Performance Analytics: Complete "Hello World" Dashboard?

[dbcandle]

I'm new to Performance Analytics, but have admin permissions so access should not be an issue.  I know "best practice" is to use KPI Composer, but want a quick "hello world" demonstration that:

• Is built on a DEV instance, in an Update Set.
• Creates a simple dashboard with 4 widgets (2 for basic counts, by month), and 2 for basic response-time calculations, again by month).
• Promotes the Update Set through TEST to PROD.
• In PROD, demonstrates that in-house staff can produce something useful.

Question:  Is there a simple tutorial, that shows how to generate something simple like above (job(s), indicator sources, indicators (automated and formula), plus the dashboard?

Performance Analytics is pretty-much unused in our environment, but the "vision" is to do our reporting in ServiceNow, rather than exporting data to Power BI as I have up to this point.  I find reports are useless since (without scripting to bring the instance "to it's knees"), reports can't:

• Do select/count distinct.
• Relabel columns.
• Do even the MOST SIMPLE calculations.
• Correlated subqueries.
• Other...

I've looked into calculated/scripted fields and database views, but they provide almost no help.  It always comes back to scripting, with the warning that it is resource prohibitive.

Help!  I really want to demonstrate that Performance Analytics is useful, but first frankly, I want to prove it to myself.  I've done enough free training using a free ServiceNow instance to see what Performance Analytics can do, but I don't want to just select from out-of-the-box indicators, since what I'm reporting on right now is rather non-standard (tables/forms/workflows built in-house).

Again, I don't want to use KPI at this juncture.  I've done enough free training to see that all I really need are a few indicators, jobs a dashboard and widgets.  I know I'm missing a few objects, but I'm pretty sure for my "proof of concept", I need little more.  I just want to show that Performance Analytics can do a few simple things (as compared with a garden-variety BI tool like Power BI) that "Reports" can't do.

[AndersBGS]

Hi @dbcandle ,

There is a lot of available videos on Youtube where you can see what others have created. e.g.:

Create your first indicator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpwLWlpv6AA

Performance Analytics Training Series: Indicator Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJrDS_geVxo&t=4s

Performance Analytics Training Series: Automated Indicators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSja5id2DW0

Otherwise, I would always recommend NowLearning: https://nowlearning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/pages/now-learning-get-certified?id=amap_detail&summary_id...

If my answer has helped with your question, please mark my answer as accepted solution and give a thumb up.

Best regards

Anders

[dbcandle]

Thanks!  I had found those and similar videos, but I'm still confused. 

I'm trying to do what to me is a couple of trivial reports: A) one simply returns a count by month, and B) another does some simple arithmetic on a few fields and shows the result by month.  Reports such as these take me maybe 15-30 minutes in a tool such as Power BI.  I'll obviously be doing more complex reports over time (adding targets, breakdowns, etc.), but for now I'm working on a couple of simple "hello world" reports (A & B above).

Reports and Performance Analytics neither seem to do that alone.  Actually, I *think* Performance Analytics can handle report A above (even there I'm still working on that, since I don't seem to have my conditions and or breakdowns right), but unless B can be expressed as a combination of indicators in a Formula Indicator (which in my case I may not: still TBD), it seems like I'd need to also use SLAs or Metrics.

Is it common, or assumed, that you need to use SLAs or Metrics with Performance Analytics for anything but the most simple reports?  Essentially, I need to be able to do basic formulas (date differences, basic math combining a few fields) - things I have no problem with using a BI tool - but Formula Indicators don't seem adequate and scripting can really slow-down an instance as I understand it.  [Note: for my "basic math" mentioned above, I need access to the unaggregated record-wise column values: not aggregated values.]

Sorry if I seem "dense".  I've read others coming from a BI background find ServiceNow reporting quite bewildering and it takes time to get "up to speed", but unlike many (most?) others, I don't want to give up.