Work with Needs attention panels in Digital Portfolio Management
Summarize
Summary of Work with Needs attention panels in Digital Portfolio Management
Digital Portfolio Management (DPM) provides Needs attention panels in each workspace page to display items requiring attention within the context of your solutions. These panels help you monitor the status and severity of issues, enabling data-driven decisions without necessarily acting on each item directly. The categories within these panels vary by solution type, such as services, service offerings, business applications, and application services.
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The Standard version of Needs attention panels, introduced in the Utah release (May 2023), offers enhanced flexibility and is enabled by default for all customers. Existing customers can toggle back to the legacy version if desired; new customers cannot disable the Standard panels.
Key Features
- Configurable System Property: Admins with the DPM admin role can enable or disable Standard Needs attention panels via the system property sndpm.standardneedsattention in the DPM Administration Settings.
- Expanded Problem Visibility (from August 2024 release): Problems are now visible in Needs attention panels for services, service offerings, business applications, and application services, with proper roll-up and deduplication at the parent service level.
- Application Service Enhancements (from November 2024 release): Incidents, problems, and changes linked via Impacted services or Affected CIs related lists, in addition to the Configuration item field, are now reflected in Needs attention panels and roll up through business applications, taxonomy nodes, and portfolios.
- Panel Navigation and Search: You can search, paginate, and drill down into records directly from Needs attention panels. Search criteria persist until cleared, facilitating efficient investigation.
- Icons and Interaction: Different icons support actions such as toggling panel visibility, viewing team contacts, accessing knowledge articles, attachments, and catalog items, depending on the solution type.
- Incident, Outage, and Change Roll-up: Records link to offerings and roll up to parent services, ensuring no duplication in listings when multiple offerings are affected.
- Incident Severity Levels: Critical incidents are shown by default; to include major incidents, the Major Incident Management plugin must be installed.
Needs attention Panels per Solution Type
Each DPM solution page shows relevant record types created on the current day:
- Services and Service Offerings: Critical and major incidents, outages, changes; for new and zBoot customers, also audit and risks.
- Application Services: Critical and major incidents, outages, changes, alerts, risks; plus audits for new and zBoot customers.
- Business Applications: Critical and major incidents, changes, risks, audits.
To view Risk data, the Technology Portfolio Management plugin and its dependencies (Application Portfolio Management and Software Asset Management plugins) must be installed.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Quickly identify and monitor critical issues impacting your portfolio and solutions in a centralized, contextual workspace.
- Leverage flexible panel configurations to suit your organizational needs while maintaining visibility into operational risks and incidents.
- Benefit from automatic roll-up of problems and incidents through hierarchical solution structures, ensuring comprehensive oversight without duplication.
- Utilize enhanced search and navigation capabilities within Needs attention panels to streamline issue investigation and resolution planning.
- Integrate risk and audit data where applicable to gain a holistic view of solution health and compliance.
Digital Portfolio Management (DPM) enables you to view items that need attention in the context of your solutions. Categories in each Needs attention panel differ based on the solution type. You may not act on an item that needs attention, but you can see its status and severity to make data-driven decisions about your solutions.
Each DPM Workspace page has a Needs attention panel that presents items that need attention in the context of the page. You can search items that need attention on the DPM home page but it's more useful to search while viewing a portfolio or a solution.
Standard Needs attention panels were introduced in the Utah release (May 2023). The Standard version is more flexible than its legacy counterpart. The Standard system property is set to true by default. Existing customers can set it to false to return to the former Needs attention functionality. There isn't a limit to changing the value from true to false (and back). New customers can't set the system property to false, so they’ll only see the Standard version.
Standard Needs attention panels system property
Admins update the system property with the DPM admin [sn_dpm.dpm_admin] role.
- Navigate to .
- Enter *needs in the System Properties Name search field, and then press Enter.
- Select the system property [sn_dpm.standard_needs_attention].
- Release the record to edit it, and then set the property to false or true.
- Select Update.
Problems option in the Needs attention panel
To see problems in the Needs attention panel, you must be using the DPM August 2024 release or a later release.
- Services and service offerings. Problems are related to the service offering via the service offering record on the form, impacted services related list, and on the affected CIs related list. Problems are then rolled up to the parent service and should be deduplicated at the parent service level.
- Business applications. Problems are related to the application service via the configuration item field on the form. Problems are then rolled up from the application service to the business application and should be deduplicated at the parent service level.
- Application services. Problems are related to the application service via the configuration item field on the form.
Application service considerations
Prior to the November 2024 Store release, you could see the records of incidents, problems, and changes in the Needs attention panel only if the application service is added to the Configuration item field of a related item (for example, to an incident record).
As of the November 2024 Store release, items or records are reflected in the Needs attention panel when an incident, problem, or change includes the application service in the Impacted services or the Affected CIs related list, in addition to the Configuration item field.
- Business application
- Taxonomy node
- Portfolio
- Select View details on any affected solution page.
- View the Run tab of any solution page to view the KPI indicators.
This functionality applies to enterprise business application portfolios, enterprise application service portfolios, and to any business application or application service added to your personal portfolios.
Panel attributes and icons
Even though the Needs attention panel categories differ for each portfolio and solution, the basic navigation is the same. All panels enable you to search, see a list of Needs attention cards, paginate through the cards, and drill down to a record from the card list.
- Each Needs attention category includes a number that indicates the number of items in that category. If there are no Needs attention items in a category, then the number is zero (0).
- Select the forward arrow (>) next to a number in the category to see a list of record cards that need attention. From the card list, you can select a card to access its record. You can also go back by selecting the Needs attention back arrow (<).
- The Needs attention Search field enables you to enter a number, a part of a word, or a whole word to find Needs attention items that contain your search criteria. After you view and open a record that
needs attention, you can return to the Search field. Your search criteria remain in the Search field until you clear the field.The following table shows the Needs attention panel icons that display for each solution type.
Table 1. Needs attention panel icons per solution type Solution type Needs attention panel icons Services and service offerings - Needs attention icon (
) to show or hide the Needs attention panels. This toggle isn't on the DPM Workspace home page. - Contacts icon (
) to view team members and the all the teams that support the service offering. - Knowledge articles icon(
) to search for related knowledge articles. - Attachments icon (
) to view and add attachments to the record. - Catalog items icon (
) to search for catalog items on a service or service offering record.
Business applications and application services - Needs attention icon () to show or hide the Needs attention panels. This toggle isn't on the DPM Workspace home page.
- Contacts icon () to view team members and all the teams that support the business application or the application service.
- Attachments icon () to view and add attachments to the record.
- Needs attention icon (
Service considerations
- A record is linked to the offering and rolled up to the service. You can see incidents, outages, and changes when the incident is linked directly to the service (not to the offering).
- An incident, outage, or change can impact multiple offerings.
- A record is first displayed on the offering, and then it's rolled up to the parent service.
- An incident displays once (not twice) if two offerings are added to an incident and they roll up to the same service.
Service offering considerations
- Listed in the service offering field on the incident record or the change record.
- Included in the affected services or the affected CI related lists, or both.
- Rolled up to the parent service level when an incident or change is related to an offering (via a related list or directly on the form).
Panel options per DPM solution
Records included on each DPM solution page are the ones created "today."
| Services and service offerings | Application services | Business applications |
|---|---|---|
For new and zBoot customers, all the above plus Audit and Risks. |
For new and zBoot customers, all the above plus Audits. |
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Note:
To see Risk data, you must have the Technology Portfolio Management plugin installed [sn_apm_tpm]. This plugin has two dependency plugins:
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