Targets

How targets works

1. Create a table in your database following the targets table format found below
2. Connect your targets table to Steep.
3. Add targets to line, bar, and rank charts and tables or display them in home and team screen widgets
4. Apply filters
   • Single filter applied → Shows the target for the selected dimension.
   • Multiple filters applied → Automatically adds up target values for the selected dimensions.

This ensures that targets match the filtered data, making it easy to track progress toward goals without manual adjustments.

Targets are typically used for Budgets and Forecasts, and tied to specific metrics. You may add more than one target to each metric in your workspace.

How to prepare your targets data

To set up targets in Steep, register a target table from your database. Steep will read targets from this table and match them to the corresponding metric. The target table needs to follow the formatting outlined below.

Target table format

Target table columns:

• Series: The series column can be used to set up multiple targets per metric, e.g. ”Budget”, ”Budget v2”, ”Stretch budget”, that users can switch between.

• Time: The time column specifies the start date of each period based on the time grain (for example 2022-04-01 for April on a monthly time grain, or 2022-04-04 for Week of Apr 4 on a weekly time grain). Steep automatically detects the time grain of your target series by looking at the difference between the first two dates in each series.

• Metric: The metric column is used to specify the metric and corresponds to the unique metric identifier, which can be found under the About tab in a metric, or when editing the metric. Using the metric identifier in the target setup ensures it stay consistent, even if metric names are changed.

• Dimension: The dimension column(s)is used to specify the dimension and dimension values. A metric can have multiple dimensions, and the column name must match the column name of the dimension in your database. Add the corresponding dimension values in the table. If targets are not set at the dimension level, you can exclude the dimension columns. Specify the dimension value for a metric, or a combination of dimension values.

• Value: The value column represents the target value for the specific metric and applied dimensions for the specified time.

• Ratio metrics: If you are adding a target to a ratio metric you need to include numerator and denominator columns. Add the numerator and denominator that is used to generate the target value. The target ratio will automatically appear as either a number or percentage, depending on how the metric is defined.

Target table examples:

Aggregation and interpolation

Steep handles aggregation and interpolation of target values based on the metric template type. How values are calculated depends on whether you're aggregating across time or dimensions.

There are two resampling methods:

• Sum/Divide: Adds values or divides them proportionally (e.g. summing daily values into weekly).

• Average/Repeat: Averages values or repeats the same value across the time range.

The default method depends on the metric template type, but you can override it when creating or editing a metric.

Time aggregation

If your chart uses a different time grain than what’s defined in your target table (e.g. showing weekly data from daily targets), Steep automatically resamples the target values.

Dimensions

When you break down targets by dimensions other than time, Steep applies the following aggregation rules:

How to connect your targets table

To register your targets table in Steep, go to Settings → Targets → select the targets table from your database.

How to add targets to visualizations