The Operational Dashboard

The operational dashboard provides easily accessible analytical and monitoring information for a forecast week in the past, present, or future. It serves as a built-in workload analysis tool fully integrating the KPI framework.

Operational Dashboard lets managers see the volume and labor forecasts relative to the amount of actual business being done in a specified location during a specified day or week. The data table is displayed in three sections:

  • The volume driver section of the table displays the volume forecast for a selected driver for each day of the week, for comparison to , actual and budgeted values.
  • The labor hours section of the table displays labor hours data for each day of the week.
  • The Key Performance Indicators section presents calculated productivity values created using the KPIs and Metrics from the KPI Builder.

The operational dashboard lets you evaluate forecasts, budgets, and schedules for a location. It allows you to see the effectiveness of your volume forecasts and labor forecasts relative to the amount of actual business being done in a schedule period or fiscal period. You can compare forecast and actual data to your budget limits and make changes in order to meet the demands of your customers while staying within your budget guidelines.

The operational planner displays only one location or department at a time. The currently displayed location is shown as a line of blue text above the upper left corner of the table. To change the displayed location or department:

  • To see a list of currently selected locations, click Locations Selected. Select any level of any location path that appears to display that location.
  • To select all locations in the displayed portion of the Business Structure, check the Select All checkbox in the Select Locations window. To deselect all locations, uncheck the Select All checkbox.
  • To load a location or category listed in the left or right columns below, select its check box and click Apply.
  • To list the breakdown of locations within one of the business structure levels listed, click its right arrow . The breakdown displays in a list to the right.
    • If you see the level you want to load in the right column, select its check box and click Apply.
    • If you want to list the breakdown of any location that appears on the right, click its right arrow . The breakdown appears in a new list in the right column.
    • Select the check box of any level of the business structure to load that location and all its sub-levels.
    • If no right arrow appears, there is no further breakdown possible on that branch of the business structure.

    • Note: When you select a sub-level of a location already loaded, the check box of the previously selected level is cleared. Only the lowest level of any branch of the business structure is loaded.

The operational planner displays data one week at a time. Select the week of interest.

  • Previous Forecast Week - The forecast week before the current forecast week
  • Current Forecast Week - The forecast week that contains today
  • Next Forecast Week - The forecast week after the current forecast week
  • Next Forecast Week + 1 - The week that is 2 weeks after the current forecast week.
  • Next Forecast Week + 2 - The week that is 3 weeks after the current forecast week.
  • Same Week Last Year - The week that is 52 weeks before the current forecast week

    • Note: The week that is 52 weeks before the current week may appear quite different from the current week. For example, April 15 may be part of the week April 15-22 this year, but it may have been part of the week April 8-15 last year.

  • Select Forecast Week - You can select any week. Ensure that data is imported for the selected week
  • Click Select Forecast Week.The current month appears.
  • If the desired forecast week is in the current month click any day in that week
  • If the desired forecast week is not in the current month navigate to the month as follows, then click any day in the desired forecast week:
    • To navigate by month into the past or the future click the or , respectively
    • To navigate to a month in any year in the past or the future, click the month name, then click the or , respectively. When the desired year is shown, click the desired month,
  1. Choose a Volume Driver from the menu.
  2. Specify which Operational Metrics you want to display.
    • To hide a displayed operational metric, click Hide in the left-most cell of the row your want to hide.
    • To display a hidden operational metric, click Show/Hide Metrics and select the check box next to the name of the metric. You can also hide a metric by clicking a selected check box to clear it.
  3. On the Metrics/KPI menu, select one or more KPI to add it to the display. You can type the first few letters of the KPI name in the Search box to find the KPI.

    4. Note: KPIs are created during setup using the KPI Builder.

  4. (Optional) To restrict the view to one day of the week, click on that date in the header. The Daily Operational Dashboard view opens. The same tools and techniques as the weekly view can be used to adjust the location, week and information display in the daily view. In addition .
  5. Just below the location path is Operational Dashboard for followed by a date selector which indicates the date of the data displayed.
  6. To navigate through the forecast week, click Next , or Previous .
  7. To display data in another forecast week, click Select Day and click the date.
  8. (Optional) Click in any date header to open a view of that day's data. The Operational Metrics and KPIs displayed are identical to the Weekly view.

The volume driver section

Volume Driver Definition  
Budget The volume for the selected driver, according to the imported volume budget  
Forecast The forecast volume from the last volume run  
Actual The actual volume from imported values  
Actual % of Budget The actual volume divided by the budgeted volume X 100  
Actual % of Forecast The actual volume divided by the forecasted volume X 100  
Forecast % of Budget The forecasted volume from last volume run divided by the budgeted volume X 100  

Evaluating the forecast and budget compared to actual

  • Actual % of Budget — Evaluates the accuracy of the imported volume budget for the selected driver. A value above 100 means the begetter for the selected driver was too low. A value under 100 means the budget for the selected driver was too low.
  • Actual % of Forecast — Evaluates the accuracy of the volume forecast for the selected driver. A value above 100 means the volume forecast for the selected driver was too low. A value under 100 means the volume forecast was too high.
  • Forecast % of Budget — Evaluates the accuracy of the imported volume budget for the selected driver as compared to the forecasted volume. A value above 100 means the budget for the selected driver is lower that the expected volume. A value under 100 means the budget for the selected driver is higher than the expected volume.
  • Another way of interpreting this is to say that a value above 100 means the expected volume exceeds budgeted amount, and a value below 100 means that the expected volume is less than the budgeted amount.

The labor hours section

Labor Hours Definition
Budget Hours The number of hours from the imported labor budget
Budget Cost  The cost from the imported labor budget
Forecasted Hours The forecasted number of labor hours from the saved labor forecast
System Adjusted Hours The number of labor hours for the location as adjusted by a labor constraint applied to the saved labor forecast.
Scheduled The number of labor hours from the posted schedule
Actual The actual number of labor hours worked from the time card. If you are looking at the current week, this data includes results through yesterday.
Earned Hours

How many labor hours should have been scheduled based on the actual historical volumes, applied to labor standards and other factors affecting the labor forecast.

System Adjusted Hours The number of labor hours as calculated by a labor constraint that has been run and applied to the labor forecast
Scheduled Cost The labor cost from the posted schedule
Actual Cost The actual cost from the hours worked from the timecard
%Effective Indicates how well you are scheduling your labor. This number is the hours that should have been worked (the Earned value) divided by the actual hours worked (from the Actual column), multiplied by 100

To calculate earned hours, the labor forecast engine uses the actual volume data — not the forecast — and creates a new labor total. The result is the total labor hours that should have been scheduled by day. The number reflects the recalculation of labor standards based on the actual volumes instead of the forecast volumes.

The site.forecasting.labor.earnedhours.enginestrategy.posbased system setting, as configured by the administrator, determines the calculation method that is used to compute earned hours. One of the following methods is selected:

  • Traffic pattern—When the traffic pattern method, the default, is used, earned hours are calculated at 15-minute intervals utilizing the traffic pattern. They are then rolled up to daily totals at the location level and stored in the database.
  • Point-of-sale (POS)—When the POS method is used, earned hours are calculated at 15-minute intervals utilizing imported historical data (for example, POS data) and are then rolled up to daily totals at the location level and stored in the database.

In either calculation, all custom driver data for the category and time period are preserved. Labor forecast limits and the associated settings for break factor, personal fatigue and delay, and rounding are also applied.

If the POS method is selected and POS data is imported at one or more determined points in a day, earned hours must be supplied for those time intervals in the day for which POS data does not exist.

For example, if POS data is imported at 1 PM for 11 AM to 1 PM, earned hours for those intervals are based on the imported POS data. Earned hours for other intervals in the day must be calculated using a different strategy. This mechanism can be one of the following, as determined by the value of the site.forecasting.labor.earnedhours.partialImport.completionStrategy system setting:

Value of system setting Description
Labor Forecast Existing labor forecast
Labor Adjusted Existing constrained labor forecast. If one does not exist, the existing labor forecast is used.
Projected Labor Runs the projected labor forecast engine to generate a projected forecast. The engine uses the volume driver that is specified in the site.forecasting.labor.earnedhours.partialImport.drivertouse system setting.

Note: Regardless of the calculation method that is used, earned hours are only visible as a daily value in the Operational Dashboard, a forecast factor in Forecast Planner, Dataviews, and reports (that is, you cannot view earned hours in 15-minute increments).

The quality of the schedule is indicated by how close this %Effective number is to 100. A perfect schedule is 100% effective. For example, if you have actually worked 1000 hours and you earned 1000, then your schedule is 100% effective.

The farther this %Effective number is from 100 (in either direction), the poorer your schedule. However, the implication of a number lower than 100 is much different than for a number greater than 100. For example, if you actually worked 1200 hours and you earned 1000 hours, then your schedule is 83.3% effective (1000/1200 x 100). This means that you may have been under scheduled. If you actually worked 800 hours and you earned 1000 hours, then your schedule is 125% effective (1000/800 x 100). This means that you may have been over scheduled.

The KPI section

Use the KPI Builder at to set up additional metrics and KPIs for the displayed location and forecast week as needed for your business.

To add a KPI or metric to the display:

  1. Select the metric or KPI from the menu above the right border of the volume driver section. If you don't see the KPI or metric that you want:
    1. Reconfigure the Operational Dashboard to include the metric or KPI.
    2. Go to Application Setup >System Configuration > Forecaster Setup >Operational Dashboard Metrics and KPIs and click on the Help . Follow the instructions to add the KPI or a Metric. If you don't see the KPI or metric that you want in the configuration menu, continue with the next step. Otherwise, skip to the last step.
    3. Go to Application Setup >System Configuration > KPI Builder > KPI Definition and click on the Help . Follow the instructions to find, activate, or create a KPI or a Metric. Then follow the steps in the previous bullet point to include the metric or KPI in the Operational Dashboard .
    4. On the Operational Dashboard, select the metric or KPI from the menu above the right border of the volume driver section.

A system setting lets you to exclude today's data from being included in the “Week To Date” data in the Operational Dashboard. This helps store managers use the Operational Dashboard to manage their payroll cost throughout the week. Many operations import actual sales data on a daily basis; thus week-to-date sales data reflects sales through the end of the previous day, while actual hours and payroll dollars reflect data that includes today.

  1. Go to Application Setup > System Configuration > System Settings and select the Forecastingtab.
  2. To exclude today's data from week-to-date data, set
  3. site.forecasting.OperationalDashboard.excludeTodayfromWeekToDateTotals
  4. to true
  5. Click Save.