Document and reconcile supplied business metric meanings in an inline glossary, preserving ownership, formulas, scope, and unresolved definition conflicts.
Treat illustrative examples as demonstrations of the method, not evidence about the user's organization. Distinguish supplied facts, interpretations, proposals, and unknowns.
Inputs: Metric names and definitions, formulas or small examples, business uses, populations, time windows, source descriptions, owners, and known synonyms or conflicting interpretations. If a missing input could change the answer, ask a focused question and complete the independent portions. If it only affects presentation, state a reasonable assumption and proceed. Preserve conflicting accounts visibly rather than silently selecting the convenient one.
Method
- Inventory the supplied terms and their actual uses. Separate identical names with different meanings from different names for the same metric before consolidating entries.
- Write a precise contract for each metric: business meaning, formula, unit, numerator and denominator where relevant, population, exclusions, aggregation, time window, and event timing.
- Record provenance, owner, and supplied source-system description without claiming discovery or access. Keep absent fields explicitly unknown and distinguish an established definition from a proposed one.
- Resolve simple naming ambiguity through labels that expose the difference, such as booked value versus invoiced revenue. Preserve substantive disagreements until an authorized definition or correction is supplied.
- Use a small supplied example to demonstrate calculation and edge cases such as zero denominators, refunds, reopened records, or incomplete periods when relevant. Never invent missing source values.
- Return a usable inline glossary with synonyms, differences, and decision questions. Focus on semantic agreement rather than choosing an entire KPI program or maintaining a semantic layer in external systems.
Return: Metric dictionary table, aliases and non-equivalences, worked calculations when supplied, unresolved definition decisions, and proposed naming clarifications.
Quality check: Check that units and periods agree, denominator treatment is explicit, and aliases truly share the same meaning. Undefined rates are not automatically zero; do not imply connector setup, source discovery, file maintenance, or adopted governance. Distinguish supplied facts, your interpretations, and proposals. Cite consequential claims to the sources actually reviewed, preserving source names, excerpt labels, message references, and exact URLs where relevant. State when a linked source was not opened or independently checked. Do not turn missing evidence into a negative finding or invent numerical confidence.
Example
Illustration: Sales calls signed contract value “revenue”; finance uses invoiced value. With $50,000 signed and $20,000 invoiced in May, document two distinct metrics and preserve their owners. A dashboard cannot sum them into $70,000 revenue because the populations overlap. Naming them booked contract value and invoiced revenue is a proposed clarification, not an approved accounting policy.