Adding Annotations to Elements

Annotations allow Users to share insights on a Metric or Report with other Users. Metric Insights allows applying an Annotation to a single date point or to a range of dates. It is possible to easily apply Anotation to a broad set of Elements.

Table of contents:

  1. Access Metric Viewer
  2. Define Annotation Settings
  3. Choose Other Affected Metrics
  4. View the Annotation
  5. Adding Annotations for Future Dates

NOTE: To be able to create Annotations, Power Users must have either View or Edit Access to Element as well as the Add Annotation Privilege.

1. Access Metric Viewer

Open the Metric Viewer by opening the Metric Editor and clicking [View].

Click 'Add Annotation' below the Chart Legend

Access the Add Annotation pop-up by either:

1. Clicking on an existing Datapoint and clicking [Annotate];

2. Or clicking [Add Annotaion].

2. Define Annotation Settings

Provide the information required to create an Annotation
  1. Annotation start Date and Annotation finish Date: Use the Calendar icons to select the dates.
  2. Annotation text: Add the text. Note, that to change text formatting or add a link, you need to use Markdown. To learn the basics of Markdown syntax, click the M↓ icon at the top right corner of the text field.
  3. [Notify others] if you wish to notify other Users about this Annotation. See The Share Function articlefor more details.
  4. [Attach files] to add a file to provide more details to the Annotation.
  5. Show on other Metrics: Define either to add this Annotation only to the current Metric or to other Metrics as well.

2.1. Choose Other Affected Metrics

If you think that other Metrics were also affected, select them and add the same Annotation
  1. Include all Metrics: This drop-down allows the User to select related Metrics based on various criteria (e.g. Measure of, Topic, Category).
  2. Show on Charts that are: It is possible to restrict Element choices based on Measurement Interval.
  3. Applied to elements: Check and un-check Elements to add the same annotation to their charts.

3. View the Annotation

Select Save to View your Annotation
  1. Annotation range is indicated on Chart.
  2. Details on Annotation appear below the chart allowing others to comment on the Annotation.

NOTE: If existing Metric values are deleted, any data associated with the original Metric values such as Annotations will be discarded, even if the value of the data point(s) remains the same after data is recollected. For Annotations on a range of data points, if the first point in the date range is deleted and recollected, the Annotation will be deleted.

4. Adding Annotations for Future Dates

Users can easily add Annotations for a Metric's data points for which data has not been collected yet.  This is helpful when a User knows something will be happening during the current or future period. The Annotation will appear on the Chart and at the Homepage > News View when data is collected for that period; until then, the Annotation can be viewed on the Metric Viewer below the actual chart as show below.

NOTE:  Display of Future Annotations is controlled based on the last data point collected, regardless of how old that data is.

4.1. Future Annotation Warning

The User receives a warning when adding annotations to dates in the future.

Future Annotations

4.2. Viewing Future Annotations

Viewing future Annotations

As the Chart does not have a data point to which to "attach" the Annotation, information related to future Annotations is displayed in the Event/Annotation/Comment section below the Chart as shown in the image above. To see the details of future annotations, click Show future annotations.

4.3. Example of Future Annotations

Example of future Annotations

NOTE: Future Annotations have a different icon comparing to regular Annotations.