Providing your Innovation program's bottom line is critical. Brightidea is excited to provide our Administrators with more opportunities to track both financial and non-financial Business Impacts!
Business Impact is recorded directly on the View Submission page.
Table of Contents
- Getting Started
- Managing Business Impact
- Exporting Business Impact
- Assigning Business Impact Action Items
- Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Timeframes
- Command Center Dashboard
- Business Impact Dashboard
Getting Started
Configuring Benefits and Costs at the System Level
Business Impact Fields can be customized at the System level under System Setup > Ideas > Business Impact.
Each benefit is divided into financial and non-financial categories and broken down into individual fields that can be set to meet your innovation program needs.
Easily apply new fields by clicking the + Add Benefit button at the bottom of each Benefit.
You can also delete fields by clicking the trash can to the left of each item.
Each item can also be moved up and down in the list by clicking and dragging the left rearrange icon.
You can also set Business Impact to account for currencies other than the US Dollar. To do so, select the currency type from the Currency drop-down menu under System Setup > Site > General Settings.
After all Benefits have been set, Admins can then navigate to any Idea page and select the Business Impact tab:
To start, select the blue "Add Impact" button:
Configuring Costs and Benefits at the Initiative Level
Business Impact Fields can also be customized at the Initiative level under Site Setup > Ideas > Business Impact.
Admins can choose from 3 options for Business Impact at the Initiative Level:
- Use System Level Cost Types/Benefits: Use the Cost Types and Benefits defined at the System level
- Use Open Text input for Cost Types: Allows users to input custom Cost Types instead of selecting from a pre-populated list.
- Use Initiative Level Cost Types/Benefits: Define a pre-populated list of Cost Types and Benefits at the Initative level
Adding Business Impact
From the Business Impact tab on the View Idea page, users can record projected and actual Business Impacts associated with the Submissions. User roles that can edit business impact include:
- System Administrators
- Community Administrators
- Initiative/Pipeline Administrators
- Moderators
- Evaluators
- Idea Submitter (this can be configured by Administrators)
For initiatives configured to Quarterly Business Impact, the financial impact will be divided into quarters instead of years. Financial Business Impact can be recorded with the following information:
- Start Date
- Project and Actual Benefits
- Projected and Actual Costs
- Attachments
- Notes
Non-financial Business Impact can be recorded with the following information:
- Benefit
- Title
- Type (configured at System level)
- Start Date
- End Date
- Description
- Attachments
Once the relevant information has been entered, select Save to save your changes to a new version.
Previous versions are listed in the timestamp dropdown menu. Selecting a previous version will display it in the Business Impact tab.
Submitter Access to Business Impact
Administrators may give Submitters access to the Business Impact tab under Site Setup > Ideas > Ideas.
With this setting enabled, Submitters can view and edit the Business Impact for their own Submissions.
Managing Business Impact
By default, the Business Impact tab is only visible to Administrators, Moderators, and Evaluators. However, if the option to allow Submitter access is enabled, they can also view and edit.
Editing Business Impact
To edit Business Impact, select Update.
When finished making edits, select Save.
Deleting Business Impact
To delete a Business Impact entry, select the 'Trash' icon next to the benefit or cost:
Exporting Business Impact
The following columns can be added to the Pipeline Idea List using the 'Gear' menu:
- Projected Net Benefit
- Actual Benefits
- Non-Financial Benefits
After the columns have been added to the list view, run the export by selecting the green 'Excel' icon at the top right.
Assigning Business Impact Action Items
When selected to edit Idea attributes, any Development Team Member can enter projected and actual Business Impact via a Development Action Item.
Administrators and Pipeline Moderators can add a new Development Step in the Pipeline workflow to accomplish this:
- Use the Development Submission Form questions to ask if the Business Impact is recorded; the assignee can then go to those areas and fill out the Business Impact.
- Note: Allow Assignees to Edit Idea Attributes must be enabled in Step Configuration.
- Administrators can also send a custom email to assignees to explain the purpose of the Action Item:
When the assigned Evaluator receives the Action Item, they can enter the Business Impact for the Idea while also choosing a Development field question:
Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Timeframes
By default, new Initiatives will be configured to collect, report, and display Business Impact on a Quarterly basis. Administrators now have the option to select Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly as the reporting timeframe.
To change the timeframe for your Initiative, navigate to Site Setup > Ideas > Ideas > Business Impact timeframe.
Monthly timeframe works exactly like the existing Quarterly and Yearly settings and is available anywhere Business Impact is surfaced:
- Site Setup
- Idea View
- Pipeline Dashboards
- System Dashboards
- CSV Exports
When changing an Initiative’s timeframe, any existing data is automatically converted:
- Changing from Yearly → Quarterly will divide yearly impact evenly across quarters.
- Changing from Quarterly → Yearly will sum quarters into their respective year.
- Changing from Monthly → Quarterly or Yearly will roll up months into quarters or years.
- Changing from Quarterly or Yearly → Monthly will distribute impacts evenly across the months in that period.
Dashboards and Reporting with Monthly Timeframe
When “Monthly” is selected, dashboards and reports will adjust accordingly:
- Initiative Dashboards: View Financial Benefits and Non-Financial Benefits by month.
- System Dashboards: Aggregate monthly Business Impact across all initiatives.
- Pipeline Dashboards: Track submissions’ impacts with monthly granularity.
- CSV Exports: Include monthly-level Business Impact data for offline analysis.
Example: A projected net benefit of $120,000 recorded for a year will be automatically divided into $10,000 per month when switched to a Monthly timeframe.
Exporting with Monthly
The export function now includes monthly values for Projected and Actual Benefits, Costs, and Non-Financial Impacts when Monthly is enabled. Administrators can run exports as usual from the Pipeline Idea List or System dashboards, and the generated files will display monthly rows alongside existing quarterly/yearly data.
System Level Cost Inputs
By default, new initiatives will be configured to use the enterprise cost categories. You can change this by navigating to Site Setup > Ideas > Ideas > Business Impact and changing Cost Tracking to "Use Open Text input for cost types"
Command Center Dashboard
The Key Program Results dashboard in the Command Center will summarize the Business Impact of all system Submissions.
Administrators can view Projected Net Benefits, Non-Financial Benefits, and Actual Benefits for an individual Site, a selected group of Sites, or for all Sites.
Business Impact Dashboards
Business Impact can be tracked at an Initiative-level dashboard or a System-level dashboard
Administrators can view Financial Benefits Over Time and Financial Summary by Innovation. This information can also be exported to a spreadsheet for further analysis and reporting.
For Initiatives configured to Quarterly Business Impact, the dashboard can now be configured to display in quarters, years, or cumulatively over all time. The target financial impact will also be updated and displayed by quarter.
Note: When viewing the dashboard by quarters, any existing yearly Business Impact will be divided equally into quarters. When viewing the dashboard by years, any existing quarterly business impact will be added into its respective year.
Important Notes:
- For increased precision, check the toggle for Increased Decimal Precision under System Setup > Beta and it will allow up to 7-8 decimal places for enhanced precision
Hi Daniel,
Can we hide it on the idea page?
Thank you.
Best,
Roc
Can we leverage reports/exports to track Net Impact (e.g. Benefits - Costs) in addition to just Benefits? In exports, we can see the net projected impact, but only the actual benefits - this doesn't seem right!
agreed with Kevin!!