Engage Digital | Adding a key performance indicator

Last updated on November 24, 2021

KPI widgets added to a dashboard will give you a quick overview of performance metrics. As opposed to reports — where any data you have chosen is visualized according to measured attributes — KPI widgets display key performance indicators only as determined by your organization, hence the name.

When you configure a KPI widget to a dashboard via drag-and-drop, you will choose what specific measure you want to display and how you want them displayed. Measures are computational expressions of numerical or quantitative data. Depending on the measure you choose, you’ll be given different options for how you want the KPI displayed, either compared to a time period or simply just as an attribute.

Adding key performance indicators

Adding KPIs to a dashboard is fast and easy. When you are ready to add a KPI widget to a new dashboard, follow the steps below. Note that the steps listed are specifically for adding KPI widgets to a new dashboard.

Navigate to Dashboards via the left navigation bar.
Click on Add dashboard at the top of the sidebar.
Under New Item on the left side, drag the Key Performance Indicator item to the canvas on right.
Once the KPI item is dropped, the Measure popup menu will appear. Select the measure you want to display.
Configure the KPI widget.
At the top of the canvas is the title of the Dashboard. Click to rename.
Inside the canvas just below the dashboard title is the widget section title. Click to rename.
Below the widget section title is its description. Click to add a description.
Repeat steps 3-5 if you want to add additional KPIs widgets to your dashboard.
Click the Save & Publish button on the top right.

After saving and publishing a dashboard, you can edit it later if you want to add more widgets or revise the current widget’s configuration. If you want to delete an existing KPI widget, you can simply click on the widget while in edit mode and click on the blue trash icon that appears on the KPI widget’s upper right corner.

Now that you know how to add a KPI widget to your dashboard, let’s look at how you can configure them to meet some of your specific needs.

Using configuration options

When you drag and drop a KPI to the dashboard, the first thing you’ll notice is that you’ll have to choose what measure you want to display. Once you’ve chosen a specific measure, some of the configuration options will then populate the popup menu. The configuration options are listed below:

Measure: Allows you to choose or change the measure of the KPI that’s already assigned to a dashboard.
Filter by: Provides you a checkbox for a date filter. If you leave the box unchecked, it will simply display the measure. If you decide to check the date filter, it will compare the changes of the measure within the period you have chosen in the Compare with option. If the measure makes sense to have both a start and end date, it will have both options. If not, only the start or end date filter will appear.
Compare with: Allows you to choose which period you want to compare the measure to if you check the date filter checkbox in Filter by.
- Previous period: Compares changes of a measure with the previous period.
- Same period in previous year: Compares changes of a measure with the same period as in the previous year.
- No comparison: Does not compare the measure to any other period. If this setting is chosen, it’s the same as leaving the Filter by checkbox unchecked.
Increasing number is: Allows you to specify the font used to display numbers that are increasing.
- Green: Specifies that increasing numbers will be represented in green font.
- Red: Specifies that increasing numbers will be represented in red font.

Adding alerts to KPIs

You can also set up email alerts to get notified when a KPI value on the KPI dashboard reaches a particular threshold.

Click on Analytics in the main menu.
Navigate to Dashboards via the left navigation bar.
Click a configured dashboard with a KPI.
Hover your mouse over the KPI to which you want to add an alert.
Configure the alert parameters and click Set an alert on KPI change.

Keep in mind that alerts are always set in accordance with the current value of the date filter. For example, if the date filter is set to this month, the alert is set to current month.

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Engage Digital | Adding a key performance indicator

Table of contents

Adding key performance indicators

Using configuration options

Adding alerts to KPIs