Cascade→OKIAR

Migration guide · Cascade

Cascade migration: turning a strategy plan into OKRs you can check in on

Facts checked October 27, 2026

Before you start: learn Cascade's words for things

Cascade's glossary defines the terms you'll meet in the export. The ones that matter here:

• Focus Area. A category that groups related objectives, such as "Grow sustainably."
• Objective. A future state you want to reach, made up of actions, measures or contributing objectives.
• Measure. A number that shows how an objective is going. This is the closest thing to a key result.
• Action and Project. Work items, tracked with milestones or checklists.
• Nested objective. An objective counted inside another objective's progress.
• Metric. A KPI in the Metric Library. It has no time frame, no progress and no owner.
• Health. At Risk, Behind, On Track, Achieved or Exceeded.

Before exporting, sketch which focus areas you'll carry over. Many teams find that two or three focus areas hold all their live OKRs and the rest are long-range strategy.

Step 1: Pick a Cascade export

Strategy Table CSV

Cascade explains it step by step. Open Reports, create a report (or edit one), and add a Table widget. Set the table type to Strategy Table, choose your plan, and pick the columns. Then open the three-dot menu on the widget and click Export to CSV. The article warns that only columns shown in the table make it into the file, so add owner, dates, progress, target and parent columns before you export, not after.

If you have several plans, build one table per plan in the same report.

PDF report

PDF export is for paid tiers only, and only admins and people with view or edit rights on the report can use it. Choose PDF Standard for one long page, and tick "Expand all table rows." Without that box the PDF shows only objective rows, and the success criteria underneath are left out. PDF Printable lays the report out on A4 pages instead. Keep one copy as the record of what the plan looked like on the day you left.

Planner PDF

Cascade's strategy PDF article describes a Summary or Detailed PDF from the Planner's Actions menu. It's fast, but it's a picture, not data.

The Cascade API

The token article is blunt: "Cascade's API is only available on our Enterprise subscriptions." A user with System permission creates a token under Profile, System, Security, and each token carries that user's permissions. The Public API v2 reference shows a goals endpoint that returns, for each goal, its title, start and target values, progress, unit (percent, units, money or people), target direction, weight (1 highest to 4 lowest), tracking type, start and end dates, custom attributes, aligned goals, collaborators and milestones. Separate endpoints return updates, issues and tasks.

Free plan, no Enterprise

You still have the Strategy Table CSV. If even that isn't possible, rebuild from the Planner PDF or our OKR examples.

Step 2: Check the Cascade file

Strategy Table exports are only as complete as the table you built. Before you plan the move, run these checks on the CSV:

1. Every objective and measure from the plan appears, including nested ones.
2. Each row shows its parent, whether that's a focus area or another objective.
3. Measures have a start value, a target and a current value, not just a percentage.
4. Owners are named people, and anyone who has left is flagged.

Then remove what you won't track as OKRs: finished actions, archived goals and long-range focus areas. Keep them in the PDF.

Deciding what counts as a key result

Cascade lets an objective succeed through any mix of measures, actions, projects and nested objectives. OKIAR key results are numbers with a start, a target and a unit. That gap needs a decision per objective:

• Objective with measures. Each measure becomes a key result. This is the easy case.
• Objective with only actions. Ask what result the actions are meant to produce, and write that as a key result. If there is no number, the objective may belong in a project plan instead.
• Objective with nested objectives. Keep the nesting. OKIAR rolls child progress up into the parent.
• Objective tracked by tasks. Cascade's API lists task-based tracking as an option. Count finished tasks as a stopgap, then replace the count with an outcome next quarter.

Cascade's history of measure values may not fit in a table at all. We couldn't confirm a way to export it outside the API, so if you need past values, plan for an API pull or screenshots.

Weighing other tools? The Cascade alternatives page compares prices, integrations and import options.

Step 3: Turn the plan into OKIAR objectives

OKIAR reads the CSV directly. Its sign-up docs list CSV, spreadsheets (multi-sheet Excel included), PDF, Word, text and Markdown as import formats, with a 5 MB cap per file. Owners, teams and parent links survive, and you edit a draft before anything is saved. You can import at sign-up or later on.

Suggested order:

1. Sign up free at okiar.app/signup.
2. Upload the Strategy Table CSV. If you're on Enterprise, the API's JSON can go in too.
3. Decide what each focus area becomes. A top-level objective works when it has a clear owner; otherwise use a custom field to tag objectives with it.
4. Turn measures into key results with a unit and direction.
5. Bring Metric Library items in as KPIs. OKIAR keeps their history from the day you start.
6. Copy weights. Cascade ranks weight from 1 (highest) to 4 (lowest), and OKIAR supports key result weighting, so reverse the order as you go.
7. Give each person one of OKIAR's four roles. Cascade uses the same names (Admin, Manager, Contributor and Viewer), but check what each can do in OKIAR before assuming it matches.

Where each Cascade field goes in OKIAR

What replaces Cascade's health

Cascade's health compares progress with expected progress. OKIAR does something similar with pacing, set out in the objective docs. Progress against plan of 0.7 or better reads On track, 0.4 to 0.69 reads Behind, and less than 0.4 reads At risk. Not started, Closed and Abandoned are picked by hand. People also give a confidence score from 0 to 10 at each check-in.

Step 4: Replace Cascade integrations

Cascade has a Slack integration and can pull measure values from connected tools. None of those connections come with an export. Here's how each one maps:

• Automatic measure updates. In OKIAR, owners enter values during check-ins. OKIAR also has an AI auto-update setup in which a connected assistant updates selected key results through MCP, limited to the results you pick.
• Slack. OKIAR posts digests and status changes to a channel, and sends assignment notices and stale key result reminders by DM.
• Microsoft Teams. No OKIAR app; Telegram DMs or Slack instead.
• API. OKIAR's MCP server offers 14 tools. It can also create objectives, key results and KPIs, but the import is the faster setup step.

Step 5: Check in weekly from week one

If your Cascade reviews ran monthly, switch to a short weekly check-in now. Start that rhythm in OKIAR right away: each owner updates the number, rates confidence and names any blocker. Keep your Cascade workspace in read-only use for a month so leaders can compare health and pacing on the same objectives. Then save the PDFs and CSVs and close it.