Create new indicator form

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Create new indicator form

    The Create new indicator form in the Enterprise Architecture indicator framework enables ServiceNow customers to define application or capability indicators. These indicators assess and score applications or capabilities, helping organizations measure and improve their digital assets effectively. The form supports various data sources and customization options to tailor indicators to specific business needs.

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    Key Features

    • Indicator Definition Fields: Customers specify the indicator’s name, short description, result limit (to optimize performance by limiting record processing), category, direction (whether higher or lower values are better), unit type (numbers, percentages, currencies, time quantities, etc.), automatic refresh interval, and display order.
    • Data Source Configuration: Indicators can source data from:
      • Performance Analytics: Use existing Performance Analytics indicators to collect scores.
      • Custom Scripts: Write scripts to query records from ServiceNow tables, allowing flexibility to gather custom data (e.g., incident counts for business applications).
      • Query Condition: Select tables and apply filters to retrieve relevant data.
      • Assessments: Score and rank records through assessable records and metric types.
      • Indicators: Aggregate data from dependent child indicators to form a composite parent indicator.
    • Performance Analytics Indicator Frequency Check: Ensures the collection frequency of application indicators is compatible with associated Performance Analytics indicators to avoid errors.
    • Normalized Script: Supports scripting to calculate normalized scores for applications or capabilities using standardized metrics.
    • Click Through Configuration: Define how users navigate from an indicator to related application or dashboard data, with options for opening in new windows, the same window, or dialog boxes, enhancing quick access to detailed information.

    Practical Use and Benefits

    By using this form, ServiceNow customers can create precise, performance-optimized indicators that provide meaningful insights into their applications and capabilities. The ability to use multiple data sources, including custom scripts and Performance Analytics, offers flexibility to align indicators with unique organizational requirements. Configuring click-through navigation improves user experience by enabling quick drill-down into indicator details. Overall, this capability supports data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement of enterprise applications and capabilities.

    Create an application or capability indicator to assess applications or capabilities within the indicator framework.

    Table 1. Create new indicator form fields
    Field Description
    Name Name of the application or capability indicator.
    Short description Short summary of the application or profile indicator.
    Result limit The maximum number of records an indicator displays when running an associated script. This enables better performance of Enterprise Architecture by not processing too many records.
    Category Category that the indicator is associated with.
    Direction Business applications or capabilities with maximum or minimum values.
    • Select Minimize if lower values are better.
    • Select Maximize if higher values are better.
    Unit The type of unit in which indicator scores are displayed. Units can be numbers, percentages, currencies, quantities of time, or any other entity you define.
    Automatic refresh interval The refresh interval to update the indicator scores within the defined time range.
    Order The position of the indicator in the sequential order of all other indicators while accessing an application or capability.
    Table 2. Data source configuration section fields
    Field Description
    Data source

    Defines the location from which the indicator receives data.

    • Performance Analytics: Collects scores from indicators created in Performance Analytics. See Performance Analytics indicators.
    • Custom Script: Allows you to write a script that collects data from another application. Beneath the Data Source field, a sample script appears. Customize the script as needed. An example custom script is:
      var results = {};
 var applications = [];
 var incidentCount = 0;
 
 var applicationsGr = new GlideRecord("cmdb_ci_business_app");
 applicationsGr.addQuery('active', true);
 applicationsGr.query();
 //for each application get incident count at business service level
 while(applicationsGr.next()) {
    incidentCount = 0;
    
    var gr = new GlideRecord("incident");
    gr.addEncodedQuery("opened_atBETWEEN"  + startDate  + "@" +   endDate);
    gr.addQuery('cmdb_ci_business_app', applicationsGr.getUniqueValue());   
    gr.query();
    
    incidentCount = gr.getRowCount();
    var appInfo = {};
    appInfo.appId = applicationsGr.getUniqueValue();
    appInfo.weight = incidentCount;
    applications.push(appInfo);
    }
 results.applications = applications;
 results;
    • Query Condition: Allows you to select a table to run filters on to obtain data.
    • Assessments: Allows you to evaluate, score, and rank records by assessing records in a table. See Create metric types and generate assessable records. To view results of survey assessments within APM, see Generate survey assessments and view results within APM.
    • Indicators: Allows you to add dependent child indicators. Through the child indicators, data is gathered to the parent indicator.

      For example, if the parent indicator is number of issues, the dependent indicators can be number of incident counts, number of problems, and changes. These dependent indicators are child indicators and the number of incidents, problems, and changes recorded are consolidated up to the parent indicator as the number of issues.
    Indicator The Indicator field appears when Performance Analytics is selected from the Data source list.

    Indicators are statistics that are used to measure current conditions and forecast trends.

    Note:
    If the collection frequency of the application indicator isn’t greater than the frequency at which the data of the Performance Analytic indicator are generated, then the system displays an error message: Frequency of the indicator must always be greater than or equal to the frequency of the datasource configuration indicator. For more information, see Collection of PA indicator score data.
    Default breakdown Name of the Performance Analytics breakdown.
    Normalized script A script to evaluate and score business applications and capabilities using standardized metrics. It involves using indicators that provide a normalized score for the condition they are evaluating. These indicators can be based on assessments, query conditions, custom scripts, or performance analytics.
    Table 3. Click Through section fields
    Field Description
    Click through URL navigation type Select whether to view the application or capability indicator details in a new window, in the same window, or in a dialog box.
    Click through URL script The script associated with an indicator that allows users to select a URL and view the indicator data in a related application or dashboard. This enables quick access to relevant information, or actions related to the indicator data.