Metric types

Lightup offers a full range of metric types. View Create and edit metrics for details on how to create each type.

Column metrics

Aggregation

Calculate an aggregate function on a column's values for a set of rows

Metric	Description	Column
Avg	Returns the sum of values divided by number of rows.	Numeric
Count	Returns the count of values.	Any (not recommended for ID columns)
Count Unique	Returns the count of distinct values.	Any (not recommended for ID columns)
Max	Returns the largest value.	Numeric
Median	Returns a number for which half of the values are smaller and half are larger.	Numeric
Min	Returns the smallest value.	Numeric
Percentile	Returns the value at or below which the specified fraction of values in its frequency distribution falls.	Numeric
St.Dev	Returns the standard deviation.	Numeric
Sum	Returns the sum of values.	Numeric

Conformity check

Calculate the percent of rows that conform to a condition

Metric	Description	Column
Contains/Does not contain string	Compares selected column's values with input string.	String
Equal/Not equal	Compares selected column's values with input.	Any
Greater than	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the column's value is greater.	Numeric
Greater than or equal to	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the column's value is greater.	Numeric
In/Not in	Compared selected column's values with an input set of values.	Any
In column/Not in column	Compares selected column's values with a second column's values.	Any
Is decreasing	Checks that column values are always decreasing. Returns 100% when current value is less than the previous value, and 0% when it is greater than or equal to the previous value.	Numeric
Is increasing	Checks that column values are always increasing. Returns 100% when current value is greater than the previous value, and 0% when it is less than or equal to the previous value.	Numeric
Is unique	Checks for unique values.	Any
Length equal to	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the length is equal.	String
Length greater than	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the length of the column value is greater.	String
Length greater than or equal to	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the length of the column value is equal or greater.	String
Length less than	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the length of the column value is smaller.	String
Length less than or equal to	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the length of the column value is equal or smaller.	String
Less than or equal to	Compares selected column's values with input number and matches if the column's value is greater.	Numeric
Match pattern/Does not match pattern	Compares selected column's values with input pattern.	String
Match regex/Does not match regex	Compares selected column's values with input regular expression.	Any
Null/Not null	Checks selected column's values for nulls.	Any

Distribution metrics

Calculate the distribution of a column's values

Metric	Description
Distribution	Measures the distribution of distinct values.

Comparison metrics

Calculate how much two similar objects match

Metric	Description
Compare aggregate	Measures the degree to which two aggregate metrics match.
Row by Row	Measures the percentage of rows in two tables where the key columns match, and the values of attribute columns in those matching rows.

Table metrics

Measure characteristics of a table or its behavior

Metric	Description
Data delay	Measures the time elapsed since the most recent data arrived.
Data volume	Measures the number of rows loaded.

Metadata metrics

Metadata metrics are a kind of table metric that can't be edited or customized

Metadata metric	What it measures	Supported datasources
Column activity	Columns added, altered (data type change), or dropped.	All
Update Delay	Time since the last data write.	BigQuery, Databricks, Incorta, MS-SQL, Redshift, Snowflake
Byte Count	The total number of bytes.	Databricks

SQL metrics

SQL metrics support any valid SQL.

The Metrics list

The Metrics list is an easy way to work with all the metrics in a workspace. To open it, select Metrics in the top bar.

Assess metrics at a glance

Tiles across the top of the list display counts of metrics in the workspace:

Total (all metrics)
Monitored (metrics with at least one monitor attached)
Ongoing incidents (metrics currently generating an incident)
Live (metrics currently active)
Paused (metrics currently paused for any reason)
Error (metrics stopped by an exception, or after three query timeouts due to query governance settings)

Using list controls

Just above the list items, controls let you work with the list:

Search for a metric across columns by name or by attribute.
Create a new metric with Create Metric +.
Select the number of rows to display per page by selecting Show <n>.
Choose which columns to display by clicking on the gear icon.
Navigation arrows and page numbers let you jump around in the list.
The left column lets you select items to perform bulk operations on them.

Working with list items

In the list header, you have more options for working with list items:

Select the check box to select all items on the page.
Select a column heading to sort the list using the column's values in ascending order. Select it again to reverse the sort order. Select it a third time to stop sorting using that column.
Click a value in the Name column to open a context menu that lets you do a variety of operations on that metric.