Customize Platform for Strategic Planning Workflow

Learn how to adapt the BSC Designer platform to the strategic planning workflow used in your organization by adjusting the properties of KPIs, goals, and initiatives.

  • Account customization (company logo, fiscal year, initiative workflow).
  • User-defined scorecard templates.
  • Customizable data model (properties for goals, KPIs, and initiatives; measurement units; performance formulas).
  • View and reporting customization (KPI table columns, reporting profiles).

General Settings of Organizations

Use Menu > Settings > Organization tab to customize:

  • Logo of the organization.
  • Names of the tabs within a scorecard (e.g., KPIs, Strategy Map, Dashboard, Analysis, AI).
  • Currencies (affect measurement units for KPIs and budget units for initiatives).
  • Fiscal year.
  • Week start day (relevant for indicators updated weekly and daily).
  • Annual data aggregation setting (YTD).
  • Date and time format.

View of KPIs Table

Use the list of KPI profiles to adjust the columns of the KPIs table:

KPIs table view

To create a user-defined profile, click on the Modify button edit button next to the list of KPI profiles.

Custom Fields

All goals, KPIs, and initiatives in BSC Designer have certain predefined properties. To add additional properties, use the Custom Fields feature:

  1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Workflow tab.
  2. Use Custom Fields to manage additional fields for the items.
  3. Click Add to add a new custom field.

The properties of custom fields

The Relates to Role property is used to link custom fields to specific roles:

  • If Relates to Role is empty, the custom field will be displayed for all types of scorecard items, regardless of their role.
  • If a role is set in Relates to Role, the custom field appears only for scorecard items with this role in their Role custom field.

The Application Area property of a custom field defines the type of scorecard items where the custom field will be displayed.

Custom fields will become available in:

  • The description dialog for goals, indicators, and initiatives.
  • Columns for import and export.

Custom field in the description dialog

Customizing Templates

The templates available in the New > New Scorecard > More templates section can be customized.

To save a scorecard as a template, follow these steps:

  1. Open a scorecard.
  2. Select the Save as Template command from the Tools menu.

To manage custom templates and select a default template for new scorecards, follow these steps:

  1. Select Menu > Settings > Workflow tab.
  2. Use the controls in the Scorecard Templates group.

Customizing Visual Themes of the Map

A visual theme can be applied to any map. To customize themes:

  1. Select Menu > Settings > Organization > Themes
  2. Manage the existing visual themes or add new ones

The themes will be available in the placement wizard for the strategy map.

Customization of Initiative Statuses

All initiatives in BSC Designer have a Status property.

The statuses can be customized in Menu > Settings > Workflow in the Initiative Statuses section.

Customization of the Dashboard Templates

The layout of the diagrams on the Dashboard tab can be saved as a template:

  1. Click Edit button:
    2. Access dashboard properties
  2. Click Save as template.
  3. A new template will appear in the list of dashboards.

All the dashboard templates can be managed via Menu > Settings > Workflow tab.

Customizing Optimization Formulas

Optimization formulas are used to calculate the progress and performance of indicators. To reuse a formula:

  • Enter the performance formula dialog.
  • Configure the required formula.
  • Click on the Save as template button.

The new performance formula will be available in the drop-down list of formulas.

Measurement Units

To customize measurement units available in the platform:

  • Select any KPI
  • Click on the Edit button next to the Unit of measure field
  • Add new measure units

To add currency as a new measure unit, use the Currencies section on the Settings > Organizations tab.

Risk is a special measurement unit. When customizing it, consider changing the role of the measurement unit to one of the risk roles.