Goal Statuses

An overview of Goal Statuses

It is possible to configure goal statuses to align perfectly with the OKR processes of your company. Commonly used statuses include "Off track," "Progressing," and "On track," or a confidence scale from 0 to 10. In the tool, you will find some preset statuses, but you can easily rename them or add your own statuses to track your goals most effectively.

Additionally, you can categorize your statuses as "Active" and "Closed." Goals with an "Active" status are those that are still being worked on, while "Closed" goals have already been completed or finished. To track your goals as accurately as possible, you can also assign a threshold to each status.

To learn how to set up these features in detail, refer to this article.

In case you don’t feel like reading, here is a video tutorial explaining our Goal Statuses feature.

First, navigate to the settings and click on "Goals" under "Status." At the top of the page, you can provide a general name. In OKR processes, "Status" is frequently used, or alternatively, "Confidence" can be used.

Below, you'll find a list of statuses; some common ones are already available in your account, so you can start goal tracking right away. Statuses are customizable, allowing you to add additional statuses and edit or delete existing ones. By default, the following statuses, along with their respective thresholds, are set up in your account:

The already created statuses are divided into two groups, "Active" and "Closed." Additionally, the status “Not started” under "Active" is preset marked as default. This default status is assigned to all newly created goals that have no progress updates yet. It is also fully customizable (for more information on evaluations, groups, and defaults, see below). You can easily rearrange these statuses within their respective groups by using the drag-and-drop feature located to the left of each status. By clicking the arrow on the right side, you can view and edit the settings of a status:

Firstly, you have the option to set a title for your status if you want to rename some of the preset titles or create a new one.

Additionally, you can archive a status, which will then be displayed in the archive section below. Here, items can either be restored or permanently deleted. However, permanent deletion is only possible as long as a status is not used in a goal update in your account.

With this feature, you can set a status as the default. A default status is automatically selected if a goal has no updates yet.

A default status cannot be archived. First, it must be changed to a non-default status.

A status is always assigned to a group. Here, you have the options "Active" or "Completed." Active goals are those currently being actively worked on, while completed goals have already been finished. By default, you can complete goals by marking them as "Achieved," "Partial," "Missed," or "Dropped" (in case you decide not to continue tracking them). Of course, you can also define your own "Completed" statuses.

It is possible to assign a threshold to each of your statuses. There are already preset suggestions, such as 0% for "Off track," 70% for "Progressing," 90% for "On track," and 100% for "Achieved," 50% for partially achieved goals, or 0% for "Missed." These are all adjustable, and you can essentially assign any number to tailor the statuses to your individual OKR processes. For example, it would also be possible to represent a confidence scale from 0 to 10, as this is quite commonly used in the OKR world.

Thresholds come into effect in two different scenarios. Firstly, every time you create a new goal update, a status recommendation is displayed. This recommendation is based on the value you enter and the threshold assigned in the status settings. In practice, this means that when updating a goal to 30% progress (weighted by time), the system will automatically suggest the status whose threshold is less than or equal to 30% and is closest to 30%.

Secondly, the charts on the Progress Dashboard display an average value based on the assessment of goal statuses. Here, you have the option to display either the average or the distribution of statuses.

Different colors can be assigned to a status. As we suggest in the presets, it is quite common to use traffic light colors to indicate various progress levels of goals. So, when a goal's progress has started, it may make sense to display a change as follows: red for goals that are behind schedule, yellow for generally progressing goals, and green for those progressing as planned. If a goal is inactive, because it is not being pursued further, it can be grayed out.