How to Set Up Hierarchical Outcome Rules in Businessmap

In this article:

1. What Are Hierarchical Outcome Rules
2. How to Configure a Hierarchical Outcome Rule
    2.1. Source Configuration
3. Hierarchical Outcome Rules: a Practical Example
4. Hierarchical Outcome Rule Limitations

Depending on their source type, outcome rules can be Internal, External, and Hierarchical. In this guide, we will focus on how to configure Hierarchical Outcome Rules in Businessmap. 

You need to be familiar with the concept of Outcomes (OKRs) and Outcome rules.

1. What Are Hierarchical Outcome Rules

Hierarchical Outcome Rules go a step above the normal outcome rules as they let you pull data from one level down in the hierarchy of your initiatives. With a hierarchical outcome rule, you can set calculating functions for Starting value, Target value, and Current value from the children of the first initiative level.

For example, you can use a hierarchical outcome rule to track a certain piece of data (e.g. costs, customer requests, subscribers, etc.) from a departmental level (child initiative) into a global initiative (parent initiative).

2. How to Configure a Hierarchical Outcome Rule

You can create a new hierarchical outcome rule either from Administration → Outcome rules → Create rule, or directly from an initiative by clicking on the “Define desired measurable outcomes” button → “Create new outcome rule” from the associated field dropdown. In the configuration window that opens, select Hierarchical under the “Source type” to start setting up your rule.

You need to fill out the following fields:

• Name — this is the name of the rule
• Description — this field is optional
• Source type — Hierarchical
• Source configuration — click to configure the field you want to track*.
• Name of the result — this is what the outcome’s result will be called in the rule.

*Source Configuration

Select the custom field (or regular Outcome rule that uses this custom field) which you want to track. All first-level child initiatives that have an outcome with this custom field will be used in the aggregation functions.

Important: With hierarchical rules, you can scale your outcomes as many levels up in the hierarchy of your initiatives as you need. Since hierarchical outcome rules can pull data from other hierarchical outcome rules or standard outcomes (they currently don't work with calculated outcome rules), all outcomes in your scenario should use the same custom field. That way, you can pull data from a child initiative to parent and grandparent initiatives. You can see this in action in pt. 3.

Checkmark the “Automatic field value update after recalculation” if you want your hierarchical rule to automatically update whenever the field value is updated.

Here you also have three separate calculation settings for the starting, target, and current values. The options are as follows:

• Min — the smallest starting/target/current value of the matching child outcomes.
• Max — the biggest starting/target/current value of the matching child outcomes.
• Average — the average starting/target/current value of the matching child outcomes.
• Sum — the sum of the starting/target/current values of the matching child outcomes.
• Incremental Sum** — this option will add up the differences between the target value and the starting value of the matching child outcomes. 
• Explicit — Set the starting/target/current value manually.

** Applies to Target and Current Values only.

3. Hierarchical Outcome Rules: a Practical Example

Let’s say you want to track the global number of new subscriptions for your product over a certain period of time (grandparent initiative). To do that, you need to collect the data reported for the different markets (parent initiatives). The different markets collect data from the teams responsible for each market (child initiatives).

This is where hierarchical outcome rules can help you automatically pull information from one level below in the hierarchy and scale your outcome tracking.

Your process hierarchy may look like this:

You need to set up regular outcomes in the initiatives in your Teams workflow that track the number of new subscriptions through a custom field called “Subscriptions.” Then, you need to set up a hierarchical outcome rule in the parent initiatives (located in the Departments workflow) that uses the same “Subscriptions” custom field.

If your goal is to track the total progress for all regional markets, you can select MIN as the starting value, SUM as the Target value, and SUM as the Current value in the rule configuration.

This will pull data from your Teams workflow into your Departments workflow. Now it's time to aggregate that data one level up in the hierarchy, in the grandparent initiative. To do that, create an outcome in the grandparent initiative that uses the same hierarchical rule as you used in the parent initiatives. In our example, it is called “Global Subscriptions.”

This will translate the data from the child initiatives directly into the grandparent. Therefore, any changes made in the child and parent initiatives will be instantly reflected in the global initiative.

Note: If in applying a hierarchical rule, one of the child initiatives has a target date after the target date of the parent initiative, you will see a warning message.

4. Hierarchical Outcome Rule Limitations

There are certain limitations when it comes to using outcome rules to ensure the system runs smoothly. For hierarchical outcome rules, these include:

• Number of Outcomes per outcome rule = 50 (e.g. you can use one outcome rule in up to 50 Outcomes).
• Number of outcome rules per board = 10
• Number of enforced recalculations = 10 per minute and 100 per hour.