MicroStrategy - Understanding Level Metric

Many people have hard time understanding the Level Metrics in MicroStrategy - including me. Here is a quick cheat sheet I put together for reference.

Consider the following data layout: Country, Regions, Call Centers

Geographical Hierarchy: Country --< Regions --< Call Centers

Total 6 call centers: Region1 (R1C1, R1C2), Region2 (R2C3, R2C4), Region3 (R3C5, R3C6)

Report Filter: Call Center in (R1C1, R2C3, R2C4)

'The Cheat Sheet'

TARGET ATTRIBUTE	FILTERING	GROUPING	Revenue Summary Outcome
Region	STANDARD	STANDARD	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report and SUM all Revenue for Call Centers displayed on report and Group By Region Region1: R1C1 Region2: R2C3 + R2C4
Region	STANDARD	NONE	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report and SUM all Revenue for Call Centers displayed on report and do NOT Group By Region1: R1C1 + R2C3 + R2C4 Region2: R1C1 + R2C3 + R2C4
Region	ABSOLUTE	STANDARD	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report, SUM all Revenue within each Region while ignoring the Filter Region1: R1C1 + R1C2 Region2: R2C3 + R2C4
Region	ABSOLUTE	NONE	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report, SUM all Revenue for the Regions on the report while ignoring the Filter, do not break by Region Region1: R1C1 + R1C2 + R2C3 + R2C4 Region2: R1C1 + R1C2 + R2C3 + R2C4
Region	IGNORE	STANDARD	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report, SUM all Revenue for each Call Center and Group By Region Region1: R1C1 + R1C2 Region2: R2C3 + R2C4
Region	IGNORE	NONE	Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report, SUM all Revenue for entire Country, ignore filters and group by Region1: R1C1 + R1C2 + R2C3 + R2C4 + R3C5 + R3C6 Region2: R1C1 + R1C2 + R2C3 + R2C4 + R3C5 + R3C6

  

What does it mean when 'Target' is set to 'Report Level'?

Presence of the default Report Level target on a metric tells the MicroStrategy engine to group by all the attribute IDs found on the template.

By removing the Report Level target from the metric and selecting None for the grouping of any other available target attribute, MicroStrategy Engine understands that there should not be a Group By clause in the SQL that calculates the metric. You can use any attribute for this purpose. You do not need to add more than one attribute unless specific filtering behavior is required for the metric.

If specific filtering behavior is required, you need to add other target attributes, but you should always select None grouping.

There is a lot more to Level Metrics than this and easily understood when combined with examples.