What is a Metric?

Last updated Sep 23, 2022 - Edit Source

• Data engineering

A Metric, also called KPI or (calculated) measure, are terms that serve as the building blocks for how business performance is both measured and defined, as knowledge of how to define an organization’s KPIs. It is fundamental to have a common understanding of them. Metrics usually surface as business reports and dashboards with direct access to the entire organization.

For example, think of operational metrics that represent your company’s performance and service level or financial metrics that describe its financial health. Today these metrics are primarily defined in a lengthy SQL statement inside the BI tools. 

Calculated measures are part of metrics and apply to specific dimensions traditionally mapped inside a Bus Matrix. Dimensions are the categorical buckets that can be used to segment, filter, group, slice, and dice—such as sales amount, region, city, product, color, and distribution channel. Dimensions (and facts) are also known from the concept of Dimensional Modeling.

See more on Semantic Layer or Metrics Layer.