About metrics

Metrics are analytical calculations performed against stored data to produce results that can then be either read as status material or analyzed for decision-making purposes. Metrics represent business measures and key performance indicators. Questions such as "What were the sales for the Eastern Region during the fourth quarter?" and "How many employees received a bonus greater than $5000 in the last 3 years?" can easily be answered by creating metrics.

When creating a metric, the metric's definition must contain a formula, which determines the data to be used and the calculations to be performed on the data. A metric is categorized as simple or compound depending on the functions used in its formula. For more information, see Simple vs. compound metrics.

You can create different types of metrics to answer different kinds of business questions, modify existing metrics, and format metrics in MicroStrategy. For more information, click any of the following:

• Creating simple metrics

• About level metrics

• About conditional metrics

• Creating transformation metrics

• Creating compound metrics

• Creating and saving base formulas

• About metric subtotals

• Specifying dynamic aggregation functions

• Using advanced functions in metrics

• Formatting metrics

• Modifying existing metrics

• Setting join types for metrics

• Defining metric-specific VLDB properties

• Metric column aliases

• Metric Editor

• Insert Function Wizard

• Subtotal Editor

These topics discuss creating metrics in the Metric Editor. You can also create metrics while you are editing or viewing a report. These are called derived metrics and shortcut metrics. For more information, see Creating metrics in reports.

For an introduction to metrics and some basic examples, see the Creating a Query chapter in the Basic Reporting Help. For advanced concept information and examples, see the Advanced Metrics chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.