Dimensions and measures
Reports in Better Reports use two field types: dimensions and measures. Understanding how these work together helps you group and interpret data accurately. This article explains what each field type means, how they differ, and where to find them in the platform.
In this article
Dimensions
Dimensions are descriptive fields that group your data, such as Product name, Date, or Location.
They define how data is segmented in a report.
Common dimensions include:
- Date: group results by year, month, or day
- Location: group results by country, state, or region
- Customer: group results by customer type, company, or marketing state
Most fields can be used as a dimension, as long as they are available from the report's root table (the primary table the report is built from). For example, to calculate total sales by customer, you can use Customer Id or Customer Email as the dimension.
Reports often include more dimensions than measures, because data can be grouped in many ways, while analysis usually focuses on a smaller number of key measures.
Measures
Measures are numeric fields used for analysis, such as Total sales, Total quantity sold, or Average order value.
They represent what is being measured or calculated. Measures can be broken down by dimensions to show how values vary across different groups.
Common measures include:
- Total sales per product
- Average revenue per customer
- Number of orders per day
Measures help you analyse trends and performance across different dimensions in your report.
Where to find them
In the available fields pane, measures appear at the top (1), prefixed with the ∑ icon. Below them is the related tables section (3), followed by dimensions (2).
From the related tables section, you can use dimensions from other root tables in your report. Measures from those tables are not available.
When to use a dimension as a measure
You may want to use a dimension as a measure when you need to convert descriptive data into a single numeric value per report line, such as an average, total (sum), or latest (max) value.
In these cases, you can apply aggregation functions such as COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, or MAX to return one value for each line in the report.
Example:
You want a report showing the latest order date for each product and location.
- Product and Location are the dimensions.
- Latest order date is a measure calculated using MAX(OrderDate).
In this example, a Date dimension is used to calculate a single value per group in the report.
⚠️ Common mistake
Each table in Better Reports has its own structure, and using a dimension from a different table than the report's root table as a measure can inflate your report results.
For example, sales data is stored on the Agreement lines table and inventory data is stored on the Variants table. The Variants table contains one row per variant, while the Agreement lines contains one row per item sold. Because of this difference in structure, a sales report should not include inventory values as measures. If you add Inventory quantity as a SUM measure in a sales report, the value is repeated for every sale of the same variant, resulting in an inflated total.
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