Reporting on data that "does not exist" - Formula indicators to the rescue

[ChrisF323949498]

Lets say you're able to predict that for each incident your Database team receive, they will likely have to complete 2 additional tasks to solve it (yes, made up example but stick with me here 😄 ) .

Your manager asks you to report on the number of tasks the team will have to do this week, based on current Incident count and they want it as a graph for an important PowerPoint presentation.

With the 'classic reports' you would struggle to achieve this - Sure, you could report on the Incident table, then tell them 'Guys, just multiply by 2, I've got better things to do'..... but that may not go down so well.

This is where Formula indicators come in... they can easily allow us to report on 'data that is not there' since we can do calculations and return values that the widget will display for us.

The ServiceNow docs explain formula indicator setup very well, so I won't create that data since it's there 😉 

or here to be more precise: 

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/yokohama-now-intelligence/page/use/performance-analytics/task...

However a quick high level, you'll roughly need to:

1. Create a new indicator (type: 'automated') which will 
   1. have a data source of the incidents table (you can keep this very broad, all incidents - This is useful to stay broad, as then it can be reused on other indicators and then its within those indicators you would apply more specific filters).
   2. Set a filter on the indicator for: Assignment_group = 'Database Team'
      Now we have an indicator gathering incidents for our Database team.
2. Now create a NEW indicator (yes, this will then leverage the indicator we just created) but this time of type 'formula'. 
   1. Then its as simple as adding the previous indictor and *2. The contents of the formula window would look something like this:

[[Number of incidents]] * 2

• Finally link a widget to this indicator, add the widget to your dashboard and

Now you have the report needed for that super important meeting... 😅

Interestingly, because Formula indicator code runs when they display - You can in theory do a GlideRecord Aggregate count (similar but more efficient that GlideRecord GetRowCount() ) however I've yet to fully review whether that is good or bad practice and just share it here for completeness. 

[AndersBGS]

Hi @ChrisF323949498 ,

Your example could also easily be done with the normal reports by dot-walking from task table to the incident. There is no reason to utilize performance analytics for this. When that said, I do agree that performance analytics is powerful from a reporting perspective, but this is more from a snapshot of data.

[ChrisF323949498]

Hey Anders,

how would you compute the *2 with normal reports?

or do you just mean the Indicator for incidents being replaced by GR query? If so agreed (Although I had read that performance is slower...?) 

However if you mean no need for PA for the computation, then super keen to hear this as have been wrestling with it 😃

[AndersBGS]

Hi @ChrisF323949498 ,

Basically, if you report on task and dot-walk to the incident in the condition to state that the incident assignment group is XXX. This off course rely on, that the incident tasks are there. I do understand your post to report on incidents task not there yet, as there might only be 1 out of 2 tasks generated, but doesn't this then give false indication of the current workload? 

[ChrisF323949498]

Yeah the scenario given is a bit of an unlikely made up scenario, but it was mainly aimed at reporting on 'data that does not exist' use case 😃

Cheers