Conditional Metrics: Applying Filters to Metrics

A conditional metric allows you to apply a filter (called a metric filter or metric condition) to only one metric on a report without affecting the other metrics. The metric filter can be either a filter or a prompt that returns a list of filters. Only one filter or prompt can be associated with each metric, but the metric filter can contain multiple qualifications.

For example, you need to review regional revenue for different product categories. You can create a report containing Category, the Revenue metric, and conditional metrics for the regions. In the following report sample, the Northeast Revenue and Mid-Atlantic Revenue metrics are conditional metrics. Northeast Revenue uses the same formula as the Revenue metric, but contains a filter for the Northeast region. Similarly, the Mid-Atlantic Revenue metric contains a filter for the Mid-Atlantic region.

You can determine how the metric condition interacts with the report filter, such as the order in which the report filter and the metric filter are applied to the metric data. Use the advanced options for conditional metrics to determine this.

• By default, the parts of the report filter that are based on parent or child attributes of the attribute in the metric condition are ignored, and do not affect the calculation of the conditional metric. To apply all criteria in the report filter to the conditional metric, clear the Ignore related report filter elements check box. This option is selected by default.
• By default, the report filter is applied to the metric data and then the metric filter is applied to those results. You can determine the order in which the report filter and metric filter are applied to the metric. From the Interaction between metric filter and report filter drop-down list, select one of the following:
• Merge report filter into metric (default): Applies the report filter criteria first and then applies the metric filter to the results. For example, the metric filter is revenue greater than $100 and the report filter is bottom 10 items for sales. In this example, the report filter narrows the result set to only 10 items, and then the metric condition filters out, from those 10 items, any items with a revenue above $100.
• Merge metric condition into report: Evaluates the metric first and then applies the report filter to the results. Using this option with the example above, the metric condition returns all items with a revenue above $100. The report filter then filters out all but the bottom 10 of those items, based on sales.
• Merge into new: Combines the metric and report filter. Only those results that meet both the metric filter and the report filter are included in the metric. Using this option with the example above, the two filters are merged, so that only those items that are in the bottom 10 in terms of sales and that have sales greater than $100 are included.

For steps to create metrics, including conditional metrics, in Workstation, see Create a Stand-Alone Metric.