What's the difference between a metric and a modeled metric?

Programmatic and Organizational Metric

A metric is a value that someone enters or reports directly for a record (or pact)—it’s declared, not calculated.

• Source: human-reported (manual entry or spreadsheet import)

• Examples: “Acres treated,” “Linear feet restored,” “Number of trees planted,” “Number of Volunteers”

• What it represents: what was done and how it relates to broader goals.

• Where it lives: attached to an activity record and/or pact, often tied to an activity type and/or a funder program metric list

Programmatic metric lists are defined by a funding program and available to users to select once a pact within the program has been created.

Organizational metrics are available to standard users who want to curate their own list of metrics and assign them to activity records.

Modeled metric

A modeled metric is a value that FieldDoc computes by running a model with user provided inputs such as activity type, geometry/footprint, extent, context layers, etc. . It’s derived.

• Source: model output (calculated)

• Examples: “Estimated nitrogen reduction,” “Estimated phosphorus reduction,” “Sediment reduction,” “Estimated runoff reduction,” sometimes “Estimated GHG benefit,” etc.

• What it represents: the estimated impact of what was done, based on an accepted methodology

• Where it comes from: the Model Library / model run. A model run and the resulting modeled metrics can bet assigned to a pact or an individual activity record.

Practical rule of thumb

• If you can answer “Where did this number come from?” with “Someone reported it”, that's a metric

• If the answer is “The model calculated it from inputs/geometry”, that's a modeled metric

Why it matters

• Metrics are great for tracking scope and delivery (what, where, how much).

• Modeled metrics are what you use for defensible impact reporting when a program needs standardized estimates across projects.