KPI Rating Scale: Convert Performance Scores into Grades

Learn how to convert KPI performance percentages into custom grades such as Poor, Average, and Good using thresholds in BSC Designer.

Performance rating or performance grading refers to converting performance expressed as a percentage into ratings or grades. A typical example of such a conversion is:

  • 0–40% → Poor
  • 41–70% → Average
  • 71–100% → Good

In BSC Designer, you can apply performance rating at the level of KPIs, goals, perspectives, and scorecards.

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Add the required rating system as a custom measure unit
  2. Assign this measure unit to the item
  3. (Optional) Change the glyph of the item

Let’s discuss how to do it in practice.

How to Handle KPI Thresholds When Importing Strategy from Excel

Real-World Use Case

A customer tracked KPI performance as percentages but needed to present the results to executives using understandable labels.

Instead of displaying raw percentages, they introduced three performance grades:

  • 0–40% → Poor
  • 41–70% → Average
  • 71–100% → Good

The same rating system was applied consistently across KPIs, goals, perspectives, and the overall scorecard. This made performance easier to interpret while preserving the underlying percentage-based calculations.

Adding a Rating System

To add a new rating system, follow the steps to create measure units:

  1. Open any scorecard and select an item on the KPIs tab
  2. On the General tab, click the Edit button next to the Unit of measure dropdown
  3. Enter the captions and corresponding values
  4. Decide how the performance should be matched with the grades using the Value matching option. Use the default By range if the matching is based on thresholds.

The new rating system is now created.

Rating measure units in BSC Designer

Assigning Measure Units

Once a new measure unit is created, you can assign it to any item in the scorecard by selecting it from the Measure units dropdown.

Assign a scoring system to the item for evaluation

For the platform, this rating system is treated as just another measurement unit. This means you can have multiple rating systems across your scorecards.

Changing the Glyph of the Item

Once measurement units are applied, the value of the item will be shown as one of the predefined labels (e.g., “Poor”, “Average”, “Good”) instead of a numerical value.

If you want to display this value on the strategy map, you’ll need to change the glyph of the item:

  1. Select the item
  2. Switch to the Context tab
  3. Change the Glyph to Value

Assign a glyph to the item

If you need to show the performance rating in the My Scorecards section, select the root element of the scorecard and update its glyph accordingly.

  • See It In Action: For a practical example of how flexible, standardized KPI scoring accelerates strategy implementation in a financial organization, read our case study.
Cite as: BSC Designer, "KPI Rating Scale: Convert Performance Scores into Grades," BSC Designer, July 28, 2025, https://bscdesigner.com/performance-rating.htm.