Using the metric report in the Report Center is a quick way to see:
- If you are reaching goals or targets that you want to reach. For example, emails being sent internally.
- If there are issues within your environment that may need investigation. For example, incoming spam email.
The data is a gauge, as shown below. The gauge helps you see if you are reaching your target or limit. Thus giving you insight into whether you are on course for a goal, or if you need to take action for your limits.
Note: Your data sources need to be a numerical value. If you’re looking for a report with information about departments, locations, license names, etc., select another report type. Check out this Report Center article for more information
Let’s look at an example.
Report Example: How many Teams meetings did we have in the last 30 days?
For example, if your organization hopes to have a certain number of Teams meetings within the month. To see a gauge related to the status of your target:
- Open the Nova Report Center and create a new report.
- Add a title and a description, if necessary.
- Click Metrics.
- For your data source, click Office 365 Users.
- For select chart type, click Gauge.
- For select operator, click Sum.
- For choose applied to, select Meeting count (30 days) under the Teams User Activity Aggregate category.
- Set your minimum and maximum numbers. Your maximum number in this example should be the number of Teams meetings you are targeting within your tenant within the previous month.
- Note: You may need to increase your maximum value to show your data.
- Ensure the Reverse Colors checkbox is selected.
- Close the section. Your report should now appear as a section.

Report Example: How many spam emails are we receiving?
Perhaps you are looking to get a clear metric on how many spam emails are coming in to your tenant, with a limit on what is acceptable. This metric gives a clear image on whether this limit is being reached. To create it:
- Open the Nova Report Center and create a new report.
- Add a title and a description, if necessary.
- Click Metrics.
- For your data source, click Office 365 Mail Traffic.
- For select chart type, click Gauge.
- For select operator, click Count.
- For choose applied to, select Inbound Spam Content Filtered under the Office 365 Mail Traffic category.
- Set your minimum and maximum numbers. Your maximum number in this example should be the number of spam emails your administrator deems as acceptable.
- Note: You may need to increase your maximum value to show your data.
- Ensure the Reverse Colors checkbox is not selected.
- Close the section. Your report should now appear as a section.

View more custom report examples here.