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A metric is a value Orion tracks over time: revenue this week, active users, churn rate, or a whole table of results. Once created, a metric re-runs on its own schedule, keeps every result as history, and renders as a live card on the project board. Where a chat analysis answers a question once, a metric keeps answering it. That makes metrics the building block for everything recurring in Orion: project boards your team checks daily, and Workflows that read metric values on a schedule.

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What a metric contains

  • Data sources - One or more queries, SQL or Looker, that pull the raw data
  • A transformation - Python code that turns the query results into the tracked value
  • A value type - A number, percentage, currency, string, table, or a small set of fields
  • A visualization - How the card renders: big number, chart type, colors, labels
  • A schedule - How often the metric refreshes on its own
  • Run history - Every execution result, kept so you can see the value over time
Each metric shows a state pill: Active, Paused, Error, or Draft.

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Creating a Metric

Metrics are created in chat. Ask Orion to track something, and it builds the metric for you:
  • “Track daily active users from BigQuery”
  • “Create a metric from this SQL query”
  • “Turn the revenue number from this analysis into a metric”
Before anything is saved, Orion validates the metric with a dry run against your real data and shows you the result. The metric is only created after you confirm.
The easiest path: run an analysis in chat first, then ask Orion to track the number you care about. The metric inherits the validated logic from the analysis.

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Orion Suggested metrics

Orion can also propose metrics proactively based on your project data. These carry an Orion Suggested badge and a banner explaining where they came from, with a Hide from Shared Board button if the suggestion misses.

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Shared and personal metrics

The project home page has two tabs:
  • Shared - The shared board. Shared Metrics are visible to every project member.
  • Yours - Your Metrics, everything you created, shared or not.
Every metric card has a visibility button: a single-person icon means Private, a multi-person icon means Shared. Click it to move a metric on or off the shared board; a confirmation dialog (Add to Shared Board?) makes the change explicit. Visibility can be changed by admins, the project owner, or the metric’s creator. Everyone else sees a lock explaining who can.
Sharing a metric is how it becomes a tile on the project board for the whole team. If the board looks empty, check the Yours tab: metrics start out visible only to their creator.

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Arranging the board

Shared metrics render in a four-column grid on the project page:
  • Reorder - Drag a card to a new position
  • Resize - Drag the handle in a card’s bottom-right corner to change its footprint
  • Layout changes save automatically

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Next steps