Parent and child goals

  • 4 minutes

Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to have parent goals and child goals. Essentially, parent goals can have one or more child goals below it. The result of all the child goals can roll up to the primary target parent goal. This allows for each component of the goal's structure to be evaluated individually and as an entire team. During the goal rollup, the child goal totals are rolled into the parent goal totals and create a cumulative sum of all goal totals.

Here's an example:

  • Linda is a sales manager for a specific region.

  • Linda manages three people: Suzanne, David, and Ryan.

  • Each salesperson has their own revenue-based goal of $500,000.00.

  • Linda's goal as a manager is $1,500,000.00

  • As Suzanne, David, and Ryan sell throughout a period, their results should be included in Linda's goal.

Diagram of goals scenario diagram showing goal and actual values.

By using parent and child goals, you can monitor Linda's overall progress on her sales goal as a manager. Her goal can be configured to include each of her team members individual goals.

Defining child goals

Child goals can be defined in two ways. The first way is by setting the Parent Goal column on the goal that should be a child goal. The other way is to define the child goals directly from the parent goal. This is done from the Child Goals tab on the goal that will be the parent. You can create new child goals directly from the tab, or you can add existing goals.

Screenshot of child goals created directly from the parent.

On the Goal criteria tab, you can also specify if the progress should only be based on the progress of the child goals or if individual progress should also be included. For example, a manager can also sell items. If any sales that the manager makes shouldn't count toward their managerial goal, you set the roll-up only from Child Goals column to Yes. If their sales should count, the column can be set to No. By default, the column is set to No.

Some other keys points about parent goals are:

  • A goal can have multiple child goals AND be a child goal of another goal (grandchild).

  • If you delete a parent goal, the child goals are NOT deleted, only the reference to the parent goal is removed.

  • All goals in the goal hierarchy must be based on the same fiscal period or custom period. If you specify a different time period for a child goal, a time period for a parent goal will be used.