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Thomas_Davis
Thomas_Davis
In this Platform Analytics Academy session we took the session time to answer questions from you the customers. Many great questions were asked and answer given. If you have a question or two, it is highly advised to check this session out first, as you may find your answer here.
Questions answered live are in the video. If you go to Youtube to watch the video, it has timestamps for each question that was answered live. Below are all questions that were typed into the Q&A of the Zoom call.
Question via Chat:
Question: Is there a preferred solution for taking a daily score from an automated indicator and copying it into a monthly manual indicator (flow designers, formula, script, etc). The use case is the common/known issue when a monthly automated indicator doesn’t provide the score for the last day of the month.
Answer: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?version=latest&topicname=PAFormulaUtils
Question: Can you go into spotlight a little more in-depth on Spotlight? How can it be leveraged from a management view? Dashboards? automated emails?
Answer: Spotlight requires some set-up, you need to determine what is important and you need to surface up. Great for both management and front-line workers. From the management perspective you can see how your team is performing against your highest weighted items while as a frontline worker, your priorities are ranked for you, so you literally just grab the next case in the queue.
Question: Why the indicator source should always have in the filter a reference of dates, even when the source should show all records for example in a certain state?
Answer: Dates are being leveraged here to ensure your historical collections grab what was in the “criteria set” at that specific time. So think of each date as a placeholder for “today” and when the collector runs, it replaces the “today” or “last week” or whatever you identified with the date range in your collection. If you do not specify dates, it doesn’t know what to go and collect and will collect everything every day and you would not have accurate aggregations.
Question: Is there an easier way to share a dashboard without having to share every report widget on that dashboard? It's so time-consuming!
Answer: Right now we do not have a solution for it. We are working on a new Dashboard editing experience that will enable this feature in the future.
Question: Is there a better way to configure an automated indicator with COUNTD aggregation to get correct values when we drill up and drill down by date granularities/aggregations ?
Answer: Due to the current Architecture of Performance Analytics, we show multiple records for a count distinct (especially in Database Views). The records we show in the list are correct, as what we show are all the records that have been evaluated to calculate the distinct value. In DB Views I believe you would expect to view the records from the table, that your count distinct field is on, which is something that we do not have at the moment.
Question: Save as PNG/JPEG is not available any more on the dashboards and reports ?
Answer: There is a defect open due to the Chrome browser. We are working on a fix right now that should be released soon in patches
Question: Unable to edit restrict to roles on the dashboard even as an admin
Answer: It should be possible to edit, if not possible might be caused that the dashboard is scoped and you do not have access to this scope.
Question: Will the new UI builder for PA have security capabilities to similar to reporting - i.e. as a PA author, I can only see those objects that I have created or those objects that have been shared with me?
Answer: UI Builder pages have an audience security level. From Tokyo, you will be able to create Dashboards and Saved Data visualizations.
Saved data visualizations can be reused in multiple dashboard and UI Builder pages and will have a sharing system. So you are able to share the Data visualization in view or edit rights to other users/groups/roles.
Similar also for Dashboards you will be able to share it with view and edit rights with users/groups/roles
Question: Do you have examples of efficient/easy targets to establish for PPM? We encouraged our process owners to start with the OOB overdue projects/project tasks indicators, but they’ve requested metrics for approval duration, task duration by state, etc. Do you have any use cases of mapping strategic objectives (e.g., “Improve the quality of our project delivery”) to specific indicators and their targets (PPM or otherwise)?
Answer: Sometimes our team has experience with metrics for a specific app/workflow, but not this one, unfortunately. From a general perspective, though, it is important to clearly identify the top-line objectives for PPM, and keep that to a small list (5 top-line objectives is a lot. More than that makes it difficult for a team to focus efforts appropriately). Whenever someone asks for a specific new MPI or breakdown, I always ask which top-line objective it aligns with, and what action will be taken based on the newly requested KPI/breakdown. If they can’t clearly answer those questions, it’s probably not useful to add.
Question: Can breakdown filters work both for PA reports and regular reports on a dashboard?
Answer: Here is the ServiceNow doc that talks through this: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/paris-now-intelligence/page/use/dashboards/task/make-breakdown-in...
Question: Apologies for following up on the formula API question, but it's been causing me a lot of trouble. (the text-based answer is fine) Looks like this is the function to get the end-of-month score for a monthly indicator? pa.getScore($[[indicator name]], score_end);
Answer: If you are fixing it to monthly, you need to layer a few lines together. If you are making it responsive (handling various time aggregates there is a little more to do). I’m looking for my example.
Question: Once the unified filter in Tokyo is released will it be released as a plugin feature for other versions? I doubt it but thought I would ask 🙂
Answer: Unified filters are already available since Quebec but can only be used in the Next experience, so on the pages built-in UI Builder. From Tokyo, you will also be able to use them in the Next Experience Dashboards that users will be able to build from Workspaces.
This has not been tested, but a place to start:
var lastDayInPeriod = new GlideDateTime(score_start.getYear() + '-' + score_start.getMonth() + '-01');
lastDayInPeriod.addMonthsUTC(1);
lastDayInPeriod.addDaysUTC(-1);
pa.getScore($[[Number of open incidents]], lastDayInPeriod);
Apply, the time series AVG by Month (every day will be the same score so this works)
Question: Is there a now-learning link where we can see all items related to PA / Reporting as a list? Same for UI Builder?
Answer: This Community Article is a bit dated, however it has a lot of it : https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=44c3a3ecdbf43f84d82ffb2439961...
If you go to NowLearning and type in Analytics in the search, it will bring back everything that is offered.
Question: What is a best practice for senior leaders to view dashboards/performance analytics but not have a platform role (ITIL). Senior Leaders do not work in the platform but still need to view the dashboard/metrics.
Answer: Viewing reports do not require itil (or any fulfiller role). You do need a fulfiller role to be able to view a list report or drill into the records underlying the report. You do not need a fulfiller license to view the report. You may want to talk to your Account Exec to confirm. You may also want to look at a Business Stakeholder subscription.
Question: Rome brought us Standard Deviation in Reporting. Any advice/hope on working with medians (and other percentiles) in PA or Reporting?
Answer: We are working on a new architecture of Performance Analytics. In our new architecture, we will support more aggregations like the ones you mentioned and additional features as well (median, standard deviation, and percentile). We are currently releasing in Limited Access plugin, but in the near future, we will make it available for everyone.
Question: Is that something that may be on a future roadmap? Access dashboards via a portal?
Answer: Currently there are no plans to show the Dashboards in the service portal. Please create or upvote any existing Idea in the idea portal in the Community.
Question: Is there some detailed document about Metrics best practices? Any ones we do with Incidents (state duration, assignment groups, etc) that run very long or hang
Answer: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=ea20cfe7dbf5e0103daa1ea668961965
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Start:
Wed, May 4, 2022 01:00 PM PDT
End:
Wed, May 4, 2022 02:00 PM PDT
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