Understanding Measurements

What are Measurements?

Measurements are a Feature that allow you to track and measure a specific metric or progress towards a specific metric. If that sounds quite broad, that’s because it is - measurements are made to be incredibly flexible to allow you and your teammates to measure whatever you want in Qatalog.

When would I use Measurements?

• Goals setting and tracking: This is the primary use case for measurements. Whether you use OKR, SMART, or a different type of goal framework, measurements can accommodate it.
• Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tracking and reporting: KPIs are just like goals, except they may not have an explicit deadline or target value in mind. If you’re interested in setting up a KPI, you’ll set up your measurement without a target value.

Creating and structuring a Measurement

To create a Measurement within your Module Item, that Module must have the Measurements capability enabled (Admins can check this by going to their Module settings). If Measurements are enabled on your Module, you’ll see a graph empty state for Measurements. 

To start creating your Measurement, click on the pencil icon in the top right of the Measurement graph. This will bring you to your Measurement’s settings. 

From here, title your Measurement (this will display as the title in the graph), and fill out the following fields:

• Source: Determine if you’d like your measurement to be manually updated by collaborators (“Manually Entered”, of if you’d like the measurement to be automatically calculated based on other measurements (“Calculated from Items”).
  • Using “Calculated from items - Total”: This measurement type calculates the percent of total completion (0-100%) of the measurements connected to this measurement. This is helpful if you want to gauge progress or the completion rate across many different measurements. This is commonly used for the “Objective” part of the OKR framework where Objective progress is measured by progress against its Key Results.
  • Using “Calculated from items - SUM”: This measurement type SUMs up the values (number or currency values, only) of the measurements connected to this measurement. This is very helpful for tracking smaller, disparate initiatives or pieces of work that are all contributing to the same numeric or currency-based goal. For example, you may want to use “Calculated from Item - SUM” for showing group or team progress, like attainment towards a Regional Revenue goal by summing up the closed revenue of all regional Sales reps.
• Unit: This determines the display unit of your measurement. For example, if you want to track Closed Won deals, you’d likely want to select a specific currency, like USD. Note: “Calculated from Items - Total” is always a Percentage output (0-100%), and so this field is locked if “Calculated from Items - Total” is your Source.
• Allowed Modules: This field is only available for Calculated measurements, and it allows users to limit which types of Modules can be connected to a Calculated measurement. For example, if you have a “Calculated from Items - Total” measurement called “Become a world class Sales Organization”, you may want to prohibit modules that are not related to this goal (like, say, Engineering-specific Modules) from potentially being connected.
• Allowed capability items: This field is only available for Calculated measurements. At the moment, Qatalog only allows other Measurements to contribute to Calculated measurements.
• Set default values: For manual measurements, you can set a starting value and a target value (“Calculated from Items - Total” will always have a starting value of 0 and a target value of 100). If you would like your measurement to represent a goal, we recommend providing a target value. If you’d like your measurement to track a KPI, you can skip a target value.
• Notify on change: Toggling this value on will notify collaborators on your Module Item when this value changes.

Once you’re done, you can create another measurement using the “+ Add Measurement” button on the left hand side. This will create another measurement that you can access via a dropdown in your Module item. Make sure to save when you’re done setting up your measurement!

Adding Contributing Items to Calculated Measurements

If your measurement is set up to be a “Calculated from Items” measurement, you will need to connect Contributing Items. To do so, click “Connect” and search for the measurement(s) you’d like to contribute to your calculated measurement. Once connected, your calculated measurement will update to reflect any changes produced by adding your new measurement into the fold. Note: you’ll only be able to connect measurements associated with “Allowed Modules” from your measurement’s settings.

Addressing Errors with Calculated Measurements

You may encounter an error message when connecting a Contributing Item to a “Calculated from Items - Total” measurement.

If you do, that means your Contributing Item is missing a target value and it needs to be added for the “Calculated from Items - Total” measurement to function. To address the error, please visit the Contributing Item measurement’s settings and add a target value.

Updating Measurements

To update a manual measurement, click the “Update” button in the top right of your measurement and enter your updated measurement value. On save, you’ll see your measurement chart and Module Item activity feed update to reflect your change.

Calculated measurements cannot be manually updated, so the only way to update a calculated measurement is to update its underlying Contributing Items. However, you can easily update Contributing Items using the “...” overflow menu if (1) you have edit access on those Contributing Items, and (2) those Contributing Items are “Manually Update” measurements.

Linking between Measurements

Calculated Measurements and their progress are dictated by the measurements connected to them (Contributing Items).

If you are on a Calculated Measurement and would like to get more information on the Measurement(s) contributing to that Calculated Measurement, simply click on the Measurement name in the Contributing Items section.

But what if you want to see if the Measurement you're on contributes to other Measurements? 

If your Measurement contributes to other Measurements (i.e. it's listed as a Contributing Item on a different, Calculated Measurement) you will see a ladder icon in the top right of your Measurement visualization with the number of Measurements it is contributing to. Click on this ladder icon to get more information on these Measurements. Clicking on the Measurements listed in the ladder dropdown will take you to those Measurements.