Cognos Inc. is rolling out the latest component of its line of software for business-performance management. Cognos Metrics Manager is the next generation of the vendor's balanced scorecard application for monitoring key business performance indicators and providing decision makers with greater visibility into their business.

Part of the Cognos Series 7 business-intelligence suite, Metrics Manager pulls information from operational applications and data sources and analyzes it using Cognos' PowerPlay online analytical processing tool or third-party OLAP software. It presents the results to users in the context of how well a company is meeting its business objectives and performance goals.

Cognos' previous scorecarding software, KPI Business Pack, while effective in delivering and presenting information to users, didn't provide the same level of metric management functionality as the new software, the company says. For example, the Metrics Manager offering can show how metrics impact and are impacted by each other and support a wide range of performance-measurement methodologies such as Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and Total Quality Management. The software also links metrics to individual managers and employees.

CTX Mortgage Co. has been beta testing Metrics Manager, and Harry Hixson, senior VP of IT, says it's easier to use and easier to load information into compared with Cognos' older scorecarding product. CTX Mortgage plans to use the application to monitor a range of corporate-performance metrics at the company, regional, and branch level, including profit-per-loan, fixed-expense-per-loan, and employee head count.

CTX Mortgage has developed pilot projects using the beta code of the new product and plans to deploy the software through the company once it's generally available in December. "We're just waiting for them to roll out the real code so we can run with it," Hixson says. Pricing for Metrics Manager hasn't been set but it's expected to be in the range of $50,000 to $100,000 for 100 users.