7 Top KPI Software Solutions

If you’ve landed here, you probably already know the vital role that key performance indicators, or KPIs, play in boosting your company’s business strategy. KPI software has a supporting—yet still significant—role in that it gives you the ability to manage, visualize, and analyze the KPI data you collect.

Without the right software to make KPI data meaningful—and simplify the analysis and reporting processes—your performance management efforts are likely to go off the rails faster than you’d expect.

That said, don’t settle on the first software product you encounter. Tracking KPIs is one thing, but tracking them in a way that makes the information useful to you is another. A lot of organizations track a ton of data but either a) don’t know what to do with it or b) don’t know what data to look at to make a decision. People love data, but if you can’t figure out how it impacts the overall success of your organization, then it’s essentially useless.

In this post, we list 7 popular KPI software solutions that are worth your time to investigate. But before you do, consider the features you want your software to have. Your needs will dictate your selection; sometimes, a combination of tools is your best bet.

KPI Software: 7 Features To Consider In Your Search

What exactly are you looking for in KPI software? The below features are especially useful but may not be a necessity in every case.

1. Charts And Data Visualizations

You need this if….

• You want to easily interpret data by looking at a visualization rather than data tables and spreadsheets.
• You want to easily identify trends in your data.
• You have a lot of data.

2. Calculations And Aggregations

You need this if…

• You have a lot of data coming from different places and in different formats.
• You want to aggregate departmental data for organization-wide analysis.
• You want to benchmark against similar organizations.

3. Ability To Add Qualitative Context

You need this if…

• You want to tell the story of your data, and explain outliers or inconsistencies.
• You want to know if you are on or off track at a quick glance (evaluations).
• You frequently have to restate the purpose/definition of metrics at meetings.

4. Ease Of Use (i.e., No IT Help Necessary!)

You need this if…

• You have a lot of data and require various ways of looking at the data.
• Your stakeholders want different reports with different information.
• You need to create reports and dashboards on the fly.

5. Ability To Link KPIs To Strategic Goals

You need this if…

• You want to know how your KPIs contribute to the progress of your strategic goals.
• You need to align your goals, KPIs, and projects across your organization.
• You track a lot of KPIs and need a way to define which are the most impactful to reaching your goals.

6. Integration With Other Tools

You need this if…

• Your data currently lives in a lot of different tools.
• You spend a lot of time searching for information.
• You want to aggregate detailed data to show the big picture progress of the organization.

7. Automation Capabilities

You need this if…

• You spend a lot of time asking your team to update their KPIs.
• Your reporting process involves many people.
• You’d rather spend time executing on your strategy than creating reports and dashboards.

7 Top KPI Software Solutions

1. ClearPoint Strategy

ClearPoint Strategy KPI software helps organizations track high-level key metrics (as well as projects and goals) and links their performance to strategic objectives.

Users can create dynamic KPI dashboards in minutes with a simple drag-and-drop interface and see which activities are actually having an impact on strategy (i.e., understand whether you’re using the right KPIs). It also dramatically simplifies the reporting process, automatically handling update reminders, report generation, and data uploads from any system or spreadsheet. ClearPoint is an easy-to-use reporting tool that helps users see the “big picture” of their data.

See ClearPoint Strategy in action! Click here to watch a quick DEMO on the software

Pros:

• It links KPIs to organizational objectives.
• It allows users to tell the story of their data by adding qualitative context for KPIs (analysis and recommendations).
• It’s easy to use—no IT team is required to create dashboards or pull data.
• It automates the process of collecting and analyzing data and generating reports.

Cons:

• It doesn’t track daily transactional data.

2. Smartsheet

Billed as a collaborative work management tool, Smartsheet is essentially a project management solution that helps teams plan, execute, and report on work. “Sheets” contain project-specific data that can be configured to track key metrics; the data can be viewed in a variety of ways (as Gantt charts or Kanban-card style, for instance).

Pros:

• It’s easy to see who made changes to what data.
• You can create automatic reminders for team members to update relevant sheets.
• You can attach documents to sheets.

Cons:

• There’s no clear-cut way to align projects and KPIs with strategic goals.
• It has some limitations with regard to formatting and data manipulation.
• You can only assign one person to a specific task.
• It has a minimal number of report and dashboard templates.

3. Domo

Domo is a business intelligence platform for enterprises in need of a tool that can unify data from all areas of the business. It helps manage data access, quality, and governance and includes top-notch data visualization tools that use AI to provide data insights. KPI dashboards can be customized to meet the needs of users and readily published to thousands of subscribers.

Pros:

• It has lots of integration options, with 700+ pre-configured API connectors capable of pulling data from various applications.
• It offers an app for managing data via mobile devices.

Cons:

• Some users say it takes a lot of time to build custom reports.
• It lacks a table format, which may make the transition challenging for Excel users.

4. KPI Fire

This strategy planning and execution solution is based on the concept of having cascading goals for companies and departments. Designed with Lean Six Sigma principles in mind, KPI Fire is results-oriented, allowing you to link projects to strategic goals, manage projects, and track KPIs in real time.

Pros:

• It ensures every project contributes to the organization’s long-term objectives.
• You can easily roll up progress results into dashboards.
• It’s intuitive and fairly easy to use.

Cons:

• It lacks advanced data analysis capabilities.
• Some users note the reports are not aesthetically pleasing.

5. Power BI

The appeal of this business analytics platform by Microsoft lies in its powerful data extraction and modeling tools—you can slice and dice KPI data in nearly any way possible. Power BI includes advanced analytics features (such as predictive analytics); it also offers access to real-time data for purposes of monitoring data streams. KPIs can be automatically updated and compiled into dashboards.

Pros:

• It is great at charting transactional data and helping you draw insights from that data.
• It can handle huge quantities of data.
• It has an extensive library of data visualizations.

Cons:

• It cannot import data easily from manual or ad-hoc data sources (only the ones it’s connected to).
• It’s difficult to capture qualitative analysis and recommendations.
• It doesn’t show links between KPIs and strategic goals.

6. Tableau

Tableau is a data visualization tool with the prime objective of helping users understand their data through graphics. Capable of pulling from many types of databases and files, it allows users to create customized interactive dashboards and generate informative and attractive reports. A Tableau KPI dashboard shows performance against benchmarks and can link to reference materials or other relevant dashboards.

Pros:

• It offers lots of chart and dashboard options.
• It uses simple drag-and-drop dashboard editing.

Cons:

• Some users say it’s challenging to master for those without technical expertise and/or deep knowledge of their data.
• It isn’t designed for real-time data updates.
• Many users say loading time is slow for large datasets.

7. Qlik

Qlik is a data analytics platform that aims to transform data into actionable insights via its patented Associative Engine, which indexes relationships in your data and highlights them in response to simple user queries. It allows users to create KPI dashboards and reports that quickly convey performance and help even non-technical users see trends, recognize relationships, and uncover outliers in their data.

Pros:

• AI assists with dashboard creation to guide you in understanding the “shape” of your data.
• Most users agree that the platform is easy to learn.
• It supports real-time ETL.

Cons:

• Some users feel the visualization palette is limited (costly extensions are often required for more customization).
• Support and documentation are somewhat lacking.
• Some users have become frustrated by frequent changes to licensing models.

To Put All This in Context

The various KPI software solutions on the market all have slight distinctions that may make them a good fit—or not so good fit—for your organization. But as you conduct your research, remember the ultimate goal: You need a tool that will support your organization’s efforts to consistently achieve its goals.

The visualization of hundreds of tracked data points is helpful to a point, but if it doesn’t connect that information back to your objectives, the exercise might not be as insightful as you think.

ClearPoint helps organizations of all kinds—for-profit businesses, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, local governments, and more—stay informed on the status of their key metrics and how they impact their strategy.

Not only does ClearPoint create beautiful data visualizations and reports, but it automates the entire strategy reporting process by collecting and aggregating your KPI data, gathering qualitative analysis, and distributing your reports and dashboards. If you’d like to see how our software works, please reach out—we’d love to show you around!

Book your FREE 1-on-1 DEMO with ClearPoint Strategy