Metric data format

Formatting the metric values that display in reports provides consistent management of the numeric information seen by the report viewer.

You can format the metric data displayed in a report, if the option is included in the reporter parameters. You can determine how the report table formats the data it displays. Scaling lets you indicate which unit to display per metric.

If no data is available for a metric or statistic and a particular group or resource, the report displays a string that indicates there is no data. The string depends on the data type and can either be "--" or "0." The use of the two different indicators distinguishes between a Trouble Ticket counter (monitors user activity) and an SNMP counter (monitors device behavior.)

• When a counter represents user activity, the counter is 0 if there is no user activity; which means no data has been stored. The absence of an explicit value 0 is best displayed as "0" in the report.
• When the counter represents device behavior, the SNMP formula queries a counter that can explicitly return the value 0; which is stored in the database. If the device does not respond, no data from which a value can be stored (then displayed) exists. The lack of a value is best displayed as "--" in the report because the lack of a value does not mean that the value is 0.