Reporting vs. Performance Analytics: A Decision Made For Effective Data Stories

[Logan Poynter]

Within ServiceNow, we have an abundance of data across every facet of the platform; Incident Records, Catalog Tasks, HR Cases, Ideas, etc. From this data, users and customers will - without a doubt - want to see it presented in a clean format that not only gives value to them but also answers questions that they have. ServiceNow understands this foundational requirement of service management and gives you the tools necessary to leverage that data in storytelling through Reports and Performance Analytics. Knowing the difference between the two and when one is more applicable than the other to satisfy the customer's requirements will undoubtedly be paramount in authoring “the story of data” your customer is after.

Foundationally Unique

Yor may be thinking, “What's the difference if they're both using the same data?” Well, you're right to think that - I, like many others before me - also pondered on this fact. In the ServiceNow ecosystem, Reporting and Performance Analytics are two distinct offerings with a unique purpose, application, and accessibility (from an administration perspective.) To explain the difference, I'll be referencing ITILv4 terminology that most (if not all) ServiceNow administrators understand but are also digestible to everyone.

• Reporting is the “Where are We Now?” of Continual Improvement within the Service Value System. It will give you a defined picture of how the data IS when the report is ran.
• Performance Analytics will still exist in the “Where are We Now?” stage, but it will also allow you to see “Where Did We Come From?” AND “Where Do We Want To Be?”

Here's an example. Say you want to see a total count of open incident tickets, so you build a report. The moment you click run, ServiceNow says, “Here's what you asked for!” and that's it. You have your data. But what if the requirement is to see a weekly trend of open tickets to gauge productivity? This is where you need Performance Analytics - to show the PAST data and the PRESENT data.

Pieces of the Puzzle

Now that the summarization is out of the way let's pull back the curtains on these two tools.

Reporting

To make a report, you only need a few pieces that are easy to figure out. This is in part to allow self-sufficiency in seeing data when/where/why customers and users want to. Out-of-the-box (OOTB), any user can create a report that holds the itil role (among other roles like report_user, report_group, etc.) To make a report, you need:

• Table or Data Source: This is the where of your report.
• Conditions: The conditions are where you take your overall data and pull out what you need - the what of your report.
• Report Type: ServiceNow offers plenty of options for the how of your report. Bars, Lines, Bubbles, and so many others. You can see the complete list of report types and their decision model here.
• Configuration: Make your report provide the most value by grouping data, defining trends, aggregation, and other options that vary based on your chosen report type.
• Style (Optional): Make it your own with custom report titles, whether to show the legend, colors, etc.

Performance Analytics

Contrary to the openness of report creation, Performance Analytics requires specific roles (pa_power_user or pa_admin) - and for a good reason. There's a science behind what drives success from PA, and it requires holistic knowledge to create the proper formulation.

• Indicator Sources: These are your base components, the raw data. Here you define your table or data source, any initial conditions you need, and then relate them to indicators.
• Indicators: Think of these as a visualized Key Performance Indicator (KPI). These are a layer up, defined by their source, and give extensive tools to help you manipulate data further. These hold the calculated score when a collection job associated with the indicator runs. Indicators can be automated, manual, or formula:
  • Automated: Just as the name suggests, you define your source and conditions and have your result.
  • Manual: The indicators do not use a source; instead, you manually put in the scores for whatever you're visualizing.
  • Formula: These take in other indicators to do computation on based on their scores. The most common will be for calculating percentages.
• Breakdowns: The next layer you can add is breakdowns which function as a filter on a report. Breakdowns can be automated or manual, depending on your use case. Breakdowns rely on breakdown sources.
• Targets/Thresholds: Just as their name implies, these help you define goals or critical points for the specific Indicator that you want visibility on and a notification of when reached. For more detailed information on when and how to use them, check out this page of the ServiceNow documentation.
• Time Series: Your raw score collected will be determined by your indicator source, but you can roll those scores into a different aggregation through a Time Series. For example, your source is a Daily frequency, but you apply a time series on the indicator of By Month SUM to get a total monthly score based on all scores for the month. The documentation explains further about exclusions, partial data, and what kinds of aggregations you can use based on frequency.
• Collection Jobs: Jobs run on a defined schedule or manual execution (aka Single Runs) to collect the scores for the indicator(s) related to them. You will want to ensure that your jobs align with the frequency of the indicators using it; otherwise, you can run into data quality issues, and it's more difficult to administrate.

As you can see, there is far more involved in using Performance Analytics than one may think, and it goes to show why this access isn't just “given out.” There is also a lot that I did not touch on here that goes more into the advanced side of PA, like scripting with PAFormulaUtil. For those that want to learn PA to its fullest, NowLearning’s Micro-Certification is the way to go.

Final Thoughts

While I'm aware this is not the first (or the last) resource that exists to explain these two tools apart in the ServiceNow platform - nor do I think this should be deemed “the holy grail” by any means - the intent of writing this article was purely in part of being asked “What's the difference?” when I'm leading requirements gathering sessions quite often. Your end-users, customers, and stakeholders won't know what either is, and they shouldn't care to know. That's where we can, and should, come in. My word of advice for success is this: Hear their pain points and where they're missing value, take all of the input they give, and deliver valuable output with exceptional service through our knowledge of how to make data tell its story. What other tips do you have around these tools I may have missed? I’d love to hear them!

[Logan Poynter]

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[surbhiakuma]

What is a key difference between Reporting and Performance Analytics?
A. Performance Analytics contains snapshots of data taken over time; Reporting shows only the data as it is, at the moment the report is run.
B. Performance Analytics can show trends; Reports cannot.
C. Reports can be run on a scheduled basis; Performance Analytics cannot.
D. Performance Analytics data can be published to Dashboards; Reports cannot.
E. Performance Analytics shows KPIs; Reporting does not

please give me solution

[jeffrubinoff]

1. Why are you asking us for help with your homework assignment instead of trying to understand the material? Though I would say that A, B, and E are all true, one of them is more important than the others.

2. As we move into Platform Analytics, we no longer have separate frontends for presenting table data and Performance Analytics indicators. Instead we have a single data source-neutral type of report: Data visualizations (sorry for the name, but Reporting was already taken.) The Performance Analytics backend of indicators and breakdowns continues to exist, but are displayed through data visualizations just like table data.

[tamarasanso]

In the washington dc instance I need help me to generate reports that are based on team workload and performance, It is intended for IT Manager and Engineers it should include a high level summary the reporting period is current month to date, monthly review, I want to see this data comparted to previous periods monthly and quarterly it should include both closed and opened incidents, include the average resolution time or response time, show all tickets completed, in progress etc, incidents should be grouped by category or subcategory, I want the data grouped by assignment group, I prefer tables, it should be exportable to PDF and Excel, this report should be run or scheduled weekly, monthly , quarterly, and yearly, the IT manager, Principal system engineer, and engineers should receive the report via email , it should be scheduled , we should filter to assignment groups. 

I initially tried using reporting but it's nearly impossible. Does anyone have any guidance on how to get this going in PA?