A Target Period enables you to set the period over which the performance of a particular KPI is measured. It forms part of the KPI's target settings, by default, dates that include all available measurements will be used. This can be changed to have a start date and end date that is appropriate for the KPI.


For example, you may set a KPI to define a pass or a fail by considering measurements from the beginning of the current financial year until the current date, or you may wish to specify a specific start and end date.


Setting the Performance Target Period for a KPI

The Performance Target Period field allows you to specify between using either all the available measurements or to specify a specific date range.  If a specific date is required you are able to set the start and end date in 1 of 3 ways:


  • All Available Measurements - This will take all the Measurements received so far into the Performance calculation
  • A dynamic date - Choose a value from a drop-down list of predefined dynamic dates. These dates include start/end of calendar year, start/end of financial year and the current date.
  • Number of units before/after - Units refer to the 'Recording Frequency' field of the KPI form. For example - If a KPI is reported monthly, then the reporting period can be set to 'x months before' to 'x months after'.


Fig 1 - Setting the Performance Target Period for a KPI

Tip: This example assumes you are setting the Performance Target Period as you are creating the KPI. However this value can also be edited after the KPI has been created.

Tip: The financial year start and end dates are set in Account Configuration.

It possible to include periods where there is no measurement entered (or the special entry of  No Measurement Expected is used) by ticking the checkbox. Because these values can affect the performance of a KPI the default behaviour is to exclude them in performance calculations.


Overriding the Target Period

The performance target period set for each KPI is inherited by the KPI Party, however this can be overridden by the individual KPI Party if needed. This allows you to set the target period to be different for specific customers if required. See Overriding KPI Targets for more information about how the override functionality is set.