Metric Certification

For Business Users

Metric certification is the process of formally approving metrics for organizational use. Certified metrics are reviewed, documented, and approved by designated owners—giving users confidence that they're using trusted data.

Why Certification Matters

Without certification:

Anyone can create metrics with any definition
No accountability for metric accuracy
Users don't know which metrics to trust
Compliance and audit risks

With certification:

Clear approval process
Documented ownership
Visible trust indicators
Audit-ready governance

Certification Workflow

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Metric Certification Workflow                     │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                      │
│   ┌─────────┐    ┌─────────┐    ┌─────────┐    ┌─────────────┐     │
│   │  Draft  │───►│ Review  │───►│ Approve │───►│  Certified  │     │
│   └─────────┘    └─────────┘    └─────────┘    └─────────────┘     │
│       │              │              │                │              │
│       │              │              │                │              │
│   Analyst        Technical      Business         Published         │
│   creates        review         owner            visible to        │
│   metric         validates      approves         all users         │
│                  logic                                              │
│                                                                      │
│   Requirements   Checks:        Confirms:        Benefits:          │
│   • Name         • SQL valid    • Matches need   • Trust badge      │
│   • Description  • Tests pass   • Ready for use  • Audit trail      │
│   • Owner        • Performance  • Owner accepts  • Change alerts    │
│   • Calculation  • Lineage      • Documentation                     │
│                                                                      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Certification Levels

Olytix Core supports multiple certification levels:

Level	Badge	Meaning	Use Case
Draft	📝	Work in progress	Development
Review	🔍	Under review	Pending approval
Certified	✓	Approved for use	Production
Deprecated	⚠️	Scheduled for removal	Migration

metrics:
  - name: monthly_revenue
    certification:
      status: certified
      certified_by: jane.doe@company.com
      certified_date: 2024-01-15
      expires: 2024-07-15  # Requires recertification
      level: gold  # Optional tier

Setting Up Certification

Define Certification Requirements

# olytix-core_project.yml
governance:
  certification:
    enabled: true

    # Who can certify different metric types
    approvers:
      financial_metrics:
        required_roles:
          - Finance Controller
          - CFO
        min_approvers: 2

      customer_metrics:
        required_roles:
          - Customer Success Director
          - Data Governance Lead
        min_approvers: 1

      operational_metrics:
        required_roles:
          - Operations Manager
          - Data Governance Lead
        min_approvers: 1

    # Required fields for certification
    required_fields:
      - description
      - owner
      - calculation_notes
      - business_context

    # Certification expiry
    expiry:
      default_days: 180
      warn_before_days: 30
      require_recertification: true

Certification Checklist

Before certifying a metric, verify:

certification_checklist:
  documentation:
    - description: "Clear, business-friendly description"
    - calculation: "How the metric is calculated"
    - assumptions: "Key assumptions documented"
    - limitations: "Known limitations noted"

  technical:
    - tests_passing: "All quality tests pass"
    - performance: "Query performs within SLA"
    - lineage: "Complete lineage documented"

  governance:
    - owner_assigned: "Clear ownership"
    - stakeholders_notified: "Key users informed"
    - compliance_reviewed: "Regulatory requirements met"

Certification Process

Step 1: Create Draft Metric

metrics:
  - name: new_customer_acquisition
    status: draft
    description: "Number of new customers acquired in the period"
    type: simple
    expression: customers.new_customer_count

    meta:
      owner: marketing-team
      requested_by: john.smith@company.com
      request_date: 2024-01-10
      business_need: "Track marketing campaign effectiveness"

Step 2: Submit for Review

metrics:
  - name: new_customer_acquisition
    status: review

    review:
      submitted_by: john.smith@company.com
      submitted_date: 2024-01-12
      technical_reviewer: data-team@company.com
      business_reviewer: marketing-director@company.com

Step 3: Technical Review

Technical reviewer validates:

technical_review:
  reviewer: data-team@company.com
  date: 2024-01-13

  checks:
    sql_valid: true
    tests_pass: true
    performance_acceptable: true
    lineage_complete: true

  comments: "Metric looks good. Added index recommendation for performance."
  status: approved

Step 4: Business Approval

Business owner confirms:

business_review:
  reviewer: marketing-director@company.com
  date: 2024-01-14

  checks:
    definition_accurate: true
    meets_business_need: true
    documentation_sufficient: true
    ownership_accepted: true

  comments: "Approved. This matches our campaign tracking requirements."
  status: approved

Step 5: Certification Complete

metrics:
  - name: new_customer_acquisition
    certification:
      status: certified
      certified_date: 2024-01-15
      certified_by:
        - data-team@company.com (technical)
        - marketing-director@company.com (business)
      expires: 2024-07-15

    meta:
      owner: marketing-team
      slack_channel: "#marketing-metrics"

Certification Dashboard

Metric Certification Status
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Overall Status
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total Metrics:       156
Certified:           142 (91%)  ████████████████████░░░
In Review:             8 ( 5%)  ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
Draft:                 4 ( 3%)  █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
Deprecated:            2 ( 1%)  ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░

Expiring Soon (next 30 days)
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
⚠ monthly_revenue         Expires: Jan 25    Owner: Finance
⚠ customer_churn_rate     Expires: Feb 01    Owner: CS Team
⚠ avg_order_value         Expires: Feb 05    Owner: Analytics

Pending Review
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
📝 marketing_roi          Submitted: Jan 18   Reviewer: CFO
📝 product_adoption       Submitted: Jan 19   Reviewer: Product

Recently Certified
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
✓ new_customer_acquisition  Certified: Jan 15  Owner: Marketing
✓ support_response_time     Certified: Jan 12  Owner: Support
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Recertification

Expiry Notifications

notifications:
  certification_expiry:
    - days_before: 30
      channels:
        - email: metric_owner
        - slack: owner_channel
      message: "Metric certification expiring soon"

    - days_before: 7
      channels:
        - email: [metric_owner, data_governance]
        - slack: [owner_channel, "#data-governance"]
      message: "URGENT: Metric certification expires in 7 days"

    - days_before: 0
      channels:
        - email: [metric_owner, data_governance, stakeholders]
        - slack: "#data-governance"
      message: "Metric certification EXPIRED"
      actions:
        - add_warning_badge: true

Recertification Checklist

Recertification Review - monthly_revenue
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Current Status: Certified (expires Jan 25, 2024)

Review Items:
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[✓] Definition still accurate
[✓] Calculation unchanged
[✓] Tests still passing
[✓] Performance acceptable
[✓] Documentation current
[✓] Owner confirmed

Changes Since Last Certification:
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
• No definition changes
• 2 minor bug fixes (documented)
• Added 1 new quality test

Usage Statistics (last 6 months):
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
• Total queries: 45,230
• Unique users: 156
• Dashboards using: 23
• Reports using: 12

Recommendation: Recertify without changes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Certification Best Practices

1. Clear Ownership

Every metric needs a clear owner:

meta:
  owner: finance-team
  owner_contact: finance-data@company.com
  backup_owner: data-governance@company.com

2. Business Context

Document why the metric exists:

description: |
  Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) represents the normalized monthly
  value of all active subscriptions.

  ## Business Purpose
  Used for revenue forecasting and investor reporting.

  ## Key Stakeholders
  - Finance team (primary)
  - Executive leadership
  - Investor relations

  ## Related Metrics
  - ARR (annualized)
  - Net Revenue Retention

3. Version Control

Track certification history:

certification_history:
  - version: 3.0
    date: 2024-01-15
    certified_by: cfo@company.com
    changes: "Added refund exclusion"

  - version: 2.0
    date: 2023-07-01
    certified_by: finance-director@company.com
    changes: "Included digital revenue"

  - version: 1.0
    date: 2023-01-01
    certified_by: data-team@company.com
    changes: "Initial certification"

4. Stakeholder Notifications

Notify users of changes:

notifications:
  on_certification_change:
    notify:
      - dashboard_owners  # Anyone using this metric
      - metric_subscribers  # Users who subscribed
      - data_governance  # Always notify governance
    channels:
      - email
      - slack

Integration with Tools

API Access

# Get certification status
curl http://localhost:8000/api/v1/metrics/monthly_revenue/certification

# Submit for review
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/v1/metrics/monthly_revenue/submit-review \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"reviewer": "cfo@company.com", "notes": "Ready for Q1 review"}'

Python SDK

from olytix-core import Olytix CoreClient

client = Olytix CoreClient("http://localhost:8000")

# Check certification
metric = client.get_metric("monthly_revenue")
print(f"Certified: {metric.certification.status}")
print(f"Expires: {metric.certification.expires}")

# Get all certified metrics
certified = client.list_metrics(certification_status="certified")

# Get expiring metrics
expiring = client.list_metrics(
    certification_expires_before="2024-02-01"
)

Next Steps

Ready to implement metric certification?

Start Simple

Begin with your most critical metrics (revenue, customers). Get those certified first, then expand the program to other metrics.

Why Certification Matters​

Certification Workflow​

Certification Levels​

Setting Up Certification​

Define Certification Requirements​

Certification Checklist​

Certification Process​

Step 1: Create Draft Metric​

Step 2: Submit for Review​

Step 3: Technical Review​

Step 4: Business Approval​

Step 5: Certification Complete​

Certification Dashboard​

Recertification​

Expiry Notifications​

Recertification Checklist​

Certification Best Practices​

1. Clear Ownership​

2. Business Context​

3. Version Control​

4. Stakeholder Notifications​

Integration with Tools​

API Access​

Python SDK​

Next Steps​