Understand Metrics in Report Studio

Quick Links:
Custom Metrics: Creating Your Own Calculations
Key Differences
Creating Custom Metrics
Quickly Creating Custom Metrics in a Grid
Creating Custom Metrics with the Function Editor
Creating a Custom Metric from an Attribute
Creating Custom Metrics with the Formula Editor

In ClickTime's Report Studio, metrics are the measurable parts of your data – they show totals, counts, or more complex calculations, giving you meaningful insights into your business. Think of them as the values you analyze and compare in your reports, such as Time Entry Hours, Billable Amount, Monthly Budget, or Expense Item Amount. Metrics often use functions like sum, average, or count to provide these insights.

For example, you might:

• Track Time Entry Hours per Employee to monitor productivity.
• Compare Billable Amounts across different Projects to understand profitability.
• Review Monthly Budget totals to stay on top of spending.
• Sum Expense Item Amounts for client billing or reimbursements.

Metrics represent key performance indicators (KPIs) and business measures derived from your ClickTime data (like hours, expenses, or billable amounts). They are similar to formulas in a spreadsheet, providing calculations such as:

• Total Hours: The sum of all hours tracked.
• Billable Amount: The total revenue generated from billable hours.
• Average Hourly Rate: The average rate charged per hour.
• Project Budget Variance: The difference between the budgeted and actual costs for a project.

By analyzing these metrics, you can gain a deeper understanding of your organization's time, costs, and performance.

Custom Metrics: Creating Your Own Calculations

ClickTime's Report Studio also allows you to create custom metrics. These are new metrics that you define based on existing metrics within a report or dashboard. They allow you to perform on-the-fly calculations without having to modify the underlying data source. Custom metrics are specific to the report or dashboard where they are created. Examples include:

• Profit: Calculated as Revenue - Expenses (where Revenue and Expenses are existing metrics).
• Billable Percentage: Calculated as (Billable Hours / Total Hours) * 100.
• Overtime Hours: Calculated as Total Hours - 40 (assuming a 40-hour work week).
• Revenue per Hour: Calculated as Revenue / Total Hours.

Custom metrics are useful for:

• Performing quick calculations without altering the original data.
• Creating custom KPIs tailored to specific reporting needs.
• Combining existing metrics to gain new perspectives on your data.

Key Differences:

• Metrics: Represent the fundamental measurements in your ClickTime data.
• Custom Metrics: Are calculations you create from existing metrics to provide additional insights.

Creating Custom Metrics

Here's how to create a custom metric:

1. Open Your Report: Go to the report you want to work with in Report Studio.
2. Access the Custom Metric Creation: In the Datasets Panel, you can either click the ellipsis icon (three dots) found in the top right corner, or right-click on any existing metric, and choose Create Metric.
3. Define Your Custom Metric: In the panel that appears, you'll define how your new metric is calculated. You have a few options:
   • Enter it directly: You can type in a formula using existing metrics and mathematical operators. As you type, you might see suggestions for available metrics – click on them to add them to your definition.
   • Use Functions: If you want to perform more complex calculations (like averages, sums, or date differences), you can browse through a list of Functions. Click on a function to see what it does, and double-click to add it to your definition. You'll then need to specify which metrics the function should use.
4. Name Your Custom Metric: Once you've defined how your custom metric is calculated, give it a clear and descriptive name in the Metric Name field.
5. Format Your Custom Metric (Optional): You can choose how your metric is displayed (e.g., as currency, a percentage, or a number with a specific number of decimal places).
6. Save Your New Metric: Click Save to add your custom metric to the dataset. You can now use it in your visualizations and reports, just like any other metric.

In simple terms: You're creating a new calculation based on your existing data to get a more specific measurement.

Quickly Creating Custom Metrics in a Grid

For simple calculations directly within a grid report, Report Studio offers a quick shortcut.

What is a Shortcut Metric?

A Shortcut Metric is a pre-built calculation that you can quickly apply to an existing metric to transform how it’s summarized or displayed. Shortcut Metrics are especially useful for analyzing trends, comparisons, and rankings—without needing to build a complex formula from scratch.

In addition to simple aggregations like Sum, Average, or Count, Shortcut Metrics also include more advanced options such as:

• Rank – Displays the rank position of a value within a group

• Percentile Rank – Shows the relative standing of a value within a dataset

• Percent to Total – Calculates each value as a percentage of the total

• Percent Of – Compares a value to another reference point

• Percent Change – Calculates the percentage difference between two time periods or categories

• Difference – Displays the absolute change between values

• Moving Average – Smooths out fluctuations by showing the average across a sliding window

• Percent Running Total – Shows cumulative values as a percentage of the total running sum

These options can help you quickly apply meaningful context to your data—whether you're highlighting top performers, identifying trends over time, or showing progress toward goals.

Please note: This shortcut method for creating custom metrics is only available when you are working with a grid visualization.

Here's how to use it:

1. Open Your Report: Go to the dashboard or report containing the grid visualization you want to work with.
2. Select the Grid: Click on the grid visualization where you want to create the custom metric.
3. Right-Click a Metric: In the Editor Panel, right-click on the specific metric you want to use as the basis for your new calculation.
4. Choose "Shortcut Metric": From the context menu that appears, select Calculation or Shortcut Metric.
5. Select a Function: A list of common calculations will appear (e.g., Sum, Average, Difference, Percentage of Total, Running Total). Choose the function you want to apply and click OK.
6. (For Running Total): If you selected Running Total, you'll need to specify the calculation (like Sum for a running sum or Average for a running average) and then how to "break" or restart the running total. This means the calculation will start over for each unique value in the attribute you select. You can select an attribute from a list, and the total will restart for each item in that attribute.
7. Your New Metric: Report Studio will automatically create a new custom metric based on your selection and add it to your grid and the Datasets panel. You can then rename this new metric as needed.

This shortcut provides a fast way to perform common calculations directly in your grid without having to open the full Custom Metric editor, and it conveniently adds the new metric to your available data fields.

Why Use Shortcut Metrics?

This feature allows you to perform powerful comparisons and trend analyses—like ranking performance, calculating differences across time, or displaying running percentages—without opening the full Custom Metric Editor.

It’s a fast, flexible way to enhance your grid reports with deeper insights.

Creating Custom Metrics with the Function Editor

The Function Editor allows you to create new, custom metrics in Report Studio based on calculations involving your existing data. This is where you can define more complex metrics using a variety of built-in functions.

Important Note: Custom metrics created within a report or dashboard are saved there and cannot be directly used in other reports or dashboards.

Here's how to use the Metric Function Editor:

1. Open Your Report: Go to the report or dashboard you want to modify in Report Studio.
2. Access the Metric Editor:
   • From the Datasets Panel: In the Datasets Panel, right-click on the metric you want to use as a starting point for your custom metric and select Create Metric.
   • From a Visualization: To add the custom metric directly to a specific chart or table, in the Editor Panel for that visualization, right-click on a metric and select Create Metric.
3. Name and Describe Your Metric: In the Metric Name field, type a clear name for your new metric. You can also add a brief Description.
4. Find Your Function: In the Functions pane (on the left), you can:
   • Search: Type the name of a function you're looking for in the Search bar.
   • Browse Categories: Select a category (like Math, Basic, Date) from the drop-down list to see related functions.
5. Understand Functions: Click on a function in the list to see a description at the bottom of the window. Click Details for more in-depth information and examples.
6. Add a Function to Your Definition: Double-click a function to add it to the definition area on the right.
7. Define Function Parameters: If you selected a function (especially a calculation like Sum, Average, First, Last), you'll see options for Level and Filter under Function Parameters.
   • Level: This determines which attributes the function should group by. By default, it uses the attributes in the visualization. You can choose specific attributes here if needed.
   • Filter: You can add advanced filtering to your metric by clicking Add Filter.
   • Function Parameters: Click Function Parameters to adjust how the function behaves (e.g., use all values or only unique values).
8. Add Metrics or Attributes: In the Objects pane (in the center), you can find and add existing metrics or attributes to your function definition:
   • Search: Type the name of an object in the Search bar.
   • Filter by Type: Use the drop-down to show only Attributes or Metrics.
   • Filter by Dataset: Choose a specific dataset to see its objects.
   • Double-click an object to add it to your metric definition.
9. Sort Data (If Applicable): If a Sort By field appears, you can choose how the data should be sorted for the calculation.
10. Save Your Custom Metric: Once you've defined your metric, click Save.

Your new custom metric will now appear in the Datasets panel (with a special icon) and will be available for you to use in your visualizations.

Key Takeaway: The Function Editor gives you the power to create tailored calculations based on your ClickTime data using a wide range of functions and existing data elements.

Creating a Custom Metric from an Attribute

In ClickTime's Report Studio, you can also turn an existing attribute into a metric. When you do this, Report Studio will perform a basic calculation on the attribute's values:

• If the attribute contains numbers: The new metric will calculate the sum of those numbers.
  • Example: If you have an "Age" attribute with employee ages, turning it into a metric will give you the total sum of all employee ages. You could then use this new metric to find the average age per department.
• If the attribute contains text (non-numeric values): The new metric will count the number of unique items in that attribute.
  • Example: If you have a "Region" attribute with different region names, turning it into a metric will give you a count of the total number of regions.

Here's how to create a custom metric from an attribute:

1. Open Your Report: Go to the dashboard or report you want to modify in Report Studio.
2. Find the Attribute: In the Datasets Panel (on the left), locate the attribute you want to convert into a metric.
3. Right-Click and Duplicate: Right-click on the attribute.
4. Choose "Duplicate as Metric": From the context menu that appears, select Duplicate as Metric.

The attribute will now be duplicated and appear in your Datasets Panel as a new metric. The name will likely be the same as the original attribute, so you might want to rename it to reflect its new function (e.g., "Total Age" or "Number of Regions").

Important Note: You cannot use an attribute that was already created as a custom attribute to perform this action.

This is a quick way to get basic aggregate metrics based directly on your attributes.

Creating Custom Metrics with the Formula Editor

The Formula Editor gives you complete control to build your own custom metrics in Report Studio using formulas you type directly. This is ideal for creating more advanced calculations, combining multiple metrics, or using functions in a specific way.

Important Note: Custom metrics created this way are saved within the current report or dashboard and cannot be directly used elsewhere.

Here's how to use the Metric Formula Editor:

1. Open Your Report: Go to the report or dashboard you want to modify in Report Studio.
2. Access the Metric Editor:
   • From the Datasets Panel: In the Datasets Panel on the left), right-click on any metric and select Create Metric.
   • From a Visualization: In the Editor Panel for a visualization, right-click on a metric and select Create Metric.
3. Switch to Formula Editor: The Metric Editor might open in a Function selection view. If so, click Switch to Formula Editor.
4. Name Your Metric: In the Metric Name field, type a clear name for your new metric.
5. Write Your Formula: In the Formula area, you can:
   • Type Directly: Enter your formula using existing metric names (you might see suggestions as you type), arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /), and values. Use brackets [] around metric names with spaces or special characters.
   • Use Functions and Objects: You can also use the Functions (often on the left) and Objects (metrics and attributes, also often on the left) panes to build your formula. Search or browse for what you need and double-click to add it to the Formula area.
6. Understand Functions: Click on a function in the Functions pane to see a description at the bottom. Click Details for more info.
7. Define Function Details (If Applicable): If you use functions like Sum, Average, or others, you might see options for Level (how the calculation groups data) and Filter (to apply conditions within the calculation). Adjust these as needed.
8. Validate Your Formula: Once you've typed your formula, click Validate to check if it's correct.
9. Save Your Custom Metric: Click Save.

Your new custom metric will appear in the Datasets panel (with a special icon) and will be ready to use in your visualizations.

Key Takeaway: The Formula Editor gives you the ultimate flexibility to create highly customized calculations based on your ClickTime data by typing formulas directly or using a combination of functions and existing data elements.