Companion Metrics (Admin)

Add operational context to financial views

Companion Metrics help teams measure performance, volume, and outcomes alongside spend.

This gives Yarken users a way to compare cost with operational measures such as usage, output, service volume, or business performance indicators that matter to their operating model.

Companion Metrics do not replace TBM structures. They complement them by adding non-financial context to the same environment.

What you can do

1. Define the approved metric catalog.

2. Upload actual and planned metric values.

3. Manage monthly metric records.

4. Compare cost and operational measures side by side in reporting where supported.

5. Support broader analysis of value, efficiency, and unit economics.

How Companion Metrics fit the Yarken model

Yarken uses a TBM model to connect financial, operational, and consumption data.

TBM structures explain where technology spend sits and how it flows.

Companion Metrics add the operational measures that help teams interpret that spend.

For example, a cost view may show how much a service costs. A companion metric helps explain the activity, demand, or output behind that cost.

That makes Companion Metrics useful for planning, reporting, value tracking, and performance discussions.

Where Companion Metrics can be linked

Companion Metrics can be associated with the following entities in Yarken:

Once linked, the metrics appear in the relevant dashboards and reports, allowing teams to analyze operational performance alongside financial data.

The three tabs in Companion Metrics

The Companion Metrics area includes three tabs:

Metrics

Use Metrics to define the governed list of metrics available in the environment.

Each metric record defines the code, name, target, and unit of measure.

Companion Metrics Manage

Use Manage to review and maintain the monthly metric records already loaded into Yarken.

This is where you review year, month, metric type, and value for each record.

Companion Metrics Upload

Use Upload to load one or more metric records from a file and review the upload result.

This is useful when you need to load recurring actual or planned values in bulk.

How teams usually work with Companion Metrics

Most teams follow this sequence:

1. Define the metric in Metrics.

2. Load actual or planned values through Upload.

3. Review and maintain records in Manage.

This keeps the metric catalog separate from the time-based values loaded against it.

When to use Companion Metrics

Use Companion Metrics when cost alone does not give enough context.

They are especially useful when teams need to compare spend with activity, service volume, business outcomes, or planned versus actual performance.

Common scenarios include:

• Contracts — Track SLA metrics, transaction volumes, or usage against vendor agreements.

• Solution Offerings — Monitor operational KPIs, such as active users, API calls, storage consumption, and availability, alongside solution cost in the Solution Portfolio and Solution TCO reports.

• Business Cases — Compare projected benefits against actual outcomes.

Good to know

• Keep metric names and units consistent before loading values.

• Decide early which metrics should be tracked as actual, planned, or both.

• Treat the metric catalog as governed reference data so reporting stays clean.

• Metrics must be defined in the Metrics tab before they can be linked to Contracts, Solution Offerings, or Business Cases.

• Linking a metric to a Solution Offering does not affect cost allocations or TBM mappings — it adds reporting context only.

• Displaying Spend alongside metrics in Solution TCO is planned as a future enhancement.

Next step

Define the metrics you want available for upload in Metrics.

Related articles

• Metrics

• Companion Metrics Upload

• Companion Metrics Manage

• Master Data — Manage Solution Offering Metrics

• Solution Portfolio

• Solution TCO

• Solution Consumer Alignment