What are Metrics?

A metric is a quantifiable measure which is used to track and assess the performance of a specific business function. These're not time-bound and can measure progress towards short-term as well as long-term goals. Metrics can then be broken down to granular units "measures" which are time-bound with a target to achieve!

Some examples:

• Metric - Achieve an ARR of 100m $
  • Measure - Target revenue of 15m $ in 2023
• Metric - 10m $ Revenue from Sales
  • Measure - 2m$ Revenue from LATAM in Q1
• Metric - Target an NPS rating of 10
  • Measure - Maintain an NPS between 8 to 10 in every quarter

Metrics Vs Measures:

While metrics can be tracked anywhere in any application or tool, measures connected from metrics are tracked in Cascade! i.e.,

1. Navigate to Metrics > Connect metrics to establish connection to a data source and bring those values to Cascade. Pre-requisites are:
   1. You need to have a valid account with Cascade as well as the data source (Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Zapier, and so on)
   2. And, the metric set up and tracked in the connected data source
2. On importing, the metrics are available in the Metrics > Library tab, from where you can connect those to individual measures!
   1. These imported metrics can then be connected either to a new measure or an existing measure in Cascade.

Or, you can simply build "Performance of Single Metric" widget in your dashboard or report to analyze how the metric has performed over time to decide on the further course of action!

Please note that this is an early version of the functionality, and we're working relentlessly to provide more value to this feature!

Why Metrics?

Your organization will have hundreds of metrics, with each unit and function tracking them in their own set of preferred tools and applications. Consolidating these measurable information that're scattered across tools, and driving actionable results is a daunting task. And, building a strategic plan based on this context is a fairly impossible task, let alone adapting or evolving it! 

Metrics in Cascade lets you to integrate or consolidate your metrics and track them in a single pane. The Metrics library brings all your metrics under one roof, thereby providing visibility into overall business health and the ability to identify the non-performing business metrics. There is no more need for you to start anything from scratch, but to build your strategic plan based on the existing health, and keep evolving them!

In other words, instead of creating big strategic plans for a business to launch, Cascade will help a business start with what you're already doing. Track, report on, and interrogate the health of your business in real-time and layer on the “strategy” and structure around that reporting over time - "reverse engineering"! This is a bottom-up approach for strategy and will drive more value!

Build a "Performance of Single Metric" widget and based on the metrics and their performance,

• create measures with deadlines and target set from metric
• create actions and projects to attain those KPIs
• define outcomes that you wish to achieve

Now, all these together form your strategic plan!

What are their benefits?

Wherever you and your team work and track your metrics, you can seamlessly integrate those to Cascade, and create a data-driven, collaborative, and more adaptable strategy in Cascade!

Using Metrics, you can have

• visibility - single view of all metrics in one place
• adaptability - evolve strategy from existing health of business
• alignment - understand what is needed and how to contribute towards it
• efficiency - save time on going back and forth between applications or tools
• collaboration - work together to make an impact and improve the health of business
• accuracy - sync up-to-date data from every data source
• reliability - automated workflow that brings updates from other applications to Cascade
• and, guided decision making with data-driven information! 

Since the metrics capabilities are integrated into Cascade, it is simple to measure and get insights from virtually any data source at any scale! You can define, integrate, and track metrics and KPIs to help drive better decision making!

Being that one source of truth with centralized access to all company data, Cascade provides the ability to transform statistical information into actionable insights and a compelling narrative with effective data storytelling!

FAQs

Is this the new way of integrations?

Metrics & measures integrations for measures will now work via metrics. To hook up a measure to automatically update, first set up the metric and then connect the measure to that metric.

I already have integrations, how will this affect that?

• Connections won’t need to be set up again, the ones used to connect to measures will be available for metrics also.
• You will be able to keep your already created measures but to create new ones you will need to set up metrics first.

Eventually all current integrations to measures should migrate to metrics!

How many metrics can I bring in with this new functionality?

There is no limit to the number of metrics you can import!

Can I connect the same metrics to multiple measures?

Yes you can, this is one of the main advantages of metrics!

Can I pull the metrics data into reports and dashboards?

Yes, build a "Performance of Single Metric" widget to see how a metric is performing over time. Also, you can connect these metrics to measures, and pull the measure data into reports and dashboards to gain insights!

I'm looking for custom integrations using Power BI and Smartsheet!

In the Metrics > Connect metrics tab, under the Custom integrations section, click Request on the app tile that you wish to connect with. The Integration request window opens. Fill in the details and click Send request. We'll take it up from there!