Demand Ranking approaches

[kellykaufmann]

How are you all leveraging ServiceNow to rank requested projects (Demands, for those of you in Eureka))? Are you just exporting the requested projects into Excel and ranking via a spreadsheet and then manually entering a rank into a ranking field? Are you using the Task Boards in Eureka? Other approaches?

In my last blog post, I noted that our implementation consultants (AOS) configured the Task Boards (which are typically used to rank stories to be scrummed) and made it so we could use the drag-n-drop feature to rank Demands. They also created several Task Boards so ranking can be done different ways — by Business Division (so each business division leader can rank their business division's Demands), by Priority (puts the focus on the top priority Demands to rank), and overall. Ranking is as easy as grabbing a 'card' and sliding it up or down, and the ranking number will be automatically updated. Cool! I'm still working on what content should be displayed on each of the cards, and am thinking of doing a ranking # by business division and an overall ranking #.

Would love to hear your process!

[toneyvecchio1]

Great stuff, look forward to seeing how that's implemented through VTB.

Today I ended up getting a less appealing solution but wanted to share it incase its of assistance. Essentially I stole the method used in Story ranking and just kept kicking it until it worked.

To do this:

In Service Now, you can navigate to Ranking Definitions - make a new Definition on the Project table, I chose "top task" as my field and didn't choose any relationship.

This adds an OOB Rank button and index field to Project. I modified that button's condition format and basically removed everything but role requirements, this allows it to show up on List view instead of related list where it was meant to be. Finally within the button, I removed the line of code that says 'top_task' and just put 'pm_project', this also eliminates the filter that was meant for related lists.

What you have as an end result is a Rank button that gives a not perfect UI that allows dropping and dragging which updates the top task index column that you can display. These numbers aren't pretty, its not 1-2-3 order they are 100,000 - 200,000 - 300,000 and as you move the order you will see why - it was the trick to not have to update tons of records for every one move (When you shift a project down in order say).

Also did this with project table on project portfolio field and didn't alter the related list stuff above so that we have one Absolute ranking and one portfolio ranking that are independent. If anyone has come up with cleaner solutions please share - this was one ugly way to meet the requirement in the end.

[raman_gupta]

Kelly,

Did AOS ever post the demand ranking from VTB card order solution to Share? The link you have there appears to be for resource planning, which is great but not what we are looking for at this time. We are shamelessly trying to reimplement your ranking idea after seeing the demo at Knowledge but for some reason we can't figure out how to trigger an action off the order change. We have a ticket in with ServiceNow to address this anyway, but if the solution is posted we will look there instead.

As always, thanks!

Raman

[kellykaufmann]

Hi Raman

I touched base with AOS on this this morning (about 30 minutes after your note - I think you must have felt it!) in our weekly touchpoint. They had a certain approach they were attempting for the past couple of weeks but hit a wall (something about a change to the cards not invoking a Business Rule) so were going to try another approach. I'll let you all know when this is finished and ask that it be posted to Share. Sorry about this delay, this isn't a super high priority for us or them.

[raman_gupta]

No problem, we ran into the same problem (reordering cards is not triggering the Business Rule we believe it should). As I said, we have a ticket open, I will share any details we find with you.

[raman_gupta]

Hey Kelly,

I know this is an old post, but hopefully you still remember... How do you configure what appears on the VTB card? We're trying to invest in VTB's for prioritization ourselves and the most glaring hole right now is the limited details available without clicking through.