Unusual Metric Totals

Description

Weave reads each of your project’s approved metrics once a day and looks at its latest finished period. When the metric’s total for that period is outside its usual range, and one item in a breakdown, such as one customer, one product or one plant, changed far more than its usual share of the total would suggest, Weave reports it on the project’s Weave tab and names the item.

No AI model is involved. The check is a fixed rule, and every sentence is written in advance from the figures Weave read.

What a Finding Says

Weave noticed the metric "Revenue": it came to 16.4M in April 2026, against an
average of 11.2M (usual range 8.9M to 13.5M) over the 12 months before.
"Seasonal Specials" (by product_group), usually 2% of the total, rose from an
average of 210.0K to 1.7M, 1.5M of the rise of 5.2M (29%); the other 3.7M came
from elsewhere

Amounts are shortened to K, M and B, and no currency or unit is shown, because a metric definition doesn’t record one. A metric with a date column on a calendar year names the month, such as April 2026; any other names the period, such as period 8 of fiscal 2025.

When one item moved by more than the whole total did, the finding says so and says that everything else moved the other way. An item with nothing in the earlier periods is described as having had none.

How Weave knows shows the period, the total, the average of the earlier periods, how many periods were compared, the usual range, the item that moved most and any others that also moved far more than usual.

Which Metrics Weave Checks

A metric is checked when it is approved, not retired, and:

• it has a date column, or a year and period column, so it has periods to compare;
• it is a sum or a count, which Weave can split into what each item added;
• it has at least one breakdown column, such as customer or plant, to show what moved; and
• it is not calculated from other metrics.

Weave reads the approved version only, never a draft, and reads it as the Architect who approved it, seeing only what they can see. Weave checks up to 50 approved metrics in each project, the earliest approved first; any beyond those are listed as not checked.

A metric that doesn’t qualify, or that Weave couldn’t read, is listed as one Weave hasn’t checked, with the reason. It is never counted as fine.

How the Check Works

The period judged. For a metric with a date column, that is the latest period that ended at least 7 days ago, so a period still being loaded during your close isn’t judged. For a metric with year and period columns, which carry no dates, it is the period before the latest one with figures.

The usual range. Weave compares the period’s total with up to 12 periods before it and needs at least 6 of them with figures. The range comes from how much those periods varied.

Seasonal periods. A total outside the range is not reported when the same period in at least two of the three years before came out similarly. On a calendar whose periods divide into quarters, it is also not reported when it is in line with the same position in earlier quarters, such as a five-week month.

The item that moved. Weave splits the total by up to five breakdown columns, starting with those tied to a dimension, and names an item only when its share of the change is far larger than its usual share of the total. The finding leads with the item that moved most by amount. A change spread across many items, each moving in proportion, is not reported.

Late adjustments. Once a problem is reported for a period, its figures stay as first read while later readings stay within half a percent of them, so a small late adjustment doesn’t report it again as new.

What Weave Doesn’t Check

• A total outside its usual range, when no one item stands out.
• One item’s share shifting while the total stays in its usual range.
• Breakdown columns beyond the first five, or one with more than 50,000 figures across its items and periods.
• Whether the move is a mistake or real business.
• Drafts of the metric.
• Earlier periods, which are used only for comparison.

Who Sees It and Who Is Told

The finding belongs to the person who approved the metric’s current version, and they are told in PlaidCloud between runs. Like any finding, it also counts toward the daily digest of anyone who has turned the digest on. If the approver is no longer an Architect of the project, Weave stops checking the metric until a current Architect approves it.

Anyone who can read the project sees the finding on the Weave tab. In a project with row access, only Architects get these findings, because the figures were read with the approver’s access.

Each finding is recorded in the project’s Weave activity history when it is first reported. When a later reading of the same period no longer shows the problem, the history says Weave no longer found it. When the next period closes, it says Weave’s daily check moved on to that period. When the metric is retired or no longer approved, it says Weave stopped checking it.

Go To Rows

Go To Rows on a finding opens Table Explorer on the metric’s source table, filtered to the item, the period and the metric’s own filters, so you can see the rows behind the change. It appears for people who can read tables, and not for a metric that uses a lookup table, whose rows the source table alone can’t show.

Note

A newly approved metric is read within a day, unless the project already has 50 approved metrics. Until then it is listed as one Weave hasn’t read yet.

When Weave Hasn’t Checked a Metric

Reason shown	What to do
It is calculated from other metrics	Nothing; Weave checks only base metrics.
It is an average, a minimum, a maximum or a count of distinct values	Nothing; only sums and counts can be split by item.
It has no breakdown	Add a breakdown column, such as customer, and approve the new version.
It has no date or period column	Add a time binding and approve the new version.
Its year or period column holds values such as 2024-01	Point the time binding at whole-number year and period columns, or at a date column.
It has only a few periods of figures	Wait: Weave needs 6 earlier periods.
It has no figures for the period	Check that the period’s data loaded.
The approver is no longer an Architect	Have a current Architect approve it.
Reading it took more than 2 minutes	Weave tries again the next day.
Its breakdowns have more than 50,000 figures	Weave doesn’t check it while that is so.
The project has more than 50 approved metrics	Retire metrics nobody uses; the earliest approved are checked first.
Weave could not read its approved version	Weave tries again the next day.
Weave’s daily check last ran some days ago	Ask your PlaidCloud administrator.