Difference Between Concepts and Metrics

While concepts and metrics share the same structural components, they serve distinct purposes in the semantic model:

Concepts:

Represent business entities or objects (things)
Focus on characteristics, properties, and relationships
Answer "what" and "who" questions
Typically have one record per business entity instance

Metrics:

Represent business measurements and KPIs (values)
Focus on quantification, aggregation, and trends
Answer "how much," "how many," and "how well" questions
Typically aggregate data across multiple records

Understanding this fundamental difference helps when designing your semantic model and deciding whether a particular business entity should be implemented as a concept or a metric.