Balanced Scorecard Designer

Version 1.8. released. SQL Indicators are now available. PPT Presentation of Balanced Scorecard Designer

Balanced Scorecard Designer (BSC Designer) is a brand-new Balanced Scorecard design software that helps with building Balanced Scorecards for business performance management purposes.

Our History

A few years back, we designed our first balanced scorecard design software, Strategy2Act. It was (and still is available for download) a great software product which allowed the creation of scorecards. We have obtained a tremendous amount of feedback from our users. We found that Strategy2Act software was hard to use and lack some important integration features.

That’s why we released Balanced Scorecard Designer. It’s a brand-new version of Strategy2Act, actually, it is completely different product, with many more design and integration features.

• As of today, you can download the trial version of Balanced Scorecard Designer or you can purchase a full version.

Interface Overview

Click to see enlarged BSC Designer screenshot

Balanced Scorecard Designer has a plain, easy to use interface, which provides user with:

• The Possibility to create a scorecard, e.g. create categories, goals;
• Balancing function, e.g. lets user specify relative weights;
• Time Points, allows to specify weight, scorecard, mix/max and other values specific for certain dates.
• Ability to connect several scorecards into one using data obtained from the web or local network. It also can import information using SQL indicators.
• Performance measurement and calculation functions, e.g. calculates the performance within category and total performance;
• Results of work can be exported into easy, readable html reports with charts.

Click to see Balanced Scorecard Designer screenshot

The results of the design can be saved into BSC native format (.bsc file type) or exported to MS Excel for further usage. The Export feature is very important as the Balanced Scorecard exported to MS Excel can be used to connect the data from company ERP system with performance measurement. Starting in version 1.3, exporting is also available with command line interface.

The newest version of Balanced Scorecard Designer displays performance indicators values grouped by date, the visualization in the form of performance charts is also now available. The performance chart provides user with date-by-date performance changes dynamics.

Balanced Scorecard Designer functions in details

When you run the Balanced Scorecard Designer the default project will be opened. You will be able to start with design process immediately.

Using toolbar buttons, you will be able to add more categories and goals, move items or run the balancing function. Also, with tool bar “Report” button you will be able to export results into a MS Excel file.

The special toolbar was designed to manage concurrently with time points. With time points, the user can specify different performance and weight values for different dates.

In Balanced Scorecard Designer you will work with strategy tree. The strategy tree includes:

• Root element. It has the same name as your Balanced Scorecard project. If you need to change project name, please, choose “Properties” option in File menu.
• Category elements. These elements are containers for goal elements.
• Goal element, also called metric or performance indicator, is an item with name (for instance “Response Time”), relative weights on 1..10 scale and optimization direction.

You can click on any item (Category or Goal) and you will see the information about that item below. The information includes:

• The name of the category or goal;
• The relative weight of the category or goal;
• The description of the category or goal;

Please, note: you can change the values right now and the changes will be immediately processed and shown at strategy tree. BSC Designer will automatically recalculate the performance values.

The goal item, also known as metric or indicator has some addition parameters. Goal has:

• Value. It is the current value, the current score or performance level within this metric.
• Measure. Measure value specified the measurement units, can be “Score” or “%” or some custom measure units.
• Min and Max values determine the scale for the metric. If the value is highlighted with bold (for instance, “max”) then your target within this metric is to improve the current value and achieve max value.
• Optimization drop-box determines your optimization strategy. If your goal is to make the current value higher then use the “Maximize” option, if your goal is to lower the current value (for instance to lower the number of defects), then use the “Minimize” option).
• Target Description is an optional field, you can put here any additional notes that will explain how you are going to measure your indicators, measurement units that you are going to use.

Subcategories in Balanced Scorecard Designer

Balanced Scorecard Designer has many more useful features than Strategy2Act. The significant difference is the ability to create sub-directories.

For instance, in Balanced Scorecard Designer one can create a global category “Custom”, with metrics “Response Time”, “On-time delivery”, “Support Quality”, but at the same time the “Support Quality” might be a category itself, e.g. contains more specific metrics, such as “Response script quality”, “Response value measure”, “Customer satisfaction” measures.

Time Points

The scorecard is not just a static document, it is a set of values that can change in time. With BSC Designer, the user can specify different values for indicators for different time points.

For instance, the value “HR Interview Performance” can have a value of 70% for September and a value of 75% for October. That is how manager can specify data for the past and for the future. This is the way how to analyze company’s performance in the past and in the future, e.g. plan performance changes and set goals.

To work the time point, the user should follow these simple steps:

1. Use the calendar on the toolbar and select the appropriate date.

2. Change values of indicator (you can change weight, value, min, max values)

3. Click anywhere and the program will remember the changes that you have made.

• Check out the time points in Balanced Scorecard video on YouTube.

Read more about using Time Points in the BSC Designer manual or download a fully-function trial version and try it yourself.

Connecting to external scorecards

With Balanced Scorecard Designer, the user can not only design his own indicators, but also link to indicators in other external scorecards.

For instance, the manager of the HR department can place his scorecard on the web-server. The CEO of the company can connect to this scorecard and use its indicators or performance values of the whole category or the performance value of the scorecard.

This way, the user can link to scorecards located on the web site, file in the network or hard disk.

Learn more about linking scorecards or download trial version of Balanced Scorecard Designer to try this function yourself.

Link balanced scorecard with ERP, CRM or other business systems

Balanced Scorecard Designer, starting in version 1.8, can create SQL indicators. The SQL indicators uses ADO technology to access data from various data sources and databases.

With SQL indicator, one could access information located in almost any database or business system, such are ERP, CRM, EMC.

This is a great example on how independent developers and our partners could integrate Balanced Scorecard Designer into an existent business environment.

Learn more about creating SQL indicators here.

 

Export to Excel

Balanced Scorecard Designer can export the scorecard into an Excel file. It is a really useful feature, as Excel files are an easy way to share and analyze information. Also, having indicators represented in Excel file it is easy to export or import data from some external data sources and databases.

The data exported into Excel is available for change, so if user will change some performance values the Excel will calculate the new performance values for category and the scorecard.

Exporting to Excel is easy, just select “Export to MS Excel” command in Reports menu. Please, note: the export to Excel is limited only to one time-point, so if you need to export data for some time interval, please, use HTML report.

Right now you can download trial version of Balanced Scorecard Designer to try exporting to Excel and other features.

Export to HTML report

Balanced Scorecard can be exported into an Excel file or to an advanced HTML report. The Advanced HTML Report includes performance information for various data points covered by the scorecard, also, users will find there data tables with information about values’ changes for indicators.

HTML report is a great way to share Balanced Scorecard with others. There are 3 types of HTML reports with different level of details.

The html report can be customized using “Custom values” and “Custom files” tag from document properties dialog.

Click to see Balanced Scorecard Sample screenshot

One of the possible export report formats is “Overview Report”. This type of report contains information about top-level indicators and groups in Balanced Scorecard. The “Overview Report” is a good starting point for any education, training or presentation related to Balanced Scorecard.

The “Overview Report” as shown on the Balanced Scorecard Sample screenshot has information about main categories (in our case you can see four main categories) and information about each top-level indicator in the category.

The indicators are listed in the tables together with their descriptions.

In the center of the report there is an information about Balanced Scorecard, its name, description and author.

The Overview Report is generated as .htm file, so it is easy to share it with co-workers, for instance, by placing on a web-server or printing out from web-browser.

Please, note: the Overview Report is limited only to top-level categories and indicators. This report is for presentation purposes, because it doesn’t contain some valuable performance values, so if you need more detailed report, use Advanced HTML Report.

Try and buy

Right now you can download the evaluation version of Balanced Scorecard Designer. We suggest to try the fully functional version of BSC Designer for 30 days at NO cost!

If you will find Balanced Scorecard designer a useful tool, you can purchase a full version online.

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