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Metric Visualizations

Metric Basics: Creating your first Metric

Metrics require more a little more consideration than charts. We recommend that you have a report that has the following data:

  • Fill Amount: An amount that is based on current data, for example actuals.

  • Marker Amount: An amount based on planned/projected/targeted data, for example budgets, forecasts, etc.

  • (Optional) Variance: Any amount you want to show above the Fill Amount. Common practices are the dynamic difference between the Fill and Marker Amounts or the Fill Amount itself.

Metrics also contain additional formatting options to charts. As such, the formatting options for a metric are separate from the report formatting options. That way a metric can display figures rounded up to Thousands, with the underlying report shown in dollars and cents.

For example I have a GL Balances report that has Actual, Budget and Variance (based on a standard calculation) Ledger Columns.


Within the View Ribbon Tab, click on New Visualizations and New Metric to open the Visualization Designer.


Clicking into the Series section, click on the Plus icon to add your first Metric Series. Unlike charts, metrics require manual selection of the cells that will comprise the metric. For each cell, there is an associated Cell Selector, shown below.

Click on the cell selector for Measure Title and then select the label column in the background report result set that contains the text for your metric. In the below example case, this is the Object Account Label Column.

You will then need to repeat the same process for Actual, Budget and Variance.

You can enter in hard-coded values, but you should use the values from your ERP.

Click on the Preview icon in the menu bar of the Visualization Designer. You should see a metric in the right panel of the dialog.


Congratulations! You’ve just created your first metric.

Metric Basics: More than one

Just like charts, metrics can display multiple data points in the visualization.

Within the Series section, click on the Add icon and use the Cell Selector to populate the Fill Amount, Marker Amount and Variance for another row of data in your reports result set.


Be aware that you can add more than just two metrics within your visualization. This means that if you had two metrics within one visualization, either both of them will need to be displayed or neither of them. However for readability it is recommended to limit the number of metrics in a visualization as they will scale to all fit within the provided screen size, which may reduce reusability.

Further Metric Options

General Options


  • Title: Used to specify the title in the metric.

  • When a user loads the chart in Hubble Web, the title displays in the Workspace. The saved name of the metric is available in the Workspace Table of Contents.

  • A title can be configured with the values specified in the original report filters to make the title more useful.

  • Subtitle: Used to specify the title in the metric.

  • Similar to the title, a subtitle can also contain further information from the underlying base report.

A suggested subtitle would be the following in order to display the base report, date and time in the subtitle:

“Report: <SavedName> Run Time: <RunDate:d> <RunDate:t>”

Layout Section


  • Type: This gives you access to different forms of metrics and options:

  • Cylinder – A metric that fills up a cylinder based on your amounts selected. No variations are currently provided.

  • Doughnut – Commonly used for the creation of speedometer.

    Users can specify if the needle is visible, the thickness of the doughnut and variations on the doughnut shape.

  • Bar gauge – A metric that fills up a horizontal bar with variations on the display.

  • Silhouette – A metric based on a shape in our system, selected from the Image list.

    • In conjunction with the Series section Stencil option, a silhouette can have another silhouette included within it (this can be useful for embedding company logos), or text.

    • If the “Multi Silhouette” option is selected from the Image list, images selected for the Stencil option will be displayed as the silhouettes instead (i.e. as opposed to being images placed within another a silhouette image).

    • New silhouette images can be created and added to the list of available images from the

      Generate Silhouette option on the View tab, See Silhouette Generator.

  • Pointer: This displays your Fill Amount

    Large    Normal    Small

  • Tick Marks: Used to specify how many tick marks are shown along your metric. Options include Detailed, Minimal, Normal and Sparse.

  • Tick Positions: Indicates where the ticks to indicate amounts are shown on the metric. Options include Both Sides (not normally recommended), Hidden, Inside (for a cylinder to the right) and Outside (for a cylinder to the left).

  • Milestone Area Fill and Milestone Indicator (both covered later in Metric Milestone example).

  • Measure Title: Allows you to specify where the location of the title is shown as well as the justification.

  • Measure Subtitle: Allows you to specify where the location of the subtitle is shown as well as the justification.

  • Wrap: When you have more than one metric in your visualization, this can be used to force line wrapping. ZERO is the default, meaning the system decides when to wrap.

  • If using this functionality, it is recommended to use the up and down arrows. Wrap Set To 0 (Automatic)    Wrap Set to 1

Series Section


  • Measure Title: Used to specify the title for the specific metric in the visualization.

  • Color: Used to specify the color of the individual metric. We recommend changing the color to your company colors.

    If left unchecked, the system will choose a default color designed to ensure variety.

  • Fill Amount: The amount that fills within the metric.

  • Marker Amount: The target/goal amount for the metric.

  • Variance: The dynamic difference between the Fill and Marker Amount.

  • Min/Max: Allows you to apply limits on the metric displayed.


Be careful with data that may change over time using these functions. Also this is not recommended for metrics based on percentages.

  • Value Format Override: Allows you to define whether you want to enable the following features that can be applied to the metric values:

  • Prefix: Useful for entering in a currency symbol

  • Suffix: Useful for entering in free text so numbers can have units after them

  • Decimal Places: Specify the number of decimal places.

    • To specify no decimal places, enter 0.

  • Thousand Separator

  • Reverse Sign

  • Divisor

  • Parenthesize Negatives

  • Auto Suffix

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED: Use of this feature should normally reduce the need for the Thousand Separator, Divisor and Suffix. Will automatically convert to Millions and Thousands.

  • Variance Format Override: Similar options as to Value Format Override, except applied to the Variance displayed on the metric.

  • Milestones: Covered in their own section.

  • Stencil: Used to show a stencil image or free text in the middle of the metric.

  • Measure Subtitle: Can be used to display text associated with the metric. This is either taken from the ERP, or alternatively, can be free text.

  • General: Allows you to define default titles and subtitles for metrics.

Metric Example


Metric Visualization: Using Milestones in your metrics

Milestones give a way of tracking progress within a metric.

In the example below, we will be using Revenue accounts and show how close they are coming to their Forecasted Amounts.


Milestones do allow for amounts to be manually selected or entered, but another way of doing this is to use Hubble Desktop’s calculation engine to create three Milestones calculations that are based on Forecast data:

  • MILESTONE1 is 1/3 of the Forecast Figure

  • MILESTONE2 is 2/3 of the Forecast Figure

  • MILESTONE3 is double the Forecast Figure (allows for Revenues to be higher than the Forecast)


These Forecast Calculations cannot be disabled, but they can be hidden so that they don’t show in Hubble Web.

Now that the base report is done, within the View Ribbon Tab, click on New Visualizations and New Metric to open the Visualization Designer.

Specify your Measure Title, Fill Amount, Marker Amount and Variance for each of the rows of data in your base report.

Now click into Milestones and click the Plus button for each Milestone.


Specify a color that suits each Milestone and either enter a value or reference a milestone from your original data. A traffic light red, yellow, green works well as a simple concept for your Hubble Web users.

Repeat this for each row of data in the base report.

Click on the Preview icon in the menu bar of the Visualization Designer and you will see the beginnings of your Milestone Metric.


To customize the Milestone Metric further, we recommend these settings in the Layout section:

  • Milestone Area Fill: Change from the default of Opaque to either Semi or Transparent.

    This setting allows you to specify how much of the Milestones are shown in the metric, shifting focus between the Milestones and the Actual Amounts.

  • Milestone Indicator: Allows you to specify if the Milestone is displayed. For this style of metric, Fill is suggested.

By changing these settings (Milestone Area Fill to Transparent) you will end up with Milestone Metrics that look like the following:


Using the original figures:

  • Object Account 5002 has exceeded its original Forecast and hence has a green color (as its within Milestone 3).

  • Object Account 5201 is still within Milestone 2 and therefore has a yellow color.

  • Note how both Variances shown on the Milestones are in their correct colors.


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