Calculations and traffic lights in a KPI scorecard

Every row in a KPI scorecard has a calculation type that decides what its month cells and its Sum column show, and a green and a red boundary that decide its light in the Status column. The rules differ between manual rows, where people type the values, and system rows, where values are counted from documents. This page is the full reference for both. The calculation type and boundaries are set in the row’s dialog; see Manual row dialog in a KPI scorecard, System row dialog in a KPI scorecard and Get data from a module, filtered by one value in a drop-down menu. For a light that looks wrong, see Why is a traffic light red, yellow or missing?.

Manual rows

On a manual row, the month cells hold the values people type in.

Calculation type (manual row)	Month cell	Sum column
Sum	Typed value	Total of the filled months
Count	Typed value	The same as Sum; counting documents is what Count does on a system row
Average	Typed value	Average of the filled months, rounded to two decimals; empty months are left out
Show last registration	Typed value	The value of the latest calendar month that has a value

On a manual row, the row’s own sum comes from its own month cells, not from its sub-rows. The sub-rows of a manual row always use the row’s calculation type.

System rows

On a system row, values are counted from documents in the module chosen in Choose module. Only the latest version of each published, non-archived document counts. The exception is New in Status: a row with that status counts documents that are at the first workflow step and not yet published. The Status and Documents saved as filters are applied, and each document is placed in the month of the date chosen in Module date fields, within the scorecard year. Results are rounded to two decimals.

Calculation type (system row)	Month cell	Sum column
Count	Number of matching documents in the month	Number of matching documents in the year
Sum	Total of the number field in the month	Total for the year
Average	Average of the number field in the month, over the documents that have a value in it; a document with the field empty is left out	Average over all matching documents in the year that have a value in the number field
Average - Sum on months	The month’s total	Average of the number field over all matching documents in the year that have a value in it, the same figure as Average; not the average of the monthly totals
Show last registration	The field value of the latest document in the month, by the chosen date	The field value of the latest document in the year, by the chosen date

System-row values are not saved; they are recalculated every time the scorecard is shown. Earlier months, and earlier years, therefore change when documents are published, archived, given another date, or edited. On a system row with a split, use the figures on the sub-rows; the row’s own cells do not add up its sub-rows.

Traffic light (Status column)

The light compares a row’s sum with its green and red boundaries.

If green is higher than red, higher is better: a sum at or above green is green, at or below red is red, and anything between is yellow.
If green is lower than red, lower is better: a sum at or below green is green, at or above red is red, and anything between is yellow.

An empty boundary counts as 0, so a row with only a green or only a red boundary still gets a light. No light is shown when green and red are equal, which includes a row with neither boundary filled in, or when nothing is registered yet on a manual row, that is, none of its months has a value. A system row is never treated as having nothing registered: with no matching documents its sum is compared as 0, so with positive boundaries it shows green when lower is better and red when higher is better. The detailed rules are in KPI traffic lights: detailed rules.

Scaling of boundaries through the year

For some calculation types the boundaries are scaled before the comparison, so you enter them as full-year values:

On a system row with Sum, Count or Show last registration, the boundaries are scaled by the share of the current year that has passed (days elapsed out of 365). For earlier years the full boundaries apply.
On a manual row with Sum or Count, the boundaries are scaled by the latest filled month out of 12.
On a manual or system row with Average, and on a system row with Average - Sum on months, the boundaries are never scaled.
On a manual row with Show last registration, the boundaries are not scaled.

Example: a manual row with Sum has green 120 and red 60 for the year. Values are filled in up to June, so the row is compared against 60 and 30.

Target

The target is shown for information only and never affects the light. It is shown with a > sign when green is higher than red, and a < sign when green is lower; a target of 0 is shown as 0 without a sign. A “-” in the Target column means the row has no target or does not have both boundaries.

Number format

With Norwegian as your user language, month cells and targets use a decimal comma (4,1 and >4,5), while the Sum column shows a period (4.33) in both languages. When typing values, do not use a thousands separator: “1,000” is read as 1.