This is part of a series of articles on Metrics. Here's a summary of some more helpful articles to help you get started...

Or, if you're looking to unlock some more advanced use cases, you can check out a deeper dive into the Calculated Metrics concept here and a technical introduction here.

You can also check out the Calculated Metrics folder and pick for yourself.

The Metrics tab of the Data Module is where all metrics flowing through Planhat are transformed into insights which you can view and take action on across Planhat.

There's a lot of depth to Planhat's time series data capabilities, and there's no need to get stuck into it all at once. This is a good place to start...

Time series data is integral to Customer Success as it is the best way to understand the development of your customer relationship over time. It allows you to ask important questions like: "What's the trending usage of Module A vs Module B in our Enterprise customers?" or "What's the pattern in Ticket requests from Customer A?".

There are several types of time-series data in Planhat and they can be saved to different data models, but in summary they are:

All time series data can be transformed into Calculated Metrics. These let you create totally custom views of your raw data, grouping it over time, combining different metrics together and performing wide range of other operations.

For example:

The more time series data you bring into Planhat, the more important it becomes to organise it, which makes it easy to ensure that the metrics you're tracking are being utilised, and identify new opportunities to transform your raw data to action.

That's why Metrics are just like any other object: you can enrich them with custom fields, organise them into Folders, Filters and Groups, and manage them with Bulk Select and In-Line Edit, in both Board and Table views.

Metrics also makes it easy to analyse time series data on-the-fly - without needing to create a dashboard - with interactive Charting & Compare capabilities. Let's take a closer look...

The main data view is configurable in exactly the same ways as any other model in the Data Module:

By default, the Metrics tab organises your Metrics into Model-based Folders, consisting of Type-based Filters, but you're free to modify this structure if you prefer something else.

Assuming you've used any other tab of the data module (if you haven't yet - go on and give it a go!), there's nothing different about filtering & foldering Metrics. Simply select "Add New Filter" from the top left, set your rule, and you're away!

You can also perform operations on your time series metrics directly from the data module.

The ellipsis (3-dot) menu in the top right allows you to:

As with any other tab in the data module, the ellipsis menu also allows you to perform specific operations for a set of selected Metrics.

Simply check the metrics you'd like to act on, head to the ellipsis menu, and:

Clicking the "Hamburger" (3-line) "View Details" of a specific metric (or, from Board View, clicking on the metric Card) will open a slide out allowing you to preview and manage its specific properties, including its all-important Raw Data or Formula.

All Metric types open on the Chart tab. This is a summary view of the time series, which can be adjusted to show any period between a week and 3 years, and aggregate across companies as a sum, average (of all companies) or average (of companies with values).

For Custom Metrics and User Activities, the chart is directly reflecting the raw time series data logged for that given metric. For Calculated and System Metrics, it reflects the final processed time series, and will not show any values while the Metric is building.

💡Quick Tip: in this table view, you can click the search to filter the chart to include data only for a specific company

Custom Metrics in Planhat are stored daily, with 1 datapoint per object (Company, End User, Asset, Project) each day. This means that if you push multiple datapoints to a specific object in a given day, Planhat needs to aggregate them into 1. This is why for Custom Metrics, you can choose whether Planhat should obtain a daily value via:

For Calculated Metrics, Aggregation Mode refers to how multiple values per period (rather than per day) are aggregated. For example, if an object has 4 values across a week, you can choose whether the weekly value should be calculated as their:

This tab is where you set the formula your Calculated Metric should use to generate daily values. Here, you'll find a helpful set-up guide, and a magic example-generator, to get you started.

When you configure each Calculated Metric, you can also add conditions on what type of objects the metric should apply to, and decide whether the metric should treat missed values as NULLs or 0's (more about that here).

Metric availability in app (Calculated Metrics only)

Availability in Planhat setting allows you to specify in which cases will the calculated metric be available for use in app. Overtime you will have lots of data in Planhat, This setting ensures metrics are only available where you need them, helping keep Planhat simple and easy to use.

On calculated metric slide-out you can immediately see in the top section what is the availability type for the metric.

When creating new calculated metric you can specify Availability in Planhat right away in the calculated metric creation form.

This setting has 3 options that you can choose from:

Choosing the right option depends on what you intend to do with the calculated metric. If metric value is neede to roll up to higher level KPI and you don't expect to actually use it in your Planhat workflow then Reporting only is the right option for you.
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Keeping only most important metrics with options Reporting & Data models (Featured) and Reporting & Data models will make creating filters, managing data table views easier for you as it will declutter the interface.

The Raw Data tab shows you the logged values for every object the metric has a value for, in reverse chronological order, in addition to the relevant Company or User, the timestamp of the ingested event, and the time it was ingested at.

Calculated Metric formulas refer to Custom Metrics and User Activities, meaning that these values must be logged before relevant Calculated Metrics are built to ensure accurate results.

Additionally, Calculated Metrics can refer to other Calculated Metrics, resulting in both nesting of metric calculations, and cross-model references between Company and End User/Asset/Project Calculated Metrics. This means the order in which Calculated Metrics are built also matters.

Fortunately, Planhat has a host of smart logic to ensure everything gets built in the right order, and on schedule. Here's a quick overview...

Raw data is brought into Planhat in the form of Custom Metrics and User Activities. Generally, you can expect these to be ingested within a few minutes, although the ingestion process can take longer if there is a large volume of raw datapoints.

Calculated Metrics are built automatically, once a day (nightly CET). The specific time window will vary depending on your specific tenant settings, and you can speak to your TAM or CSM if for any reason you would like your daily build to occur no earlier than a specific daily hour, to ensure that all your Custom Metrics and User Activities are received in time. Here's some important things to keep in mind:

💡Quick Tip: you can change the default Metric Build Period to any value between 1 day and your tenant's Data Access Period (which by default is 730 days: 2 years). This default value will apply to all Metrics which do not have a value for the Metric Build Period, meaning that you can override the default Build Period by inputting any value for a specific metric.

Since Calculated Metrics can reference one another, it's important to keep track of which Metrics depend on which other Metrics.

That's why the data table allows you to understand which metrics refer to one another with a small arrow in the name field. By hovering over the arrow, you can see the names and IDs of all Calculated Metrics the Metric is using and used by.

Additionally, the Metrics using a given Calculated Metric are also summarised on the detailed Metric preview, as an orange information box:

There's only one case where you'll need to use Manual Rebuild:

💡Quick Tip: when a Calculated Metric is rebuilding, it shows an orange indicator in the Data Table (in both Board and Table view). While this indicator is showing, previewing the metric in slide-out will be unavailable.

There is no difference importing & exporting Metric data using "Export to Excel" or API: you can...

When exporting via API, there is a default of 200, which can be overridden by manually updating the limit (up to a feasible value of 100000).

There is no limit on the number of rows/datapoints you can export at a time using our Raw Values export, however there is a limit on the period: you can export a maximum of 1 month of data.