---
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title: Best Practices for Designing KPIs
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version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/ind/264-0-0/concept_kpi_configurations_best_practices.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=ind.concept_kpi_configurations_best_practices.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
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description: Before creating KPIs, plan how each one fits with existing KPIs, integrations, and org limits, and decide where real-time reporting KPIs are written back and read from to keep values current.
products:
  - Consumer Goods
release: "264"
---
# Best Practices for Designing KPIs

Before creating KPIs, plan how each one fits with existing KPIs, integrations, and org limits, and decide where real-time reporting KPIs are written back and read from to keep values current.

Before you start creating KPIs in Trade Promotion Management, we recommend that you design a KPI plan. Identify the KPIs you must see to understand your business’ performance.

When creating a plan, consider aspects such as how each KPI connects to another and which KPIs must be written back.

To get you started, here are some aspects for the KPI overview:

- Consider integration: Get clarity on the KPIs that are imported from and exported to third-party systems.
- Get the functional scope: Understand how the KPIs fit together because one KPI can be used in multiple processes.
- Consider existing KPI limits: It’s easy to reach the limits fast, so take care of the limits from when designing KPIs. Make sure that you don't have any unnecessary KPIs.
- Design all KPIs outside TPM and check all dependencies.
- Plan real-time reporting KPIs: Make sure that real-time reports show the most current values by writing back KPIs from and reading KPIs to appropriate places promotion KPIs must be written back to and read from promotions, and account plan KPIs must be written back to and read from account plans. For example, configure a KPI, such as incremental volume that is directly related to promotions, that’s written back on the account plan and read from there. When you update promotions and save them, the real-time reports show outdated values because account plans are written back only during the nightly batch updates.