With every ServiceNow release, I like to learn a little about the city (or in this case state) the release is named after. When I started googling interesting facts about Utah, I came across a few winners, like: the residents of Utah consume more Jell-O than any other state; and the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant opened in Utah, not Kentucky.
But the fact that I got fixated on was that Arches National Park is home to more than 2,000 natural arches. It wasn’t the count that caught my attention, it was the spectacular images and landscapes.
With the amount of time I’ve spent talking to ServiceNow customers about Process Optimization lately, these arches reminded me of the arcs on a visualized process map. (There is a difference between an arch and an arc - google it.)
The arches in Arches National Park have formed over time, just like the arcs in your process maps that represent the different paths work is taking to get to a resolution. Unfortunately, when we are thinking about process maps, more arcs could represent more potential inefficiencies, not more spectacular photo ops.
ServiceNow’s in-platform process mining solution, Process Optimization, is designed to accelerate the process of identifying process inefficiencies, making process improvement initiatives more a part of our routine rather than a one-off science project.
We’ve made several enhancements in the Utah release in support of that mission, let’s look at them.
When we think about process improvement initiatives, we should be starting with the KPIs or metrics we are trying to impact. In the Utah release, we’ve made it easier for anyone to add a project-specific dashboard to their Process Optimization summary and insights page to tell a more complete process improvement story.
You can now create dashboards in the Platform Analytics Workspace and link them at the individual Process Optimization project level.
One of the most powerful aspects of Process Optimization is the ability to create process level insights cards using finding definitions. Finding definitions are pre-set rules you can apply to a set of records (incidents, requests, case, etc.) you’re mining – they collect and highlight non-conformant or inefficient activity. Things like multi-hop or ping pong issues or processes that are bypassing steps can be highlighted right up front on the summary and insights page.
(Deep dive into finding definitions in this Process Optimization Academy session.)
Prior to Utah, all the process data you wanted to use to power a finding definition needed to be included as an activity in your process model and visualized on the map. But, the more activities you include on your process map the busier it gets, and it might end up being more difficult to interpret. So in Utah, we’ve added the ability to mark an activity as an “activity of interest”, allowing you to use values from an activity field in contextual finding rules without displaying those activities on the map.
This added flexibility will allow you to create more robust finding definitions to streamline your process analysis efforts.
In Tokyo, we added a histogram to the Analyst Workbench to provide some initial distribution analysis of the work that was flowing through different transitions on the process map. In Utah we’ve extended histogram support to include both duration and repetition buckets. This allows you to pinpoint specific sets of work that are either long runners or coming in and out of a specific state or assignment more than once.
In addition to the ability to see these outliers, you can now also filter the map to show you only the paths taken by those outliers.
The histogram is one of many ways you can manipulate the Analyst Workbench. Another is by using transition filters. In Utah, we’ve enhanced the transition filter capabilities to allow you to create more robust scenarios that include time constraints or multiple chains. For example, maybe you are only interested in tickets that are sitting on hold for a minimum of 36 hours.
This gives you the power of the finding definitions in ad-hoc form on a visualized process map.
We’ve done some significant work in the Utah release to improve the experience of working with multidimensional maps analyzing interconnected processes like HR onboarding cases. One key enhancement is the ability see the breakdown and variation analysis values on child tables/subtasks.
Breakdowns give you a lot of contextual information about the type of work flowing through a given process. Being able to get this contextual information on a larger scale will help with your analysis of these more involved processes.
The last topic I want to touch on in this post is the expansion to include Process Optimization coverage for Field Service Management.
Process Optimization for Field Service Management will help reduce costs by identifying the root cause of process inefficiencies as it pertains to your different work order tasks.
As of Utah, Process Optimization is now available for ITSM, CSM (including Industry Workflows), HR Case and Lifecycle Events, custom applications built with App Engine, and Field Service Management. With each release we will continue to expand our coverage – if there is a workflow you are interested in applying Process Optimization to that we currently don’t support, please leave a note in the comments section.
Our business processes are full of inefficiencies and optimization opportunities, but just like the many arches of Utah’s Arches National Park, it’s impossible to see them all in one trip. The enhancements to Process Optimization in the Utah release will help narrow this vast landscape of inefficiencies so you can identify and prioritize the most impactful improvement opportunities.
Check out the Process Optimization Academy session where we run through a live demonstration of these enhancements.
Other important Process Optimization content:
Process Optimization Use Case Series
Process Optimization NowLearning Course
Interested in additional blog posts on Process Optimization, Performance Analytics, Predictive Intelligence and the Virtual Agent? Check out this Now Intelligence blog carnival.
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