Performance Standards

The Performance standards tool is used to build, edit and apply performance standards. Performance standards are a means of giving instant visual feedback to the user by applying different colors to data entered for numbers and options depending on what criteria is matched.

The concept of performance standards is similar to conditional formatting used by MS Excel; however, within Smartabase, a performance standard’s rule can only be specified according to a field’s own value. For example, it is not possible to have a performance standard for a field that is determined by the value of another field in the form. If this is needed, an option calculation could be added to the form to generate the necessary value for the performance standard to be applied to.

In this example, we've created a performance standard for a training log event form. The performance standard includes rules for the RPE field within the form, which is a drop-down field that has 10 options. We've set a color for each of the 10 options. If needed, in addition to the coloring, the text box can be used to explain a bit more about each rule. 

Steps to create a performance standard

1. Select the Performance standard tool from the builder home page.
2. Choose the option to create a new performance standard.
3. Provide a description for your performance standard. You'll use this to identify the performance standard in places where the user can choose which performance standard they want to view.
4. Choose which event your performance standard is for.
   • The Applies to setting can be used if you want your performance standard to only apply in certain cases. If you want to use this, choose an event form (the same form as above or a different form) and specify filters for when these performance standard rules are applicable. Note that you can only apply one performance standard to an event form. If you don't want to use this option, leave it set to the same event form and do not set a filter.
   • The Sex and Age filters can be used when you want the performance standard to apply to males, females or users of specific ages. If you don't want to use these, leave them collapsed.
5. Use the arrow icon to expand the fields within the event form that you want to specify color rules for.
6. Click the color box for each option or numeric range to choose a color from the default colors. Alternatively, you can enter a hexadecimal code to use a custom color.
7. Once you're happy with your rules, use the Save button to save your performance standard. It will be applied automatically.

If you want a performance standard to display as event form is filled out, you must set the form advanced property called Auto-color to True.

Viewing performance standards

Performance standards can be viewed in an event form, reports and history. They are displayed in reports automatically but to display them as the event form is being filled out or in the history, you must set the advanced form property Auto-color to True.

You can create multiple performance standards for an event form but only one set of performance standards can be applied at a time, regardless of any criteria. For example, you may want to have a set of performance standards for males and a different set of performance standards for females, but only one of these will be applied. Smartabase will attempt to choose the most appropriate performance standard based on the data available in the report. In this example, the performance standard deemed most appropriate would be based on the predominant sex in the report. You can choose which performance standard to view in the Compare to section of the report sidebar.

Alternatively, you could use an Option calculation in the event form to calculate flags that apply to both males and females, which can be colored with a performance standard.