Creating metrics in documents

Before you begin

If you want to add metrics that already exist in datasets to the document, rather than creating new metrics, see Adding data fields to documents.

You can create the following types of metrics within documents:

• Calculated expressions

• Derived metrics

• Summary metrics

While these types all use the metrics on a document dataset to obtain data not directly available from a dataset, they provide different benefits and are used in different cases.

The following table compares derived metrics and calculated metrics. For more information on each, and procedures to create them, see Creating derived metrics in documents and Creating calculated expressions in documents. For a comparison that uses examples of each, see the Document Creation Help.

Summary metrics provide subtotals; they are discussed in Calculating totals and summary metrics in documents and Creating summary metrics in documents.

Action	Calculated Expression	Derived Metric
Can use metrics from multiple datasets	Yes	No
Can use advanced functions, such as banding, cosine, and Chi square distribution	Yes, with restrictions. See note below.	Yes
Can use in a grid	No	Yes
Can use in a text field	Yes	Yes
Can use in conditional formatting	No	Yes
Can reuse within the document	No	Yes
Can be created on the fly in a text field, without creating a new object and adding it to the layout	Yes	No

For a list of the advanced functions supported for calculated expressions, see the Advanced Functions for Calculated Expressions appendix in the Document Creation Help.

Related Topics

• Adding text and data to documents

• Adding data fields to documents

• Creating calculated expressions in documents

• Creating derived metrics in documents

• Creating summary metrics in documents