How to Create a ServiceNow Change Dashboard (Step-by-Step Guide)

BillMartin · 2 hours ago

Building an effective change dashboard in ServiceNow is essential for IT service management (ITSM) operations. Properly configured dashboards enhance your data visualization capabilities, giving you a clear, single point of truth for all change activities. To guide you, we'll walk through the process starting with out-of-the-box configurations and moving into customization, showing you how to correctly activate and populate data.

Start With Out-of-the-Box Dashboards and Best Practices

When you begin creating reports and dashboards in ServiceNow, the best practice is always to start from a template. ServiceNow pre-installs dashboards ready for immediate deployment. For the change management process, you'll find the Change Request Dashboard is already available and equipped with core reports.

Starting with an existing, well-designed template saves you time and ensures you adhere to standard ITSM metrics. You don't have to build everything from scratch.

You can customize this foundation in several key ways:

Edit or remove unneeded reports that don't apply to your organizational structure or reporting needs.
Modify existing metrics to align with how your team measures performance.

This approach is faster and more reliable than designing every dashboard widget individually. You simply adapt what’s given.

Why Use ServiceNow Documentation First

Before deep diving into technical configurations, it's wise to review the ServiceNow documentation. This resource outlines what components you need and how they interact. Specifically, you want to review the platform analytics capabilities within ITSM.

You can find this information by navigating the breadcrumbs structure within the documentation: IT Service Management, then under Platform Analytics Dashboard. This section clarifies the reporting capabilities tied to ITSM and details the necessary activation steps. You'll quickly see that you need the ITSM Analytics application activated in your instance. This ensures the change dashboard and its underlying key performance indicators (KPIs) are available to you. For instance, the reports discussed here are based on the Zurich version of ServiceNow, though the core steps usually apply across versions.

Activate ITSM Analytics in Your Instance

Accessing and successfully populating the change dashboard requires ensuring the necessary system application is active. This application, ITSM Analytics, contains the required metrics and reports for change management.

To activate the required components, follow these steps:

Navigate to System Applications.
Go to the All tab.
Search for the application bundle by typing "change dashboard" in the search bar. This action will often auto-detect and display the ITSM Analytics application as a prerequisite.
Ensure this application is successfully installed and active within your instance.

If you're testing this process, you should use a Personal Developer Instance (PDI). A PDI is highly recommended because it provides a full, free demo environment. You can test new installations, break things, fix them, and build familiarity without risk to a production environment. Use your PDI to experiment and understand the platform's behavior.

Your PDI gives you a full instance for:

Testing installations and removals safely.
Building and configuring new modules.
Gaining experience with platform behavior before touching production.

Access the Change Management Dashboard

Once you confirm ITSM Analytics is active, you can access the change dashboard.

To locate the dashboard:

Use the Application Navigator on the left side of the screen.
Expand the Change module.
Click on Overview.

This takes you to the content frame displaying the Change Request Dashboard. When you scroll down, you'll see various out-of-the-box reports, many of which are described in the ServiceNow documentation.

In a demo environment, you might observe sample data. For instance, you could see around 92 open change requests and 11 closed changes, with the total data combining these records. This data forms the composite picture displayed on your dashboard.

Populate Data Using Data Collectors

You've activated the dashboard, but you might find your reports are empty or contain outdated data. This happens because ServiceNow doesn't automatically calculate and display every metric in real-time. Behind the scenes, the system must gather specific information and records from across the platform and aggregate it into the dashboard, providing you with that desired single point of glass view.

This aggregation process relies on Data Collectors, which are scheduled jobs that run periodically to fetch and compile data for reporting.

To manage these collectors:

Navigate to Platform Administration.
Locate the Data Collectors module, often listed under Jobs.
Since the list of data collectors can be large, filter the list by searching for jobs relevant to your dashboard. Type "change" into the search bar to find change-related data collectors.

You will typically find four change-related data collector jobs, of which two are often inactive by default. To start populating your dashboards with current data, you need to execute these jobs.

Execute Jobs to Refresh Your Dashboard

The data collectors must be executed immediately or scheduled to run regularly to ensure your dashboard displays relevant, timely data. If the jobs are inactive, your reports won't show the correct metrics.

To execute a data collector job:

Drill down into each inactive job record.
Click the Execute button (often represented by an arrow icon) in the top-right corner.
Repeat this process for all necessary change-related data collectors.

Once executed, the jobs gather the current ticket data and funnel it into the report widgets. Return to your change dashboard and you'll see the data fields populate automatically. Remember, the richness of your dashboard directly depends on the records you have in your environment.

The out-of-the-box dashboard contains various features to help you interpret the data:

A heat map typically appears in the top-left showing change densities.
Aggregated reports provide calculated totals and averages.
ServiceNow makes it easy to understand the reports; if you hover over the informational icon next to a report, it provides a brief description of what the report is all about.

These dashboard components are composed of widgets, which are essentially reports. It’s important to recognize the difference between standard non-aggregated reports and these aggregated reports, which calculate complex metrics for immediate viewing.

Customize by Duplicating and Editing Dashboards

While starting with the template is best, you will inevitably need to customize the dashboard to fit your organization's unique requirements. The safest way to modify an existing dashboard is by duplicating it first. Duplication creates a copy, allowing you to edit and experiment without affecting the original out-of-the-box version. This is critical for preventing accidental modifications to standard reports.

To begin customization:

Duplicate the Change Request Dashboard.
Rename the new dashboard (e.g., "ITSM Change Dashboard Copy") for clarity.

Now, you can approach customization using either a top-down or a bottom-up methodology.

The Top-Down Approach to Dashboard Customization

Using a top-down approach means you start with the duplicated template and modify it based on your goals. Since you already have the target state (a Change Dashboard), this method is straightforward.

When you enter the editing mode, you can:

Remove reports that are not useful for your audience.
Add new widgets where necessary. For example, you might add a saved visualization report that focuses on a specific change category relevant only to your business unit.

This method benefits from using an existing, structured framework, making it easier to organize and publish your customized view.

Bottom-Up Building with Reports and Indicators

Alternatively, the bottom-up approach requires you to understand and use the source components, such as indicators and formula reports, to build a dashboard from individual pieces.

For example, consider an aggregate report like "Outages Due to Change," often displayed as a percentage. To understand where this data originates, exit editing mode and view the report details. By clicking the ellipsis button next to the widget and selecting Edit, you're taken to the report configuration page.

On this page, look at the properties section. You will often see the report defined as Indicator type: formula. This means the report isn’t a simple count of records; it uses a calculation combining two or more attributes, often expressed as a percentage. In technology, everything is about association, linking one data source to another to build a complete picture. Thinking in terms of source to destination prevents you from getting lost in the platform.

Indicator Sources

Since these reports are based on indicators, you need to know how to locate them. Indicators are the foundational metrics used in Platform Analytics.

To find these source metrics:

Search the Application Navigator for Indicators.
Under the Platform Analytics module, select the indicators you need.
If the dashboard report uses a calculation, look under Formula Indicators.
You can filter this list by typing "changes" to see all the out-of-the-box aggregates available for change reporting.

Knowing your sources and what's available out-of-the-box is key. As you build your custom dashboard from the bottom up, you simply add the indicators and visualizations that meet your specific requirements.

Build from Sources: Indicators and Saved Visualizations

Platform Analytics provides a powerful suite of tools you can use to build custom reports. The Indicators module contains all the pre-defined aggregations you might need for ITSM reporting.

When you decide to add a new visualization to your duplicated dashboard, you have two primary options for sourcing the widget: indicators or saved reports.

Indicators: These provide the underlying calculated metrics (like percentages or averages) directly.
Saved Visualizations: These are existing reports, often charts or lists, that you can search for and implement instantly. In editing mode, navigate to Saved Visualizations and search for "change" to see all available reports ready for reuse.

By understanding the components, you can easily combine these sources to tell the precise story your data needs to communicate.

Here is a summary of the two main approaches to dashboard design:

Approach	Description
Top-down	Start with an existing dashboard template, then edit, remove, or add content as needed. Ideal for quick modification.
Bottom-up	Start with individual components (indicators, formula reports, saved visualizations) to construct a dashboard piece by piece. Ideal for highly specialized reporting.

Pro Tips for Creating Any Dashboard

The skills you use for creating a change dashboard apply across the entire ServiceNow reporting platform.

You can duplicate reports as well as dashboards. If an existing report is close to what you need, copy it and apply your specific filters or aggregations.
Always be aware of the underlying components: the widgets you use, the indicators that drive the metrics, and the data sources supplying the records.

As long as you understand these components, you can build any type of dashboard or report needed, regardless of the module.

Final Steps and Resources

You now know how to activate ITSM Analytics, execute data collectors to populate your metrics, and customize dashboards using both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Being methodical and starting with established best practices ensures your reporting is both accurate and maintainable. This fundamental knowledge about duplicating templates and understanding indicator sources will serve you well in any ServiceNow environment.

If you haven't yet set up your Personal Developer Instance, you absolutely should. Test environments are essential for gaining the hands-on experience needed to master these concepts.