When Benefits are created, you can decide how you want to measure them. You can define a simple benefit which can be measured using a straightforward series of Plan, Actual, or Forecast values or an advanced benefit that requires multiple types of measurement series, each with its own Plan, Actuals, and Forecast, where the total benefit is calculated using a formula using all of these measurement series. An advanced benefit configuration within Amplify requires you to create multiple measure series, and define a formula for benefit calculation. This article discusses the simple benefit.
The default configuration for Amplify is to equip the Benefit tab with a Plan tab that brings all measure plan management together in a single location (Measures Dashboard).
The Plan tab shows a graphical representation of the benefit progression depending upon the values you entered in the data entry field below. Under the graph, there is a drop-down box that allows you to select which year is to be displayed below with the data entry fields.
If you are currently working on a past or future year data , clicking on the Today button will take you back to the current month/week/year.
Depending upon your benefit classification setting, you would be able to see the fields for benefit series header (for example, Plan series, Actual, Forecast, CMO, or FMO).
To track and monitor a simple benefit, the first step would be to record planned and actual outcomes that directly attribute to the benefit, as measures on the Plan tab (Measures Dashboard).
Amplify's quick-toggle features, present in the measure input field( )will set all future values to replicate the last input entered in the data entry field on the left or top.
When all measures have been recorded, you can review the Benefit visualisation graph to see the progression of your benefits realisation. If you have saved baseline values, you can compare the current values with saved baseline values on the graph. Forecast benefits displayed on the Benefit Dashboard are based on Actual values recorded on the Plan tab. If you did not record Actuals, Forecast would be identical to Planned benefit. When you have Actuals recorded, there can be two ways of estimating the Forecast:
- Forecast identical to actual, or
- Actual affected forecast
Actual values will be identical to Forecast values unless Enable Actual affected Forecast setting is enabled. This setting causes the forecast values to be calculated by applying a performance penalty. Performance penalty allows for a realistic forecast calculation by taking the variance of the actual value from the planned value into account. The performance penalty is calculated as Actual - Plan value, where there is an actual entry. When you enable the Actual affected Forecast setting, this Performance Penalty will be applied to the forecast value, where an actual is captured. i.e., the new forecast value is calculated by adding the performance penalty to the previous forecast value.
You can disable forecast calculation completely, by un-checking the Enable Forecast setting on the benefit classification.
When multiple outcomes contribute to a Benefit, you can define measures in an advanced way. This method is discussed in the article, Define Advanced Measures.