Like any business, service providers must constantly evaluate the success of their operations. For implementations and installments, this is usually done by setting a strategic objective and then measuring progress made towards completion. But for operational teams, success is often measured by the repeated achievement of daily goals aligned to corporate objectives. Setting these benchmarks and collecting this data is accomplished by frequently running key performance indicators (KPIs).

Internet service providers use KPIs as a way to assess the performance of organizations, business units, or systems on an ongoing basis. But building KPIs out of a mountain of reports and spreadsheets means delayed and inaccurate views of delivery performance. That’s why operators need complete flexibility to customize KPIs that are available in real time, all the time.

Here the 3 keys to unlock your operational performance:

Reportable KPIs

Operators need the ability to create KPIs that turn volumes of data into meaningful information. To ensure that KPIs reflect the needs of a unique business model, your KPI platform must enable accurate user-defined scripting to gather the data. Dedicated KPI application programming interfaces (APIs) allow the measurement of new values, and then information can be returned through the system. Your platform must give all common stakeholders an accurate view of collected information with on-demand reports, like calculating the average signal to noise ratio over a given time period, because it doesn’t matter how good your data is if nobody agrees on it.

Manageable KPIs

Because Internet service provider operations are dynamic, KPIs must remain equally flexible in order to enhance understanding and support operating decisions. Agile javascripting flexibly collects the data you need from the CPE network and billing systems to create KPIs for various reports, for example a current view of the percentage of corporate accounts with low signal to noise ratio. Scripts should also have the capability to be on demand or periodic, depending on when and how often data is needed. Once a KPI is running, administrators should be able to conduct searches, filter results based on status, view real-time values, adjust properties, change schedules, and start or stop activities.

Intuitive KPIs

Finally, to easily understand KPIs, users must have the ability to define all necessary metadata—names, descriptions, thresholds, trending, grouping, etc.—that will help them put meaningful terms toward measuring the success of their own operations. No matter how accurate your KPIs are, or how relevant the information they measure is, if they are not defined in relatable terms they do not facilitate at-a-glance decision making. A KPI platform needs customizable names and groups, so views of IPTV KPIs can be kept independently from subscriber gateway KPIs. This provides the fastest route for data analysis.

Your network already contains the pivotal information needed for evaluating operational success. Now it’s time to customize the key to unlocking it with reportable, manageable and intuitive KPIs.