SPW strategic investment lens - how does it work?

[Louis Savalli]

I've created a portfolio plan with the lens 'strategic investment' and chose 'strategic priority' as the entity type.  Yet, no matter what projects and demands I link to my strategic priority (through the primary goal), nothing shows up in the planning items.  I checked the back-end for the query and it doesn't have strategic priority in it at all, it starts with "strategic_programIN^approved_start_date<=javascript&colon;gs.dateGenerate('2026-04-30','sta...".

How is this intended to work, exactly?  If I have demands and projects with primary goals, and those goals are tied to strategic priorities, how can I create a lens based on strategic priority?  I assumed that's what the strategic investment lens was for, but I'm not so sure now.

[Community Alums]

HI @Louis Savalli ,

PLease follow this Doc : https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/yokohama-it-business-management/page/product/alignment-planne...

[Prashant_S · Accepted solution]

@Louis Savalli 

As you can see in this lens structure, you need to associate your work items to strategic programs. Incase you want to associate strategic priority to your work items, you can create a reference field for strategic priority in planning item table and modify this lens structure or create a new lens altogether with your desired structure. Let me know if you would want to connect further on this. You can reachout to me on prashant.singh@servicenow.com.  

 

[Louis Savalli]

Thank you, I've misunderstood how this works.  I thought that as long as your planning item was related to the entity type, no matter where it was in the lens hierarchy, it would show up in the portfolio plan.  This is not true.  If you choose an entity type higher up in the lens hierarchy, the entity types below it must form a direct connection to your planning items.

For example, let's say I chose the organization lens.  I created a demand with business unit X, then setup a lens in SPW and chose business unit as the entity type, specifically, business unit X.  The demand will not show up as a planning item in SPW because the demand I created has no department field, so the linkage is broken.  To fix this, I created department Y and made business unit X the parent of that department.  Then I went to the demand and populated department Y on the demand.  Now, this planning item shows up in the SPW I created.

[jamiejacobsma]

Thank you, I had misunderstood how this works. I assumed that if a planning item was related to the chosen entity type, it would show up in the portfolio plan regardless of its position in the lens hierarchy — but that’s not the case. If you select an entity type higher in the hierarchy, the lower-level entities must be directly connected to the planning items.