Supporting reports & dashboards

[BethanyMcCool]

As your companies have matured in supporting ServiceNow, how have you supported the insights portion of the platform (reporting, dashboards, performance analytics)?

We initially took the stance of providing information to our users, but leaving it in their hands to create the reports & dashboards relevant to them. However, we've hit a few snags in this model:

1. Users don't fully understand the data model or how to access the data they need.

2. Users don't have the time to spend on creating these reports/dashboards.

3. Users don't have access to the performance analytics.

4. Providing the proper roles/permissions for users to see necessary reports and dashboards has been a struggle.

We're interesting in hearing how other larger companies are supporting this capability. Have you tried the same approach? If so, how have you made it a success? Or, do you have a team devoted to creating reports, dashboards, and new KPIs for areas across the business? 

[servicenowdona]

Supporting the insights portion of the ServiceNow platform can indeed be challenging. Here are some strategies that can be employed:

1. **Training and Education**: Conduct regular training sessions and workshops to educate users about the data model and how to access the data they need. This can be done through webinars, online tutorials, or in-person training sessions.

2. **Dedicated Support Team**: Establish a dedicated team responsible for creating reports, dashboards, and new KPIs. This team can work closely with different business areas to understand their needs and create relevant reports and dashboards.

3. **Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)**: Implement Role-Based Access Control to manage user permissions. This can help in providing the proper roles/permissions for users to see necessary reports and dashboards.

4. **Performance Analytics**: If users don't have access to performance analytics, consider providing them with access or creating a team responsible for analyzing performance data and sharing insights with relevant stakeholders.

5. **Pre-Built Reports and Dashboards**: ServiceNow provides a number of pre-built reports and dashboards that can be used as a starting point. These can be customized to meet specific business needs.

6. **User Feedback**: Regularly collect user feedback to understand their challenges and needs. This can help in improving the reporting and dashboard capabilities.

7. **Documentation**: Maintain detailed documentation about the data model, how to create reports/dashboards, and how to interpret them. This can serve as a handy reference for users.

8. **Regular Reviews**: Conduct regular reviews of the reports and dashboards to ensure they are still relevant and useful. Update or retire any that are not.

9. **Leverage ServiceNow Community and Resources**: ServiceNow has a vast community and numerous resources that can provide guidance and best practices for managing the insights portion of the platform.for further details please visit our site https://nowgpt.ai/#/home

[Craig Tinsley]

Good question .. While we only moved to ServiceNow last month, we have faced all of these challenges to AND taken many of the steps that noted in the last response.

1. We identified a small number of reporting/dashboard SMEs - these are the folks who do the "heavy report lifting"

2. We created a Community of Practice where we perform training, share knowledge and collaborate across the various teams who write reports

3. We try to maintain a "Teach a person to fish" philosophy. We didn't want to (nor could the organization afford to) create a "dedicated team of report writers" (other than our SMEs - who only focus on a small, but important, set of reports).

4. We use OOTB reports as much as we can and customize only when we need to (since we have decentralized report writers, this has been a challenge PLUS our production instance is getting kind of busy/messy)

5. We have dedicated groups with roles that differentiate between "report writers" and "report viewers" (and we have established rules and required training for those who wish to become "writers")

We still need to get our arms around a set of standards and report writing, but we're getting there...