Report and Gauge relationship

[aaron_damyen]

From a report, a gauge can be created using the "Make Gauge" button.   Once this is done, the "Make Gauge" button disappears.   I have some questions about the philosophy of the relationship between Reports and Gauges.

1. Does a gauge get updated when the originating report is changed?
2. From Report > Administration view of a report, a Gauges->Reports related list can be added, implying there is a Many-to-1 relationship.   Why does the "Make Gauge" button disappear when it is possible for more than one gauge to be created from a report?
3. If the relationship between reports and gauges is meant to be 1-to-1 and question 1 is 'No', should there be an option on the report to remove the existing gauge?
4. What is the philosophy concerning end-user customized gauges and the original gauge when the original gauge is updated.

Answers to these questions will help me understand if I should be expected to manage the relationship between Reports, Gauges and Customized Gauges myself or if the platform will help me out.

[d_cammack]

Hello Aaron,

1. If the report is changed, then the corresponding gauge should be updated as well since it links to the report. If it does not, then there may be a duplicate report.

2. Why would you want to make more than one gauge for a single report when that gauge can be shared with multiple users/groups?   For instance, you can get the "Make Gauge" button on a report that has the same title as another report, but with different columns displayed or a different filter configuration.   However, that would make for a confusing list to choose from when you need to add the gauge to a homepage. The Related List does imply that it is possible to have a single gauge created for the different reports, which would be done manually instead of using the "Make Gauge", but I would question the use case.

3. The answer to question 1 was 'yes'.   You want to be careful about giving people the ability to remove a gauge, which is why it is not given a button.   If a user thinks that the gauge should be removed since they don't need it; they may not be taking the needs of other users into consideration.   They can instead create their own gauge from a personal report.

4. Not sure about a 'philosophy'.   The original gauge should be protected from the end user unless you have given them the ability to update it through a role.   When a user personalizes the list on their homepage or list view, the system stores their preference but should not affect the original copy.  

I hope that helps.

[fhall]

1. No. Gauges are 'children' of the report.

2. It's a 1:1 relationship between Gauge and report. If you want a list view and a bar chart of the same data, for example, you need to create two different reports (appropriately named for helpful reference - I recommend 'family' naming by number first: 1.0 Report x, 1.1. Report y, etc.) and generate gauges therefrom. This is where the "Insert" function in Reports comes in handy.

3. While deleting the report won't delete the gauge (you need to do that from within the "Gauges" interface), it will delete the -content- of the gauge. So stale/inappropriate data is no longer visible, but your 'gauge pages' may wind up looking like a ghost town. This falls under the 'general hygiene' category in ServiceNow. : )

3.1. For clarity: unless your users are Admins, the most damage they can do is delete the gauge from their own version of the page(s) to which it's added. You can further protect the parent report by assigning it to a 'reserved' group or to yourself - doing so won't affect the public availability of the gauge created therefrom.

4. Editing is a role-based activity. If you don't want your original gauges edited, ensure that permission is reserved appropriately. You can also ensure that any pages on which said gauges exist are 'read-only'.

Helpful?

[J_Sukhsagar]

Hello Aaron,

ServiceNow reports can be lists, charts, or calendar-based views of data in a particular table. The ServiceNow system also offers a range of predefined reports that pertain to applications and features like incident management and service catalog requests. If none of the predefined reports meet your needs, you can create your own reports. Use reports on homepages to display key information to different users. You can also publish reports to a URL that can be emailed.

A gauge is visible on a ServiceNow homepage and can contain up-to-the-minute information about current status of records that exists on ServiceNow tables. Gauges can be created by the ServiceNow administrator or by users of ServiceNow with the gauge_maker role. Gauges can be created from reports or from lists of records on a table and can be sorted and filtered as needed.

Guages and Reports are two different concept.

For more understanding about them, Please folow the following links:

Adding Existing Gauges to a Homepage - ServiceNow Wiki

Reporting - ServiceNow Wiki

Regards,

Sukhsagar

PS: Hit like, Helpful or Correct depending on the impact of the response