Track goals and OKRs

The Goals page is Onplana’s OKR (Objectives and Key Results) home. Goals capture what your team is trying to achieve; Key Results capture how you will measure progress; Updates capture the weekly state of each Key Result and produce the trend sparkline you see on the page.

Goals are available on Business and above. Every member of the organization can see and update them; Guests cannot.

The model in one paragraph

A Goal has a title, a type (Objective by default), an owner, an optional parent goal (so you can stack team goals under a company goal), a start and due date, and a list of Key Results underneath it. A Key Result has a title, a unit (percent by default), a start value, a target value, and a current value. Its progress is either updated manually or rolled up from a set of linked tasks. A Goal’s overall progress is the average of its Key Results.

Create a goal

1. Open Goals from the sidebar.

2. Select New goal and fill in: title, owner, start and due date, description, and (optional) parent goal.

3. Pick a goal type. Objective is the most common. The other types let you tag aspirational, committed, and initiative-shaped work distinctly for reporting.

4. Save the goal. It appears in the list and waits for Key Results.

Add key results

Open the goal, then under Key results select Add key result.

For each KR:

• Title, the thing you are measuring (Activation rate, Trial conversion, Tickets resolved per week).
• Unit, the unit you are measuring in. Default is percent; override with anything (%, customers, min, MRR, etc.).
• Start, current, target, the three numbers that anchor the bar. Progress is (current - start) / (target - start) * 100, capped at 100.
• Rollup method, leave as manual to enter weekly numbers yourself, or pick Task count or Task percentage to derive the current value from a set of linked tasks (handy when the KR is “ship N features” or “close 80% of these tickets”).

Link projects and tasks

Two link mechanisms make goals concrete:

• Linked projects at the goal level: tag the projects that contribute to the goal so reports and rollups know which work feeds which objective.
• Linked tasks at the key result level: when the KR uses a task-rollup method, every linked task that hits a chosen status bumps the current value automatically.

The link is bidirectional. Each project shows the goals it contributes to; each goal shows the projects driving it.

Weekly updates and the sparkline

Each Key Result update is a timestamped record of the current value. Updating weekly is what produces the spark chart on the right side of the KR row, so the goal’s history reads as a trend, not a single number.

Tip

Managers see a Goals progress widget on the dashboard catalog (Build a custom dashboard) that shows the rollup across every goal they oversee. It is manager-only by design, the same way utilization and budget burn are.

FAQs

Can a Key Result roll up from more than one project? Yes. The KR is linked to a set of tasks rather than to a project, so the tasks can come from any project you can see. The KR ticks up when each linked task hits the rollup-defined status.

Why is my goal’s progress stuck at zero? A goal’s progress is the average of its Key Results. If a KR has the same start and current value, it shows 0%. Update the KR (or wire its rollup) and the goal moves with it.

Can I have sub-goals under a department goal? Yes. Pick a parent goal when creating a goal and the new goal nests under it. Hierarchies are usually shallow (company → team → squad), and Onplana does not impose a depth limit.

Are goals visible to everyone in the organization? Members and above can see all goals. Guests are blocked. If a goal is sensitive, the cleanest pattern today is to keep it in description-only language and not link projects whose existence is itself confidential.

Best practices

1. Cap KRs at 3-5 per goal. More KRs dilute focus. Three is the classic OKR convention.
2. Make KRs measurable, not activity-based. “Reach 1000 active users” beats “Launch marketing campaign”. KRs measure outcomes.
3. Update weekly during the quarter. Sparklines need data points. Monthly updates make the chart useless.
4. Link projects + tasks liberally. The auto-rollup is the magic. Manual updates work too, but linking lets the platform do the math.
5. Review goals at quarter-end with a retro. What landed? What didn’t? Why? The retrospective + next-quarter plan are the OKR cycle.

Troubleshooting / common pitfalls

• Progress stuck at 0%. KR start = current. Update the value or fix the rollup.
• KR auto-rollup not firing. Linked tasks not status-matching the rollup rule. Verify the rule + task statuses.
• Sub-goal hierarchy unclear in UI. Parent goal must exist before sub-goal can pick it. Create parent first.
• Sensitive goal accidentally visible. All members see all goals. Use description-only language for sensitive ones.
• Goal target moving target. KRs should be locked at the start of the quarter. Don’t edit mid-quarter; track via comments instead.

How this combines with other features

• Goals + Tasks. Tasks link to KRs for auto-rollup. See Work with tasks.
• Goals + Milestones. Milestones are delivery markers; KRs are outcome measures. Pair them at quarter end. See Track milestones.
• Goals + Dashboards. Pin the Goals progress widget on the executive dashboard. See Build a custom dashboard.
• Goals + Reports. Cross-project Reports can roll up OKR progress. See Run cross-project reports.

Coming from another tool

Tool	Mapping
Workboard	Direct OKR concept
Lattice goals	Direct
Microsoft Viva Goals	Direct
Ally.io	Direct
Asana Goals	Direct

Related

• Track milestones, delivery markers that pair with quarterly Key Results
• Build a custom dashboard, pin the Goals progress widget for a manager view
• Run cross-project reports, roll up OKR progress across projects