Define a MetricFlow derived metric with a time offset to compute period-over-period growth
domain: docs.getdbt.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Define the base metric (e.g., revenue) as a simple metric in your semantic model
Create a second derived metric entry with type: derived, an expr referencing the base metric, and add an input_metrics block listing the base metric with an offset_window value such as 1 month or 7 days
Add a third derived metric that subtracts the offset metric from the current-period metric using expr to produce the absolute change, or divides them to produce a growth rate
Set join_to_timespine: true on the derived metric so that missing periods are filled rather than omitted from results
Validate with dbt sl query --metrics revenue_wow_growth --group-by metric_time__week and inspect that prior-period values align correctly
Known gotchas
offset_window is specified on the individual input_metric entry inside input_metrics, not as a top-level key on the derived metric itself; placing it at the wrong level silently has no effect
MetricFlow joins data after aggregation when the query grain matches the offset grain; querying at a finer grain than the offset can produce unexpected NULL rows rather than shifted values
Derived metrics referencing offset input metrics cannot themselves be used as input_metrics in another derived metric that also has an offset; flatten the calculation into a single derived metric instead
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