Aspects of a Context

Definition

A context is a collection of certain application objects, grouped so that users in roles can access the set of objects as a unit in the application. The context links a mission, vision, strategy, set of perspectives and objectives, set of initiatives, and scorecard all for particular users to access.

Use

Creating a context is one of the initial steps toward building your strategy and scorecard either before or after the library of perspectives and objectives are created. For information about creating contexts, see Contexts.

Contexts have a relationship between users, roles, and model connections. For more information, see Relationship Between Users, Roles, Model Connection, and Context.

Structure

When you create a context using Context Management  Manage Contexts, the context has the following initial information:

• An identifying name.

• A user who is responsible for this context

• Roles containing users who can access the context in the strategy management application

• A model connection which contains the business data for the scorecard, including the measures that make up the KPIs. Also associated with the model connection are the users who are allowed to access the data.

  The model connection you specify is the key link between the context, the model, and users. Information from the model is used for the KPI data. It also controls which users can access the data associated with the model. Before you can use any other scorecard default features, you must select the model connection from the Model Connection dropdown list.

• (Optional) Associated URL links for Web sites or pages that supports this context

• (Optional) A description

• (Optional) A message that appears in the System Message box of users' Home tabs.

When you work with the other areas of Context Management, the context has the following information:

• Perspectives, objectives, and KPIs added and defined and ordered hierarchically into a scorecard.

• (Optional) A strategy, which includes any combination of goal diagrams, a cause and effect diagram, and pathways or themes

• (Optional) A status indicator applied to the context based on a KPI or index of perspectives. A context with a status indicator is called a scored context.

When you create additional contexts, you can organize them in a hierarchy.

When strategy management users create initiatives in the Initiatives tab, they add these initiatives to a particular context.

Integration

The strategy management application has a Context dropdown list in every tab of the application. The dropdown list contains the names of the contexts available to the user. When a user selects a context from the Context dropdown list, the application refreshes with information from the newly selected context.

For more information, see Context Selection.