Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software

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Corporate Performance

Management (CPM)

Software

Getting Started With Covalent

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1. S

O

W

HAT

D

OES

C

OVALENT DO

?

Covalent CPM tracks progress and status with Performance Indicators (PI’s),

Actions and Risks, and allows you to look at groups of each of these elements

from multiple perspectives

1.1. C

ORE

E

LEMENTS AND

P

ERSPECTIVES

Covalent Performance Management (CPM) manages what we call the four Core Elements of any organisation’s performance:

Performance Indicators (or Metrics) that measure how the organisation is doing on defined operational activities – both Local and Statutory.

Risks facing the organisation, both strategic and operational.

Actions that are being taken to either improve performance results or minimise/mitigate identified risks. Resources that are used to manage these elements, namely users and financial information.

To fully understand performance, organisations need the ability to examine each of these Core Elements from a variety of what we call Strategic Perspectives. Organisations typically use Covalent to map the Core Elements onto four such Perspectives:

1. Corporate Strategies that the organisation is following, such as corporate aims or priorities, theme areas, operational strategies and business objectives

2. Projects that comprise a variety of action plans and that consume resources 3. Service areas that define the scope of an organisation’s operations

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1.2. I

NFORMATION

D

ISPLAY

1.2.1. Tree Maps

Covalent displays information in tree-based hierarchies in a number of key parts of the system namely Scorecards, Risk Central and Action Central.

The tree-based hierarchy allows different levels to be set up and elements ‘mapped’ onto those levels in a tree. For instance the screenshot below shows a typical hierarchy in a Scorecard.

Resizing Tree Map displays

The way the trees display on screen can be altered in two ways.

Firstly, the size of each view on the left or right can be altered to occupy more of the screen by dragging the centre bar. Hover the cursor over the centre bar and the cursor turns into a double-headed arrow; hold the left mouse button down and drag.

Secondly, you can eliminate the right- or left-hand view of the screen altogether by clicking on the top or bottom arrow in the centre of the screen. The top left-facing arrow will hide the left-hand side of the screen, and the bottom right-facing window will hide the right-hand side of the screen.

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“Explore From Here”

This option appears when you right click on a tree item. “Explore from here” means that you can focus on just a part of the tree by pulling that item (and anything below it) out of the full tree window and opening it a new window.

This is beneficial where the page has a lot of content i.e. Action Central with a long list of Project plans.

Check out some of the other Right-Click features in different areas of the application!

1.2.2. Traffic lighting

Throughout Covalent, we use a colour-coded traffic light approach to highlight performance and status. Additionally, each traffic light has a different symbol shape so it will still make sense when printed on black and white. The meaning for each element is as follows

Performance Indicators & Risks

Green Tick indicates a PI that is performing above expected thresholds or a risk with a low rating

Red indicates a PI performing outside expected thresholds, or a Risk with an alert rating Amber indicates PI or Risk that is neither red or green

Amber and Red indicates a Risk with a high rating, but not at alert status

Question Mark indicates that there is data missing and Covalent is unable to make a calculation for that PI or score a risk. Therefore it will not show one of the other ‘Traffic Light’ icons.

Graph The graph icon represents PI’s that are ’Data Only’ and therefore not something that is measured in traffic light terms in relation to a target. To make a PI data only the data only option must be selected from the ‘Gauge format type’ dropdown list in the settings pane.

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Small White Question Mark Icon This small icon appears in the top right corner of one of the main icons and represents a PI that is either missing data or due for an update, or a Risk which is overdue for an assessment.

Small Star Icon This icon appears in the top right corner of one of the main icons and represents a PI that is currently due to be updated (i.e. we are now in the next time period due a data update), or a Risk that is due for an assessment.

Actions

Green Arrow indicates currently active action Green Tick indicates a completed action

Red indicates an overdue action based on the deadline date, or that this action has been neglected

Amber indicates an action that is unassigned, a project which isn’t started or as a warning to check progress

Cancelled – indicates a project/action which has been cancelled

Other modules in Covalent use traffic light indicators too and each of these is documented in the online help at: http://support.covalentcpm.com/webhelp/traffic_lights.htm

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2. C

OVALENT

E

NVIRONMENT

&

N

AVIGATION

Here we look at how Covalent looks and feels to the user and how to navigate

your way around the system.

2.1. T

HE

C

OVALENT

N

AVIGATION

P

ANEL

Covalent is a true Web hosted software application that is simple to operate.

The navigation mechanism used within Covalent is designed to be very intuitive and easy-to-learn and allows even novice users to operate with no need for IT support.

Clicking on one of the buttons in the Covalent Navigation Panel (shown below) at the bottom of the screen opens up that module.

A quick summary of key topic buttons (see page 13 for a more detailed overview of each button):

Portal (Home) gives an immediate “heads up” of the most compelling performance information, providing

one-click access to key items – PIs, Risks and Actions. The display can be customised to show just the information that each particular user wants to see.

Views includes Snapshots, which provide a high level summary of all key data for PIs, Actions and Risks of

specific interest to the user. Current progress can be immediately understood through the use of traffic

lighting that highlights performance above, in line or below expectations. This also includes Scorecards so

you can visually represent the organisation’s themes, strategies and objectives, and Strategy Maps which use Scorecards to all you to build a graphical view of your data.

PIs PI List, PI Query, Updates, Import and Values Import – all related PI options.

Actions Action Central, Timeline, Query, Update and Import – all related Actions options. Risks Risk Central, Risk Query and Imports – all related Risks options.

Models is where you can perform self-assessments on a number of pre-defined templates; or build your

own templates.

Policies is where you can add policy documents, setup reviews and allocate sign off responsibilities to your

staff.

Audits is a full auditing suite enabling an audit universe to be defined and adding audits and resulting

recommendations.

The Navigation Panel provides easy point-and-click access to all Covalent modules and key features.

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Consultations enable you to record information about your consultation events ensuring you’re getting

good value for money out of your events.

Feedback is a place to store your complaints, compliments, freedom of information requests etc., and work

them through your escalation procedure to their resolution.

Directory offers users (normally Administrators) access to Categories, Documents, Roles & Users and option

to add URLs to the Home portal.

Reports offers functionality to view, generate or update the specification of a report or series of reports.

Report layouts can also be designed here and a Dossier of different reports produced.

Admin is where the administration facilities are accessible for Annual PI targets, Audit trail, Backup

manager facility, Permissions information, and Importing Roles and Users.

My Profile is where users can view their own details and change their passwords.

2.2. T

HE

C

OVALENT TOP

BANNER

MENU BAR

The Covalent Top Banner menu bar is the other main navigation tool, in addition to the Navigation Panel of the bottom of every screen. It will look similar to the bar below, with the tab of the module that is open and a series of icons on the right hand side that have the following meaning.

Notes:

Covalent version, login name and site logged into

Minimise, Maximise and Close Application

Refresh: Reloads current page content, reflecting any changes that

have been made

Help: Opens the context-sensitive Online

Help screen Logout: Logs you out and _{returns you to the login} screen

Tab of the module that is open

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2.3. T

HE SCREEN MENU BAR

Below the Banner menu bar (described above), each screen has a menu bar that allows you to add new items, save, and delete etc. The options displayed will vary, but the table below covers the most commonly available ones. Note: the availability of these buttons is tied to access privileges, and, therefore, they will only display if you have been given the appropriate permission.

New A new item can be created by clicking this icon, providing a blank template in the right hand screen, e.g. a new Report can be created in Report Central by clicking this button which starts the wizard-based approach to building reports Delete Fully deletes the selected item, e.g., removes the selected element in the tree

view from the system. Once deleted, an item cannot be recovered. Save Saves any changes that have been made to the system

Refresh Reloads current item selected, which will reflect any changes that have been made

Cancel This icon will cancel an action. The action can later be re-instated if required. Revert This icon will cancel any changes prior to saving

Copy Copy details of an existing item, used in conjunction with the paste button Paste Paste items copied

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2.4. U

SAGE

C

ONVENTIONS IN

C

OVALENT

Dropdown List (see screen to right) this function is used throughout Covalent to allow the user to select one (or more) option from a number of alternatives. You view the list of alternatives by clicking the downward arrow on the right of the dropdown box, and then select the option by clicking on one alternative from the displayed list.

Hold CTRL Key down – this feature is used throughout Covalent to randomly select more than one item from a dropdown list.

Hold the SHIFT Key down – this feature is used throughout Covalent to select a grouping of items from a dropdown list; to select all the items, click on the first item, hold SHIFT and click on the last item.

Radio Button. A radio button (a circle with a black dot in the centre when selected) is presented when the user must select an either/or option.

Folding Panel. Some information is held in folding panels which allow you to hide or show this information as required. Click on the icon to expand or collapse this panel, i.e. here we see ownership of an item held in a folding panel with an appropriate icon.

Online Help. Throughout the system, access to the online help is available wherever you see the large question mark symbol. Click this to open online help in a separate browser window.

“Dots-in-the-Box”

Whenever you see this icon , click on it to add information to Covalent: 1. Enter free text in a text box.

2. Select a date from a calendar.

3. Select available options in the Add/Remove dialog box. 4. To choose from a pop-up dialog box.

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1) “Dots-in-the-Box” - Adding text or comments.

Throughout the system, notes or comments can be added or removed (for instance a status update on an Action, or a Risk) by clicking on the Dots-in-the-box which opens a dialogue window as below:

Text can be formatted to Bold, Underlined and Italic.

There are also Cut, Copy and Paste buttons, as well as Left, Right and Centre alignment options.

There is also the facility to add Hyperlinks to external websites/URLs using the hyperlink button.

And there is the facility to spell-check your work, click on the ABC button to highlight any potential errors with your text.

2) “Dots-in-the-Box” – Entering Dates

Throughout the system, dates can be added (e.g. Action due dates) by clicking on the dots-in-the-box on the right hand side, which opens a calendar.

Specify the date by selecting the month and year from the drop-down lists and the actual day by clicking on the appropriate number. Click OK to finalise selection.

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3) “Dots-in-the-Box” - Add/ Remove Dialogue Boxes

Whenever you click on an Add/ Remove option, it opens up a dialogue box similar to that displayed below, with the available options listed on the left, and the items already added on the right. Adding any element to the system is simply a matter of making a selection from the list on the left and the clicking on single arrow and then OK. Removing items from the right side list is a reversal of this process. The double arrows will select/de-select everything in the list.

4) “Dots-in-the-Box” – Open Pop-up Dialog Box

You may sometimes need to choose an option from a pop-up dialog box, for example if you’re selecting a field to go on a report, or picking which chart to show on a PI, as shown below.

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3. A

Q

UICK

O

VERVIEW OF EACH

C

OVALENT

B

UTTON

3.1. T

HE

HOME

PORTAL

B

UTTON

The Home Portal shows the information that is important to you. It is organised by adding

Gadgets to your home portal screen and allows you to customise this page to show only the areas you’re interested in.

You can view items that are owned by you for the following:

 Actions  Audit Recommendations  Audit Files  Consultation Events  Documents  Feedback  Linked URLs  Notices  PIs  Queries  Model Questions  Model Sections  Reports  Report Dossiers  Risks  Scorecards  Snapshots

 Strategy Maps (both as

a list and the actual Map)

 Summary – a quick

summary of the changes since you last logged in

Double-click on the item you want to view and this will open within a new window from where you can edit as appropriate. If you are viewing an item that is part of a tree, for example a Risk or Action plan, then you can right-click and Explore from here to open the tree from this point forward in a new window.

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3.2. SNAPSHOTS

Snapshots provide high level Dashboards that summarise status and recent

trends on all PIs, Risks and Actions of specific interest to a user.

Snapshots summarise current status and recent progress using:

 Traffic-lighting with colour coding to highlight performance above, in line or below expectations

 Trend arrows indicating the performance direction, short and longer term. Year-to-date and relevant performance result and target data are also detailed.

You can drill-down to the detail on any element (PI, Action or Risk) shown in a snapshot by clicking on the item and selecting the Open button, this will open the detail of the PI, Action or Risk in a new window. Snapshots can be built in two ways, either with a set list of PIs, Actions or Risks, or based on queries. This gives you the flexibility to make your snapshots ‘smart’, for example by only showing data at red status, so you can focus on the information you need to.

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3.3. T

HE

SCORECARD

M

AP

Scorecard Maps visually represent the organisation’s themes, strategies and

objectives, and map PIs, Actions and Risks at each level in a hierarchical tree. The Scorecard window split into two, as in the screenshot below:

The Strategy Tree is displayed in the left hand side of the screen, containing a tree-based hierarchy of Theme, Strategy and Objective with PIs, Risks or Actions/ Projects assigned at the lowest level in the tree. Clicking on a PI, Risk or Action in this tree opens up a notebook.

The Notebook is displayed in the right hand side of the screen, with a series

of different panes for PIs, Risks or Actions/ Projects. Each pane represents a different view of information held on that element.

All the available Scorecards are listed in the left of the screen; the views different users see can be personalised so that each person can understand how their activities fit into the bigger picture of corporate objectives and priorities.

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3.4. DASHBOARDS

The Dashboard views give you a graphical overview of your data allowing you to drill-through from a graph or table to a more detailed view, or to a list of results showing the exact information that is being presented. Dashboards can be built to show Actions, Audits, PIs, Risks, Feedback, Incidents, Scorecard and Models data, running from pre-existing queries. You can combine different dashboards together to give an overall view of your information, and these dashboards can be marked as favourites to allow them to show on a home page style view; this ensures your

management team see the information they need when they first log in to Covalent.

Audits and Models data will show all the information you have on your site with the ability to drill down to narrow your view.

This is an example of a PI dashboard:

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3.5. ACTION

C

ENTRAL

Action Central displays all the organisation’s action plans and provides a

comprehensive progress tracking function.

An Action is any task or activity that can be allocated to an individual and that has a deadline date for completion. Actions can be grouped into Plans such as Best Value Improvement Projects, Action Plans, and Service Plans etc. that are being used in the organisation.

Covalent manages these Action Plans from one place and tracks progress against

project milestones, firing alerts (emails and/or notices) and reminders to relevant users for actions not completed by their due date.

Colour-coded tree views summarise status based on deadline date with red indicating an overdue action and green a completed action. Details about each Action (e.g. Action Ownership, Creation and Deadline date) and current progress towards completion (in %) are contained in display in the right hand window.

Progress on an individual Action is updated using either a progress slider control bar, or if milestones are present, then Covalent will automatically calculate the % of progress based on the weight and number of milestones marked as completed within the plan. When the Slider registers 100%, a completed date is automatically assigned to the action, the status display changes to green and an outcome field becomes available.

Users can schedule an update to an action so they’re reminded that a progress update is due.

A full history of system updates and changes is recorded automatically. Users may enter their own status updates at any point and these are user and date stamped. Links to any PIs or Risks in the system that impact on this Action are available via the related links panel.

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3.6. RISK

C

ENTRAL

Risk Central consolidates the risk register in one place, visually displays the risk

score and holds all supporting profile information.

All the risk registers, with their component risks, are shown in the left hand window in a tree map. Current status of each risk is reflected in the traffic lighting, with all supporting information displayed in the right hand window.

Each Risk is scored on a matrix display using two dimensions - Likelihood of occurrence and Impact - and a total risk rating automatically calculated. The matrix is split into three threshold zones (Red, Amber, and Green) and the risk (white circle) is positioned based on its rating against each of the two dimensions. The composition of the matrix grid can be adjusted as required e.g. 3 x 3 or 6 x 4 etc., and you can have multiple risk matrixes setup to enable different types of register to be scored differently.

Key profile information can be held against each Risk (e.g. Potential Effect; risk Influencing Factors; and Internal Controls) in place. There are a number of pre-set options for specifying:

 Risk category (Reputational, Financial, Fraud, Political, Technology, Service Quality, Legal etc…) that can be attached to each risk and then used for grouping and reporting against.

 Approach to treating risk (e.g. the ‘four Ts’ – Tolerate, Transfer (e.g. Insure), Terminate or Treat Responsibility for each Risk can be assigned at five levels of ownership – Responsible OUs, Administered By, Managed By, Assigned To, and Portfolio Owner.

The Assessment History tab holds a full audit trail of assessments made to a risk; this includes system updates and changes that are automatically logged. Users can also enter their own status updates at any point as text notes which are user and date stamped.

Risk can be linked to Performance Indicators and Actions and remedial, or preventative, actions easily created, tracked, and managed using Action Central.

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3.7. INCIDENTS

M

ODULE

The Incidents Module allows you to record and track incidents, either General or Safety, providing an early warning system for threats to the organisation. The incidents can be linked back to individual Risks or linked to Actions to allow corrective action to be recorded and responsibility allocated.

You can define your own lists of Categories, Severities and Types so you can tailor this system to your needs. And specifically for Safety Incidents you can tailor details about the effects to the patient and also record more information about them including any disabilities, and also contact information about the person reporting the incident.

A list of incidents shows on the left-hand side of the screen, with details of the individual incident shown on the right.

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3.8. T

HE

REPORTS

B

UTTON

The Reports module contains a library of predefined report templates that cater for most organisations’ requirements and an ad-hoc report generation tool to custom-build new reports.

There are three parts to reports: Report Central, Report Layout and Report Dossiers.

1. Report Central allows you to create new reports. Reports can be created in a variety of formats and can include any graphic or data shown within the Covalent system.

2. Report Layout allows you to produce customised layouts (templates) to be used with generated reports. Once built, these can be saved for future use.

3. Report Dossiers allows you to combine reports of different types into a single document. Notes:

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3.9. PERFORMANCE

INDICATORS

(PI

S

B

UTTON

)

The PIs button gives access to the full range of Performance Indicators loaded onto the application. Each performance indicator holds historical data and can be set to display data in a graphical form in gauges and graphs. Trend patterns can be examined and benchmark data imposed on the graph in the Charts Tab of each PI.

The PIs button also contains other features like the query facility to interrogate data from Covalent that only matches certain criteria and do bulk imports of PI definitions or values.

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3.10. UPDATES

Updates are where Performance Indicators and Actions due for updating are displayed and can be updated.

Performance Indicator Updates

A range of fields where the new data can be entered will be visible. Only certain users will have access to

the Updates screen, namely those who have data collection responsibility for at least one PI/Action.

PIs only appear in this screen when they become due for an update and the only PIs that will appear here are ones where the user has data collection responsibility.

Action Updates

Action updates will display only those actions, which are either in the Check Progress state or have become overdue. Again, only the Actions where the user has some ownership are displayed here.

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3.11. MODELS

M

ODULE

Covalent Models allows you to conduct a self-assessment against a defined

performance management “model” or framework, by scoring performance on a series of pre-defined questions.

Models is supplied with a library of template models to support public sector-specific frameworks such as

the CQC Essential Standards, the Housing KLOEs and the Common Inspection Framework for colleges and schools. Each template contains the model structure, key questions/lines of enquiry, supporting guidance and other information.

Each of these models is structured to comply with the latest government guidance, and they are updated as changes are made by the appropriate regulatory body.

You can also create your own model to reflect any grouping of key questions that you want, for instance, to support frameworks such as the Balanced Scorecard, the EFQM Business Excellence model.

Investors in People and Chartermark are already available to anyone who wants us to assign them to their sites.

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3.12. FEEDBACK

M

ODULE

Feedback Central displays all the organisation’s Feedback in one

central location, and provides a way of escalating a complaint to the next level.

Feedback records can be complaints, freedom of information requests, community calls for action, MP requests, compliments or other type.

Feedback can be linked to Actions to allow corrective action to be taken and this monitored through Covalent.

Covalent manages the Feedback in one place with the list of Feedback items showing on the left-hand side of the screen and the details on the right. Tabs allow you to view the detail or information on the person giving the feedback, providing you have the right level of access to view this information, and you can also see a stage history.

The Feedback module can be configured to match with your own Feedback procedure including the options available in the drop-down boxes and the levels through which the record travels.

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3.13. CONSULTATIONS

M

ODULE

All public sector organisations need to demonstrate various regulatory bodies such as the Audit Commission that they have consulted their customers on a range of issues, and that such involvement has had an impact on how they operate.

The Consultations Module manages all aspects of customer consultation exercises leading to a comprehensive assessment of impact and value for money. It helps you demonstrate how customers have been involved and the degree of their influence.

This module can be configured for your organisation, tailoring the items shown in each drop-down list.

The list of Consultations you can view are shown on the left-hand side of the screen, with full details of the consultation on the right.

Panels open to show the Event Details and related costs, and the Event Outcomes.

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3.14. STRATEGY

MAPS

Using scorecards you can build a graphical view of your data, combining Actions, PIs, and Risks from multiple scorecards into one map view. You can display the status icons to show the performance of the data, or the gauge for a PI, the progress bar for an Action and the matrix for a risk.

Strategy Maps can be as big as required, and you can create linkages between maps so you can navigate from one to another.

You can also draw shapes to emphasise your diagrams as required and the Strategy Maps module is also a drawing tool.

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3.15. AUDITS

M

ODULE

Audits automates the entire audit process – planning, scheduling, execution, fieldwork, reports production and recommendations tracking - to increase audit team productivity.

You can build an Audit Universe which enables you to define the entities to be audited, typically by business unit, department or business process. Create a calendar of each audit to be conducted during the year (and future years), and attach an audit file to an audit entity and record all findings.

Recommendations that come out of an audit can be tracked prioritised and assigned to other Covalent users and these recommendations tracked to ensure improvements are implemented.

The Audit Universe, shown above, can contain as much information as required and the lowest level entities linked to the Audit Files generated to instruct Auditors to perform an audit on this function, as shown below.

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3.16. POLICIES

M

ODULE

Covalent Policies addresses employers’ legal obligations for communicating policies to staff and protects the organisation from risks of non-compliance due to lack of staff knowledge or understanding. Efficient distribution of policies to all employees promotes better governance through clear understanding of the organisation’s legal and regulatory requirements.

Policy documents can be attached to each Policy record and groups of users attached to the policy that they need to sign-off. The policies that require action, either for you as a signee, or as a manager of the policy will show in your ‘Requiring Action’ page. Signing off a policy requires you to log in to confirm your identity.

You can also setup policy reviews to ensure that the document published is up to date and you’ve gained input from all interested parties before publishing the finished policy document.

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3.17. T

HE

ADMIN

B

UTTON

Clicking on the Admin button in the Covalent navigational panel at the bottom of the screen gives access to a variety of system administration functions. This button is only available and visible to users who have system administration access privileges. There are eleven main administration functions available.

Hierarchies – This allows you to define the areas your organisation covers or departments within your organisation; this is used for PI group charts and when performing Model hierarchy assessments, or when selecting an area for a consultation event.

Annual Targets – Here targets can be set for PIs for use in target profiling against an annual target.

Audit Trail - A detailed audit trail of all interactions on the system

Backup manager – Offers the facility to backup Actions, Scorecards, PI’s, Risks, Users, Roles etc. to a local computer

Site Setup – This is where the system administrator of the site can change some site configuration settings. Permissions – Management of permission allocations can be done in this screen. The Permissions screen lists all system permissions with a description of what each individual permission allows and details the users and roles assigned each permission.

Trigger Central – Here you can apply triggers in bulk which fire when defined events happen on your data, for example when an action is due to be updated, and an email can be sent to specific users.

Prompted Note Rules – For items such as PIs you may want to force a note to be entered when data value are entered, this can be done by defining the rules that require a note using this option.

Users Imports – Allows the importing of users in bulk Roles Import – Allows the importing of roles in bulk Statutory PI Import – facility to import statutory PI’s

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3.18. T

HE

MY

PROFILE

B

UTTON

This is where users can view their profile details and change their covalent password.

It also shows last login, password changed and Action, PIs and Risks assigned or managed by that user etc.

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Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software