Introduction to Alerts
Sample: Single Values
This section describes an example of the Alert functionality applied to Single-Value components. We will use the Gauge component to illustrate the example.
Example
Suppose that on a daily basis you receive a spreadsheet with some simple but important information about the status of your company. You get month to date Revenues, Inventory Balances and The Cost of Good Sold. You also have the target or budget for each account. You want to create a model that shows the actual balances Vs. the target for each account.
An example of an appropriate Excel file:
For each account, you have the Actual Balance and the target value.
- As Always, the first step is to Import the Excel file.
- After this, insert a Gauge component on the canvas area and click on it to edit the Property Sheet.
- Click the Title icon and select the Gauge title, in this case, Sales.
- Then, click on the Link to Cell icon and select the Actual Value for the Sales Gauge.
- In some cases, you may want to change the Gauge appearance. Click the Appearance tab and customize the Gauge appearance. This is more a matter of personal preferences and tastes than any other technical reason. In this case, we have modified the minimum and maximum angles so that the Gauge looks personalized.
- Now we will work with the Alert functions. Click the Alert tab and enable alerts.
- Since we are measuring Sales, the correct alert method is High Values Are Good. This means that if the actual value is above the target, the Gauge will be in green, if not, then it will be in yellow or red, depending on the percentage values assigned to each limit. Select the High Values are good definition.
- You can customize the color trigger limits by clicking on the zoom icon available on the alert color panel. Change the maximum limit to 200% or more. This does not affect the limits, it just changes the alert control panel look.
- Then, drag and drop the color arrows and change the percentage limits. In this example, we have designated that if the actual is less than 80% of the target, we want the Gauge to show red, if it is between 81% and 99%, we want it to show yellow, and if it is 100% or more, then we want it to be green.
- Next, we will assign the target or budget data. Click the Target icon and select the cell that contains the budget for the account Sales. The Gauge has now been configured with respect to the Alert function. We have established the actual value, the alert method, the alert colors, the alert limits and the target value. The next step is to adjust the Gauge appearance so that it looks more elegant and precise.
- One of the options is to enable the Alert Level Display functionality. This set of functions will add some elegant features to the Gauge component.
In this case, we have selected Enable Object Alerts (The Gauge pointer will change its color) and Enable Alert Level Display (will add the alert color spectrum around the Gauge).
- The next step is to configure and adjust the lower and upper limits. Ideally, the Gauge should show the three alert colors. In this case, it is showing only one because the upper limit is smaller than the Gauge value. Click the behavior tab and change the initial limits. See the Reference Guide for details about each specific option.
In this case, we have selected the Manual method and we assigned the lower limit to be 99 and the upper limit to be 500. The Gauge will look like the following:
We can create the other two Gauges now. The best option is to copy and paste the current Gauge and then adjust the colors for the other two accounts. The model will look like the following:
Note how each Gauge has a different Alert method. Sales uses High Values are Good, Inventories uses Middle Values Are Good, and Cost of Good Sold uses Low Values Are Good.
Your model is now ready to be published.
Additional Features
As an additional feature, you can add three sliders and link each slider to the Actual value for each account. The result is a dynamic model that will change the alert color as you adjust the Forecast for each account.
