Objectives: Concepts
You use organizational objectives in Aprimo to measure the effectiveness of activities and programs and to ensure that the people who implement activities and programs understand the larger business goals.
One of your organizational objectives is to increase your market share by 10%. You associate the objective with the activities and programs related to increasing market share.
Objectives should be specific and measurable. This is an effective objective: To sell 50,000 units of product A in the third quarter. This is an ineffective objective: To promote our product more effectively.
You organize objectives in organizational classifications. Consider these guidelines:
- Objectives in higher classifications are more general, and objectives in lower classifications are more specific.
- Objectives should support objectives that are higher in the classification. For example, the objective "Increase sales to existing clients by 20%" could appear underneath "Increase total sales by 30%".
Activity and Program Objectives
Object-specific objectives can be created in an activity or a program by a person who is proposing, reviewing, or implementing the activity or the program. Both organizational and object-specific objectives can be assigned to activities and programs. Together, the two types of objectives define how the activity or program will satisfy key business goals.
An enhanced way of associating Objectives is available on a collapsible panel on the Activity Details page. This will give you the benefits of type ahead selection and also, if so desired, you may provide specific allocations (percentages) across your Objectives, with the caveat that they must total 100%. If you do not choose to specify allocations, the system will automatically share the percentage allocation equally across all Objectives.
The "Allow new Objectives to be created from Activities" system parameter available on the System Tab Activity/Program section will also determine if any users can create a new Objective directly from within the Activity, bypassing the need to have to add them through the Objectives list page.
The Objectives panel on the Activity Details tab will selectively show itself based on the likelihood the consumer system is ready for its users to associate existing Objectives and/or create new Objectives. This will allow clients to control when the panel will show, if it does at all. Even when the panel shows, it can also be collapsed within the Activity by each user.
-
If the System Parameter "Allow users to create new objectives" is set to NO and there are ZERO Objectives available for selection on the Objectives panel (meaning there are no active Objectives as defined in the global Objectives list), the panel on the Activity will be hidden.
-
If the System Parameter "Allow users to create new objectives" is set to NO and there are ONE OR MORE Objectives available for selection, the panel will be visible.
-
If the System Parameter "Allow users to create new objectives" is set to YES and there are ZERO Objectives available for selection on the Objectives panel, the panel will be visible since users are enabled to create new Objectives directly within the Activity as required.
Adding new Objectives from directly within an Activity will cause a number of fields on that Objective (shown within the details section below) to be given default values as indicated.
Key Fields
Details
| Field | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
| Classification |
Select the area of your company that is responsible for the organizational objective. If you need to have a classification created, contact your system administrator. |
1 (Marketing) |
| Status |
Select the organizational objective's status, which determines whether the objective is available for association with activities and programs. |
Active |
| Owner |
Select the person responsible for the organizational objective. |
Current logged in user |
| Begin Date |
Select a begin date. This field is for reference only. It does not determine the objective's availability for association with objects. |
The Activity begin date |
| End Date |
Select an end date. The end date is not an expiration date. To expire an objective, change the status to Inactive. |
The Activity end date |
| Content Plans |
Move the content plans that you want to associate with the objective from the Available Content Plans list to the Selected Content Plans list. |
N/A |
Additional Fields, Sections, and Tabs
Your system administrator can create additional fields for some objects and make them available for certain system types. Additional fields appear on the Details tab in the Additional Details section or in other sections or on other tabs that the system administrator creates.
For more information about an additional field, section, or tab, contact your system administrator. For more information about additional fields in general, see Additional Fields.