Measurement Planning
Part of Ecommerce analytics operations
Maintaining a dictionary of store metrics
Maintain metric formulas, owners and effective dates so report users can reproduce store figures and recognise definition changes.
Maintain a store-metric dictionary as a versioned agreement on what each reported number means. Give every headline metric an owner and an effective date. If its calculation or eligible population changes, keep the old definition and identify which comparisons are affected.
Make each entry reproducible
Record the counting unit, formula, source fields, included records, exclusions, date field, reporting time zone, currency, refresh rule and known limits. A rate needs a numerator and denominator. For an amount, specify the treatment of discounts, tax, delivery and later adjustments. Add the reports that use the entry so a change has a known destination.
Vendor labels are a starting point. Shopify's sales reports, for example, define terms such as gross sales, discounts and sales reversals, and note that gross sales is before taxes, shipping, discounts and sales reversals. A store measure called paid-order sales therefore needs its own qualifying rule, even if it appears beside a vendor's reported sales figure.
Review a proposed change
Ask the metric owner to describe what changed and when it takes effect. Before approval, check:
- Does the unit, population, calculation, date or amount rule change?
- Which reports, targets and saved comparisons use the old entry?
- Can both versions be calculated for overlapping dates, or is a visible break needed?
- Who will check representative records and approve the replacement?
Keep the earlier entry and its effective dates. A spelling correction may need a note; a change from orders placed to payment-confirmed orders changes the measure's meaning. Do not relabel historical figures as though they used the new rule.
Before vs After: Metric Definition Change
- Old Definition (Pre-2026-01-01)
- Paid-order sales = orders with payment confirmed by checkout time
- New Definition (From 2026-01-01)
- Paid-order sales = orders with payment confirmed and settled in Stripe/Shopify Payments
Keep definitions beside the figures
Show a short definition and version beside each headline report figure, with the complete entry available to reviewers. If two teams use the same name for different measures, align their rules or give the measures distinct names.
Review entries after source, checkout or reporting changes and at an agreed regular interval. Record the approval, effective date, affected reports and any historical periods that remain incomparable. A current dictionary lets a reviewer reproduce a figure and understand why an older one differs.
