Periods control how frequently you can post transactions to the objective. You can work with:

• A defined period setup. This makes it easier to maintain continuity in your data and helps ensure reliable result comparisons and analyses.
  
• Open periods in which you are free to define the period length instead of following a set pattern.
  

  Caution
  Be very careful when you work with open periods; doing this increases the chance that you accidentally create gaps for which you cannot view results.

You can change the period defined on the objective as long as the start date of the new period does not conflict with that of historical target transactions for the objective or its related measurements.

When you create a new objective you must assign it to a perspective to indicate the key aspect of your strategy that the objective contributes to. For example, an objective related to generating revenue can contribute to a Finance perspective.

After you have assigned objectives to a perspective, you can then view the current cumulative value of the perspective in .

You can specify a weight for an objective to define its importance with regard to other objectives in the scorecard. The combined weight of all objectives in a scorecard must equal 100. Therefore, the value you enter in the box must be proportional to the number of objectives in the scorecard.

For each objective you can set a target to define, for example, its expected performance level or improvement rate. After you have posted transactions to your objective, you can then view the percentage of difference between the target value and the current actual value of the objective in .

The timeframe within which you expect to reach each target depends on whether a period setup is defined on the objective. This dependency can be described as follows:

• If a Period setup exists, the Target must be reached within that timeframe.
  
• If no Period setup exists, you can manually define your own period by completing the End date box.