Performance Analytics Intro

Performance Analytics generates accurate historical trends by capturing continuous snapshots on a regular basis, typically daily.

 

e.g. Reporting can tell you which tickets raised on day 1 assigned to Networks team, PA can tell you that Service Desk sat on them for 2 days before assigning to networks

 

PA answers questions such as:

Where were we before? Where are we today? How have we improved?

how quickly are we going to reach our goals?

 

In addition to snapshotting and trending, Performance Analytics is able to:

·       Track performance against Targets

·       Alert when Thresholds are met

·       Forecast future performance

·       Compare performance for different time periods

·       Speed up deployment with best practice out-of-box metrics

 

Dashboards use both Performance Analytics widgets and Reports to build a comprehensive picture of your business process health.

 

Scheduled jobs run regularly to take periodic snapshots of process behavior. Over time, this continuous stream of data builds a trend.

 

Indicator scores are stored in data tables. These tables are the data source of all visualizations:

• Scores [pa_scores_l1], [pa_scores_l2] - numeric scores for Indicators
• Snapshots [pa_snapshots] - references to the actual process records

 

 

Individual Indicator (KPI) scores become available after collection completes. Widgets present Indicator score in a specific format - trend line, bar chart, etc.

Example: You monitor the volume of incidents using the Number of new incidents indicator. This metric can be visualized as a single score, or, as a trend of daily readings over time by configuring the appropriate widget.

 

Multiple Indicator Widgets are presented in a single Dashboard view enabling stakeholders to view all relevant business process information in a single place.

 

Architecture and components:

·       End users generate data

·       Indicators: process measurements you wish to track (e.g. number of open incidents)

·       Breakdowns by which to group metrics you track (e.g. priority, category)

·       Scores and snapshots tables populated as a result of data collection

·       Analytics hub: statistics, score comparison, forecasting. Process owners can visualise their business KPIs in many widget types

·       Dashboards containing multiple widgets can be shared with all stakeholders

 

 

 

Plan and Prepare

Define measurements to assess and drive goal attainment

• Identify the business processes you want to measure and improve
• Determine factors and behaviors which affect the health of these business processes
• Decide the metrics to measure
• Use the KPI Composer to document your requirements and prototype your performance monitoring solution

Key Insight: 

• Plan to get stakeholder alignment before designing a solution
• Get trained on using the KPI Composer here

Leverage existing Analytics Solutions

• Do not jump to creating new KPIs just yet!
• Review the out-of-the-box Analytics solutions provided as Content Pack plugins
• Check your license entitlement and activate applicable Analytics Solutions / Content Pack plugins

Key Insight: 

• Start by using the built-in best practice dashboards and KPIs available in process specific Analytics Solutions bundles
• Review documentation on available Analytics Solutions (Content Packs) here

Configure and Collect

Verify Configuration and Collect Data and Scores

• Verify Sources and Definitions
• Configure Jobs
• Schedule collection to take periodic snapshots of your performance 

Key Insight: Collection jobs need to be configured to run with the desired frequency and activated. Daily snapshot collections build trends over time. Historical collection jobs should be executed initially for existing data.

 

Visualize and Empower

Drive data-based decision making

• Explore the available pre-configured content to get a feel for your data and decide on any dashboard customizations
• Grant dashboard access to stakeholders
• Empower everyone to take action with embedded, real-time analytics

Key Insight: Strive to display actionable KPIs that tell the story of your business process and display the right level of information to their intended viewers.

 

The pre-packaged best practice content includes KPIs, Widgets, Dashboards, and related supporting objects. 

Consult this documentation resource for a full list of the available Out-of-the-box Analytics Solutions.

 

• There are over 600 built-in KPIs for ITSM, ITBM, CSM, HR, Security, and other processes
• This out-of-the-box content is available as applications typically named Performance Analytics - Content Pack - <Application> and can be activated by your Sys Admin
• Navigate to  https://<instance name>.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2F$allappsmgmt.do to view all applications
• Search for content pack to view available Content Packs 

 

Indicators define metrics to track. They are based on an Indicator Source.

 

For example, the Change Management content pack provides data that can be used to monitor trend information on strategic Key Performance Indictors (KPIs) like % of changes closed before planned end date, % of new emergency changes, % of urgent changes, and more.  

 

The Open Changes Indicator source defines all Changes with State = Open.

 

The % of Urgent Changes Indicator uses the Open Changes source but retrieves only Urgent changes.

 

Similarly, the % of Emergency Changes Indicator also uses the Open Changes Indicator source but retrieves only the Emergency changes.

 

 

The data representing process or service performance is defined by Indicators and collected by collection jobs. Multi-day jobs collect the initial historic data. Regular jobs are then scheduled to run on a periodic basis (usually daily).

Once metrics are collected, Widgets and dashboards give you the ability to present the data in a meaningful way to your organization. The widgets are the visualization blocks or reusable views of indicators and breakdowns. You can place multiple widgets on a single dashboard to drive insight across processes and services.   

 

Make sure that the Indicator Sources provided with the out-of-the-box content are correctly pointing at the fields you want to use to measure the performance of your processes.

For most applications (Incident, Problem, Change, Request, etc.), there are usually three Indicator Sources of interest:

• <Application>.New: Contains process records created on a specific day. Determine if the Source uses the correct time stamp fields for your process.
  
  
• <Application>.Open: Contains records open on a specific day. Determine if the fields that come with the out-of-the-box indicator sources provide the correct measurements for your organization's processes.
• <Application>.Closed: Contains records closed on a specific day. Make sure that the Indicator Sources provided with the out-of-the-box content are really pointing at the fields you want to use to measure the performance of your processes.

 

• Historic collection should be run only once, when you install and configure Performance Analytics for the first time
• Be aware that Breakdown trends (States, Assignees, Categories) are not always accurate as a result of a historic collection
• By default, the historic Data Collector Job collects the last 60 days of data for the indicators specified in the job. Configure the job to collect more historic data if you want to go back further in time.

 

 

• A Daily collection is an Active job that is configured to run every day 
• Once configured, it automatically populates daily metrics into the Scores tables 
• A Daily collection can accurately capture changes in Breakdown trends

 

 Always verify correct completion of Data Collection by checking the Job Logs! To do that, navigate to Performance Analytics > Data Collector > Job Logs and check the job State

 

Here are some tips for ensuring that your Dashboards are providing value to the organization:

 

1

Use out-of-the-box dashboards as a starting point

·       2

2

Work with different stakeholders (Executives, Service Owners, Workers) to build dedicated dashboards they can use in their daily work

·       3

3

Periodically review dashboard usage and check with stakeholders to make sure they have access to relevant metrics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use the Analytics Hub to perform in-depth analysis of Indicator performance data using summary statistics, forecasting, and comparison.

 

 

 

Widgets:

·       Time series widget

·       Score widget

·       Breakdown widget

·       Workbench widget

 

Activate incident pack

 

Type performance in navigator

Go to data collector> jobs> verify 2 incident jobs (historic> check relative start and start interval, should only be run once, daily > activate the daily job)

On historic, scroll down to indicators

Navigate to indicator sources> open incident.new> confirm conditions and facts are correct

   Repeat for incident.open, incident.resolved

Navigate to PA> dashboards

Type incident in search

Open incident management dashboard> click settings in the banner (top-right cog)> set home property to dashboards

 

Activate incident SLA pack

 

System definition> plugins> install the plugin

 

Navigate to performance analytics> data collector> jobs

 

2 incident jobs should have been added

Adjust relative start / relative start interval on the jobs

Click execute now on the historic job

Confirm job completion via job logs, refresh list action via context menu

Navigate to indicator sources> examine SLA and OLA indicators

Navigate to jobs and activate daily collection job

Navigate to PA> dashboards

Click on All to view all dashboards

Look for SLA dashboards> go to incident SLA management dashboard> activate the dashboard, set system administrator to the owner of the dashboard