Indicators and sub-indicators

To add indicators to a goal, purpose, output or activity, you just start typing in the empty cell to its right in the Indicators column.

Indicators can have sub-indicators. This enables you to split more complex indicators into their basic components. You can add as many levels of sub-indicators as you want.

The Indicators column contains simple indicators and main indicators with their sub-indicators

Adding sub-indicators and parent indicators:

  • To turn an indicator into a sub-indicator of the indicator that's above it, click on the Level down button in the Items toolbar.
  • If you want to insert a new sub-indicator below a main indicator, select the main indicator and then press the Insert child button.
  • If you want to turn an existing indicator into a child indicator of a new parent, select the indicator and then press the Insert parent button.

Items toolbar

The total value or total score of the indicator is calculated automatically based on the values of its sub-indicators:

  • Value indicators that have sub-indicators with the same unit (for instance ‘items’) have a total value expressed in that unit (15 tonnes + 7 tonnes + 12 tonnes = 34 tonnes)
  • Indicators such as multiple choice indicators, yes-no indicators and so on use scores. For each option you can specify a score value and on the level of the parent indicator these scores are added.
  • For values indicators you can also specify scores (for instance >15 tonnes = score value of 5) and in that case the total scores are calculated.
  • When you have a combination of values and other types of indicators, you must use scores for the values so that total scores can be calculated.

Detail pane with list of sub-indicators
 

Baseline and targets

For each type of indicator you can register a baseline value. The baseline is the measurement you make before your project (or at least any of the project's activities) starts.

Some types of indicators use targets, while others have none. If you use targets, you can specify different targets according to the calendar of the Monitoring Deadlines.

Targets of a value-type indicator
 

Registration (project level, team level, beneficiary level)

Some information can be found or registered centrally, for instance impact indicators that take information from government statistics. These can be entered by someone at your office.

In other cases you may have different teams in the field that register information about their beneficiaries or intervention zone. To get the total results at project level you may have to make a total of the numbers of the various teams.

It's also possible that you need to register information for every beneficiary (or a sample of the group of beneficiaries). The total number/score for that indicator at project level is then calculated as the total sum of the beneficiaries.

Registration tab of the Indicator detail pane

In the Indicator Details pane, select the Registration tab. Use the Registration drop-down box to select one of these three options:

  • Programme level: one (periodic) measurement for the whole programme
  • Team level: measurements of different teams can be aggregated on programme level
  • Beneficiary level: information is measured with the/a sample of beneficiaries and then aggregated

Select the target group for which the indicator will be used. You can also use an indicator for all target groups
Use the Aggregate drop-down list to choose how you want to aggregate the information from the different teams or beneficiaries:

  • Sum
  • Average
  • Minimum value
  • Maximum value
  • Spread
  • Distribution

Targeting systems

For value-based indicators, you can choose how you will define your targets:

  1. As a simple target value
  2. As a value range, for instance:
    • Minimum number of patients of a local health-care centre: x > 250 / month
    • Maximum delinquency percentage of loans (non re-imbursement): x <= 7%
    • Number of children per teacher: 20 <= x <= 35
  3. As a formula, for instance
    • Target year 1 = 2 x baseline value
    • Target year 2 = 3 x baseline value
    • Target year 3 = 4 x baseline value

In the Indicator Details pane, select the Scoring tab and go to the Targeting box (on the right). Select one of the three options.

The Scoring tab of the Indicator detail pane

To set the actual targets, go to the Targets tab.

If you use a simple target value, you can enter it directly in the cells

If you use a value range, a pop-up window will appear (double-click on the cell if it doesn't) where you can set a minimum value and/or a maximum value. To do so, select the sign (<; >; <=; >=) and enter a value. If you don't select a sign, the min/max value won't be used:

  • For x < 10: do not select a sign or enter a value for Minimum value, only for Maximum value
  • For x > 10: do not select a sign or enter a value for Maximum value, only for Minimum value
  • For 5 < x < 10: select a sign and enter a value for both Minimum and Maximum value

Scoring

For questions with targets, you can choose which (total) value the indicator will produce:

The Scoring tab of the Indicator detail pane

  1. With value-based indicators, you can opt to simply use the value you enter. For instance: 10 pieces or 30 items or 100 tonnes…
  2. You can also choose to give a score to a certain result:
    • With value based indicators: you can indicate that a total production of more than 50 tonnes get a score of 1, a production of more than 100 tonnes gets a score of 2 and production of more than 500 tonnes get a score of 3
    • With multiple options questions, ordinal questions, opinion scales etc. you can accord a score to the different options. For instance: yes = 1 and no = 0
  3. Finally, you can express the result as a percentage of the total.
    • For value-based indicators, if the target was 400 participants to a training and you actually had 374 participants, the percentage of the indicator is 93.5%
    • For multiple options questions, ordinal questions, opinion scales etc. a score of 2 on a maximum of 5 gives a percentage of 40%

To set the actual scores:

Example of a value-type indicator with scores

  • For value-based indicators, select the Targets tab:
    • If you use a simple target value, you can enter it directly in the cells
    • If you use a score, set the score directly in the cells below the target values
    • If you use a percentage, the target value will always be 100%. If you use the Monitoring tool in Excel, the measured value will be transformed into a percentage of the target value
  • For multiple options questions, ordinal questions, opinion scales etc., select the Scoring tab:
    • If you use a score, you can specify the scoring value of each option or statement in the list
    • If you use a percentage and you use the Monitoring tool in Excel, the value of the option/statement you select will be transformed into a percentage of the maximum score that can be achieved.