and evaluate the performance of objectives and initiatives that the KPI measures against the different target values of the dimensional metrics.

• In Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, use KPIs to evaluate and monitor the performance of the objectives that form the strategy and the initiatives (tasks or projects) that are needed to meet your objectives. For information about scorecards and how to create them, see Chapter 12, "Scorecarding."

  For example, use KPIs for "Average Customer Satisfaction Survey Score" and "Repeat Orders" to measure the performance of an "Improved Customer Satisfaction" objective.