How Do I Use a Metrics Filter

Another entry in our 'Basics' series, this article will cover how to use a Metrics Filter in Report Toaster. 

Note - While included in our 'Basics' series, Metrics Filters are typically intended for more sophisticated users of Report Toaster. Feel free to ask us for help! 

What Is a Metrics Filter? 

A normal filter is used to filter on a specific attribute.

For example, if I filtered a Sales by Product report to show me only products where the Product Type is equal to Animal:

In contrast, Metrics filters are used when you want to filter based on a metric (e.g., Net Quantity) for an individual row.

This is easiest to illustrate with an example. 

How Does It Work?

Suppose we were looking at an order that has a mixture of items ordered on it:

Now let's look at a Summary Report (i.e., anything with totals in the header - like Finance Summary).

Here we can see that if we again used the regular filter to limit the results to just that order, we would see that the person ordered a total Net Quantity of 8 items: 

 

So, what would happen if we added a filter for "Net Quantity greater than 5"?

We would get no results! Why?

A normal filter will look at all the individual sale lines on the order (see our first screenshot in this example). 
None of our items (individually) have a Net Quantity greater than 5 -> they are all 3, 4, and 1 respectively. So nothing meets our filter criteria!

A metric filter will instead look at the total quantity in aggregate for that row. 

As long as we are grouping our results by individual order (see below), a metric filter for "Net Quantity greater than 5" would display our order:

So, how might this work in a real use case?

Putting It Into Practice - Tips and Tricks

Well, suppose I want to find all orders with more than 5 items on them?

For this to work, we need to make sure Order Name is on there as a column. This is because we want our results grouped by each individual order:

Now we can see all orders with 5+ items on them. 

Note that if we removed Order name, we'd get a single summary row for everything, just like the default Finance Summary.

This row would of course have Net Quantity greater than 5 (23,916)... so every single order would qualify, which is NOT what we want!

Likewise, if we added Product Title on there as a column, the report would be broken down into one row for each individual product on an order. 
So, with that same metric filter, this report would now be showing who ordered 5+ of any one individual product, not 5+ items on a single order.

The key thing to bear in mind then is how your report is broken down. Is it by order, by product, by customer (or is it just a single summary row of everything)?
Either way, the metric filter is filtering on a metric for an individual row. 

Adding/Changing/Removing a Metrics Filter

You can add a Metrics Filter to any Summary report (those with totals in the header).

Click the more button (top right), go to Advanced, and click on Metrics Filter.

From here, you can add/change/remove them just like a regular Filter. 

Note that once a metric filter has been added to a report, you'll see this Metrics icon appear (top right). 

You can click on this icon to go directly to the metric filter.

This will also help remind you that there's a metric filter in place on a report (in case you're troubleshooting, for example!).

​

For other articles in our Basic Guides series, check out our main section here.

• Related Articles

• What's New? - November 2022

  Another month and it's time for another update :) We've been busy lately working on a number of improvements for Report Toaster, one of which involve the ability to create new metrics that can combine data between two different types of Reports. The ...

• How Do I Use a Filter on a Report?

  Next up in our 'Basics' series, we have how to use a Filter in a Report. Video more your thing? Check out the video version of this guide here. This is perfect for when you have the columns you need, and now you want to narrow down, segment, or ...

• How Do I Use Advanced Options?

  Another entry in our 'Basics' series, this article will cover how to used the Advanced Options for Chart reports in Report Toaster. Note - While included in our Basics series, these Advanced Options are typically intended for more sophisticated users ...

• How Do I Compare Date Ranges on a Report?

  In this article, we look at how you can use Comparison Ranges and Time Series Metrics to compare different date ranges on a report and track the changes between them. Video more your thing? Check out the video version of this guide here. So how do we ...

• Adding Filters to a Report (Shorts)

  Learn the basics of how to add a filter to a report in <5 minutes! (Be sure to switch to Full Screen and high resolution for best results. Refresh your browser if the above embedded video doesn't display, or view directly here.) In this video, we'll ...