Add Measures to your Objectives

A Measure is a quantifiable definition of how your Objective is going to be assessed. Think of it as a metric or a KPI (key performance indicator). It is going to tell the unbiased truth regarding your Objective. For example, if your objective is "Scale digital advertising", then your measure will be "Increase digital advertising budget". Another example, if your objective is "Ensure satisfied customers and long-term customer loyalty", the measure or metric will be "Collate and calculate customer satisfaction percentage".

When your Actions are completed and your Measure has hit your Target, you know you’ve well and truly accomplished that Objective.

You can add a new measure:

• From the relevant Objective's sidebar, click + Add success criteria > New measure to add a measure in the Sidebar view.

• From the Planner page, click + icon under the relevant Objective, and click New measure to add a measure inline. You can then fill in the details from the Edit measure Sidebar.

• From the Success criteria tab of the relevant Objective's Goal hub page, click + icon and click New measure. This'll add the measure inline, and you can later edit it from its sidebar to add more context.

Name and Description:

• Name your Measure something that specifies how you want the objective to be assessed. Though there's no character limitation, keep the title concise and use the Description field to provide additional context with rich text, bullets, embedded links and videos.

Due dates:

• Set a Start date and End date, which will set a timeline for your measure. The due dates default to those of the parent objective and it is recommended to set the dates not exceeding the range of the dates of the parent objective. Based on the due dates, Cascade calculates the expected progress/target for the measure, thereby determining its health. Its also a best practice to not have the same start and end dates.

Owners and Collaborators:

• The Owners field automatically defaults to the one who creates the measure, and if you wish to change, click the owner profile icon, and from the drop-down list, choose the user you wish to assign the ownership to. Please note that, while you can assign ownership to Viewers, their role does not let them to do anything on the measure but just review and leave comments on them.

• From the Collaborator area, you can add or manage collaborators, who will be able to work on the measure. Like the name suggests, they collaborate on the measures, i.e., add or edit measures, add the existing users in the workspace to the measures, change owners, due dates and targets, add risks and relationships and so on. However, if you wish to restrict their access only to the goals that they collaborate on, then you can assign them can view access from the Share modal. See Plan Permissions for details.

Tracking measures' progress:

You can track a measure either manually or via integrations or by connecting them to metrics. Choose the Target type and set the target values to track the progress of a measure, i.e., define your own initial or target values to determine the measure's health. If you wish to customize the tracking option of the measure, choose the relevant option from the Target type dropdown: Reach Target; Stay Within; Maintain Above, Between or Below.

Reach Target tracking type will have a defined target in which current progress against the expected progress (determined by the time period applied) will determine the health alongside the type of Evaluation Method.  

Stay Within tracking type will track health inversely to Reach Target. In Stay Within measures, the health is determined by being at or above the expected progress or the target value. As opposed to Reach Target, the measurement tracking for Stay Within is "lower is better". 

For Maintain options, set the target limits and the critical limits to track and visualize the measure progress. See "Maintain" measures for more information. 

• Manually: Use this option if you wish to track your measure manually. You can either scoot the manual slider to update the progress. And, to add historical data point, you can edit the Measure data table in the goal hub and enter an actual value against the relevant date in the past.

• Metrics: Use this option if you've already imported the metrics from a connected source like Excel or Sheets or created a metrics using metrics calculations or manually created them which are available in the Metrics library. Click Metrics library and search for the metric from the Metric Name field. See What are Metrics?  to understand the differences between measures and metrics in detail.

  Note that, the initial value in the measure is defaulted to the value of the metric on the day of the measure’s start date.
  Also, when a measure is connected to a metric in a relationship (calculated or related), you can see a sub-measure relationship with those child metrics or measures connected to the relevant child metrics in the Planner page. If you wish to explore more on sub-measure feature, please reach out to us and we can enable it for you.

• Integrations: You may be tracking your various KPIs and tasks across a number of tools, like Google Sheets, Salesforce, Jira, and so on. Our smart integrations will allow you to connect to any app to bring your data from almost anywhere, and visualize them all in one place, here in Cascade. Using Zapier and Power Automate integrations with Cascade gives you the freedom and flexibility to connect your SaaS tools with ease, so you can plan, manage, and track all your goals in one place. See Collaborate and Automate with Integrations for details. Also note that, if you're tracking target in your sheets, then you can sync that column with the integration (Add target column) and track your measures' actual and target here within Cascade.

  If the tracking is done from the Metrics library or using Integrations, then the sync happens as and when the data is updated in the source. And, if you wish to edit the actual value or add historical data points, then those need to be done in the source and not from within Cascade. You can edit only the dates and target values by clicking the Edit date & target from the goal hub.
  But, if a measure is connected to a manual metric, then you can edit the metric table to add or update targets, actual value and historical data points.

Expected Progress:

• Under Expected Progress area, set a period or day(s) to determine when you will update the progress. 

• Depending on your choice of updating the progress on a measure, you can choose weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually, and based on this, you can further select the day of your choice to make updates. This data is required to calculate the expected progress.

• For Reach targets - the default expected progress will be the existing Stepped method which provides expected progress based on the time period you've selected. But if you swap to Continuous, it'll default the health update schedule to daily 

• If the Send update reminders based on the expected progress schedule check-box is selected, then the owner of the measure will receive notifications both in-app and mail to remind them to make progress updates. See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates for details.

Strategic Contribution:

• Contributes to area will show the plan and the objective your measure belongs to. Click Edit and choose the relevant objective from the list if you wish to move the measure either under a different objective of the same plan, or under an objective of a different plan. Remember that it will list only those objectives that fall within the date range of the parent objective.

• Or, click Move from the three dots against the measure title, choose the relevant objective within the same plan or a different plan, and click Confirm. The measure will now be displayed as a success criteria under the chosen objective.

Create a measure from metrics:

You can also add a measure from a metric. Metrics are consolidated KPIs which are not time-bound, and can be connected with measures to track progress in Cascade. See What are Metrics? for details.

You can access the Add metric to measure page in one of the following ways:

• Hover the mouse over the metric tile, and click the (measure icon).

• Click the three dots in the metric tile, and click Create measure from metric.

• Open the metric in Sidebar view, and click the three dots. Click Add metric to measure.

• From the Measures tab in Sidebar view, click Create new measure from this metric.

Before you begin: Make sure you have the plan, focus area, and the relevant objective already created in the workspace. Also, you need to be an Admin or someone with edit permissions on the plan to create a new measure from the metric.

1. Plan & focus area - Select the relevant plan and the focus area from the drop-down list.

2. Objective - Select the objective to which you need to associate the new measure. Once selected, the due dates of the objective will be displayed.

3. Measure - Select New measure

   1. Name: Give it a proper title.

   2. Dates: You can either select the check box to have the same due dates as the associated objective, or choose your own due dates from the date picker. Remember that, the dates must be within the date range of the parent objective.

   3. Owner: Assign the measure an owner from the list.

4. Click Continue.

5. Target - Choose the Target type and set the target values to track the progress of a measure.

   If you wish to customize the tracking option of the measure, choose the relevant Maintain option from the Target type dropdown. Set the target limits and the critical limits to track and visualize the measure progress. See Maintain measures article for detailed information.

6. Expected progress - Choose the update cadence depending on when you would like to make an update. If the Send update reminders based on the expected progress schedule check-box is selected, then the owner of the measure will be notified to make updates. If not selected, then from the measure's sidebar, you can do it from the Set schedule against Update schedule section. See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates for details.

7. Click Create measure.

The measure will be created and displayed in the Measure Sidebar view. The metrics from which it is connected is displayed, and you can click on it to view or edit the metric details.

When you save the Measure, you’ll have a manual slider bar that you can scoot around to track your progress. Every time you update that progress, you’ll get the chance to attach a quick and concise update as well, which will also get displayed in the Updates tab. And, if you wish to give a detailed update, you can do it from the Updates tab.

If the tracking is done by an integrated application, then, as and when the sync happens, the progress is updated. Hover the mouse over the progress bar to know the actual and expected progress.

Health of Measures

The health for measures is also calculated using the base formula Actual Progress / Expected Progress.

The expected progress of a measure is informed by the calculated spread of progress based on the updated schedule. The expected progress will be visible in table form for each measure in its goal hub page.

Actual progress (%) = (Current progress - Initial value) / (Target value - Initial value)

Expected progress (%) = (Expected progress - Initial value) / (Target value - Initial value)

For example, if your measure spans one year and your initial and target values are 0 to $5,000, the expected progress will be about $416.60 per month ($5,000 / 12 months = $416.60 per month). The health will be calculated according to the percentage completion. 

In this example case, if at the end of the first month, your current progress is $300, the health would be calculated as follows:

Actual progress	$300 / $5000 = 6%
Expected Progress	$416.60 / $5000 = 8.3%
Health Calculation	6% / 8.3% = 72.3%
Health: At Risk (0-84% range)

Edit Measure from its Sidebar:

When you edit a measure from its sidebar, you can provide additional context that you wish to add on to the measure. These can be:

• (Essentials and Enterprise+ only) Types added to the actions to define their category of work. See Add Goal Tags: Advance Strategy Model Customization for details.

• (Essentials and Enterprise+ only) Custom fields defined for measures and saved in a template. You can populate data against those from here. See Apply Templates with Custom Fields to Plans for details.

• (All tiers) Risks added to the measure along with its impact, likelihood and mitigations. See Add Risks for details.

• (Essentials and Enterprise+ only) Relationships between measures, or objectives, actions, and projects. You can define "Submeasure" relationship only between two measures, but the health or progress will not be transferred between them. See Add Relationships for details.

See the article on Sidebar for more insights into the functionalities offered within it.

FAQs

Can I add custom fields to measures?

Yes. You can define custom fields for measures, and apply that template to the plan. But this will apply the custom fields to all the measures in that plan.

Can I add historical data points to the measure? Will they overwrite the data that was already present?

Yes. In case of manually tracked measures or measures connected to manual metrics, you can do this from their Goal hub page. Click Edit data in the Measure table area to add or edit dates, actual values and target values. In the case of measures connected to manual metrics, this'll open up the metric table. Click the three dots beside the table rows to add rows to add a historical data point. If you wish to update the value in the past that's already present, then the value you now enter will overwrite the previous one and reflect in the progress chart. 

I changed the progress of the measures for the dates in the past, but the objectives do not reflect those historical changes.

The objective's progress is just the average of the progress of its success criteria at that point in time. It is not recalculated when there is any historical changes made to it success criteria. The historical information on the objective is just exactly what it was on that date.

Can I restore the deleted measures or metrics?

No, once deleted there is no way of restoring the deleted objects.

I do not see the progress percentage for measures tracked with "maintain" targets now.

Yes, we've removed the progress percentage and expected progress from the measures that've maintain targets to avoid noise and complexity. This way, the focus would be on the current vs target value and health rather than the progress or percentage completion. 

That said, the Health of the measure (whether it’s On Track, Behind, or At Risk) will indicate whether you are within the range of your target you want to maintain above/below/within or not. If you are within your target range, it will be On Track, if you are close but not quite there, it will be Behind, and if you're too far from your target, it will be At Risk. See Maintain Measures for details.

I want measures to be called as KPIs, is that possible?

Yes, you can customize the alias name the way you want. But only the users with Admin privileges have access to change that from Admin > Strategy model.

Is there a way to show the actual roll up of values in the measures in their actual units like $, days, and so on, and not as %?

No. While you can track the actual values against their target in the relevant units, the progress is always represented in percentages at the goal level.

Can I add multiple types to the same measure?

No, you cannot choose multiple types.

How to add historical data points in bulk?

If your historical data is available in the spreadsheet or some source, only then can you bring the those in bulk into Cascade. Otherwise, from the measure's Goal hub page, you need to manually add rows by clicking Edit data in the Measure table and add historical data one by one.

I do not find my currency type in Units. How do I add custom units?

No problem. You can simply enter the text (INR, Sessions, Tickets, Domains, and so on), and it'll prompt you to add it as an option. Just click on it, and the unit will get added.
 

However, if you want to add another measure that should have the same unit, you'll not see it in the list. You need to again enter the text and add it. Measures with similar customized units will be grouped together and displayed in the data sources for dashboards.

Can I set my own targets every month for tracking my KPI's progress?

Yes, you can do it in two ways:

• Create a measure with Manual tracking and enter the initial and target values with the update schedule as Monthly. Now, from its goal hub, click Edit data in the Measure table, and manually enter your required values in the Target column.

• If you're tracking the actuals and the target values in your spreadsheet, then choose Integrations and integrate with Google Sheet or MS Excel. Add the date, actual and target columns and you'll be able to track everything within Cascade.

I want my measure to show achieved for any value above 80%. How do I do it?

If this is a manually tracked measure, then you can customize it by toggling the Maintain option under the Tracking area. Choose tracking option as Maintain Above 80%. For more details, see Customize Tracking for your Measures.

Can I use a measure as a target for another measure?

No, you need to set targets for each measure. However, you can add a relationship - Sub measure, Dependency, Lagging indicator, etc., between those measures from the Relationships tab of their sidebar. See Add Relationships for details.

I want to update the measure only quarterly.

From the Expected Progress section, choose the Schedule as Quarterly and also select the day in which you're most likely to update progress. Depending on your choice of updating the progress on a measure, you can choose weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually, and based on this, you can further select the day of your choice to make updates. If you've enabled reminder cadence, then you'll also be notified both in app and mail to prompt you to make updates.

But if you have the measure integrated through an app, then irrespective of what you choose in the Expected Progress, the progress and health will be driven by the dates in the connected source.

Where can I see the measures assigned to me?

You'll see the measures that you own and collaborate underneath the objectives they reside in the My upcoming goals of your Home page. Expand the objectives to see those measures. The My upcoming goals will only list those objectives that

• you own or collaborate,

• has measures you own or collaborate,

• has actions or projects you own or collaborate (this'll also be listed under the My upcoming work section)

Can I move the measure to another objective in a different plan?

Yes. Click Move from the three dots against the measure title, choose the relevant objective within the same plan or a different plan, and click Confirm. The measure will now be displayed as a success criteria under the chosen objective.

Alternatively, edit the measure from its sidebar, and under the Contributes to section, click Edit and choose the relevant objective from the list to move the measure either under a different objective of the same plan, or under an objective of a different plan. Remember that it will list only those objectives that fall within the date range of the parent objective.

How to track actual vs budget monthly?

You can either track the measure manually or integrate it with a source or use metrics to track your actual vs budget monthly, quarterly or any time frame of your choice.

• Manually: If you choose this as a tracking option, then you need to enter the initial and target values and set a schedule cadence in the Expected progress section. Based on the due dates and the target value that you set, Cascade will calculate the expected progress for your measure. The actual progress that you make will be tracked against this expected progress (budget target) and the health of the measure is calculated. Now, if you wish to edit the actual, target or budget, you can do so from the Goal hub page by clicking the Edit data in the Measure table.

• Integration: If you're tracking the budget in a Google Sheet or Excel, you can choose the relevant source from the list. You can then choose the actual, target or budget and date columns. Depending on the schedule cadence, choose one from the list and you can start tracking your actual Vs budget. Please note that in this case, you can only edit the target and dates from the Goal hub page and not the actual since its residing in the source.

• Metrics: While you can add a metric either manually or by connecting with a source or by aggregating two metrics, you need to connect it to a measure if you wish to track them against due dates and targets. 

How do I get insights on just the measures' performances?

There're a couple of ways from which you can get insights just from the measures in your workspace.

• Use custom charts with just measures as the data source in the Dashboards or use any of the universal widgets that're specific to measures like "Compare Measures with Different Units" widget, "Single Measure Performance" widget, "Compare Measures by Time Range - Line over Bar" widget, and so on.

• Build Measure tables in Reports that brings all the measures in the workspace.

You can filter them by due dates, owners, progress, teams, and so on, as available in those widgets or report tables to get the information you wish to see.

Where can I see the updates made on a measure?

Build an Objectives or Measures table in a Report, and select Last update as one of the table columns, and you'll see all the quick updates made while updating progress (scoot the progress bar manually in the Details tab) and also the detailed updates made from the Updates tab.

Can I change a measure into an action?

Yes. Click the three dots beside its title and click Convert. Choose action from the list and click Confirm to convert the measure into an action. Remember that you'll not be able to convert this measure if it has made some progress. Also, any updates, comments, risks, relationships or custom fields that were added to it will not be retained in the conversion.

What happens if the measure's end date is passed but the metrics still has data points in the present?

In this case, you'll not see any data points on the measure beyond its end date. But if you wish to see actual data which the metric is still pulling in, there're 2 ways:

• Change the measure's end date to a date in the future so that it'll keep syncing with the metric.

• Click Sync now manually every time you need to sync the data from the metric.