As a BrightWork customer, you use our Project Metrics list all the time, whether it’s by directly accessing the list, or through the various reports that display its data. But you may not have given much thought to the underlying configuration of metrics.

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Let’s get acquainted with the settings of a calculated number metric using an “Overdue Items” metric, different sections at a time.

Calculated Number Metric Breakdown

Title: The caption of the calculated number metric that is presented to end users when they visit the Project Metrics list.

Description: Describes the metric – can be altered by you if you make changes to the metric.

Metric ID: This is the title of the metric that is stored behind the scenes and is referenced by reports. If this is changed in the slightest, it will break this metric aspect of the reporting unless associated updates to the report definition file (XML) have been made as well.

Active: If this is checked the metric’s current value will be displayed in the Project Metric list views and in any report web parts the metric is present in.

Metric Sources

Category: Used to organize this metric in the right group when viewing the Project Metrics list.

Metric Number Value: The value of the metric as per the last time it was recalculated.

Metric Data Source: Dictates where the metric value is derived from. If you just need to pick up the value from a single list, you would choose ‘Source is List’. If you need to search for values across more than one list, you would choose ‘Source is Report’.

Report Scope

Report Scope: Sets whether you just need the value from the current site, or if you also want to include all the values from child sites (usually set at a roll-up level such as Project Office or Projects Area).

Metric Calculation: Allows you to tally up all the relevant items, or to perform some sort of formula on the column, such as Maximum or Minimum value.

Automatically Calculate: Specifies if you want to recalculate the value of the metric every time the metric list is automatically recalculated as part of the installed server timer job.

Display As: Sets the display as Number, Percentage, Currency, or custom format.

Metric Comparison:

Show Indicator: Some metrics exist just to capture statistics about the project and do not have any associated indicators, and others also flip indicator colors based on their value. If you choose to show an indicator, then you will need to set the logic behind the color indicator by either comparing the present value of the metric to a fixed number, or to another metric in the same Project Metrics list.

Which is better: When ‘Lower values are better’ is selected, a value above the specified thresholds will trigger an indicator. When ‘Higher values are better’ is selected, a value below the specified thresholds will trigger an indicator.

Thresholds: Sets the number of returned items necessary to change the indicator from green to yellow, to red. In the screenshot presented above, the metric is configured to go straight to red color (Danger) as soon as there are one or more overdue work items.

Icons: We also have the option to reference a custom green, yellow, or red icon by entering the path to the custom icon in the text box; if left blank, the default out-of-the-box indicators will be used.