Key alerts and notifications

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Key alerts and notifications

    The Instance Observer Key Alerts functionality in ServiceNow Impact (available only with Advanced and Total packages) enables customers to set proactive alerts based on historical threshold data from four-week increments. This helps teams monitor six critical performance metrics through moving averages and receive notifications tailored to specific business needs.

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    Key Features

    • Critical Metrics Monitored: Alerts cover Transaction increases and drops, Response Time at the instance level, Database Response Time, Default Semaphore Mean, and Default Semaphore Queue Depth. Each metric signals deviations from historical medians over defined time periods.
    • Proactive Notifications: Alerts indicate unusual or unexpected data patterns rather than confirmed issues, enabling users to take early preventive actions to avoid potential problems.
    • P-Score Eligibility: The P-Score rates an instance’s transaction stability and volume to determine eligibility for receiving alerts. Only instances with sufficient P-Score show an opt-in banner for alerts activation.
    • Automated Threshold Management: Thresholds are calculated using the P-Score and historical data, refreshed weekly to maintain relevance and accuracy for eligible instances.
    • Configurable Alerts: Users can configure key alerts on instances without prior critical alerts and obtain improved thresholds on instances already configured to optimize alert sensitivity.

    What to Expect

    Once activated, customers will receive intelligent, data-driven alert notifications for six vital instance performance metrics. These alerts provide early warnings that help ServiceNow customers maintain optimal instance health and performance by addressing anomalies before they escalate into issues. The system continuously adapts thresholds based on instance behavior, ensuring alerts remain relevant as usage patterns evolve.

    Use the Instance Observer Key Alerts functionality for flexibility to set alerts with historical thresholds from four week increments specific to your business needs and configure who on your team receives notifications.

    Note:
    Instance Observer Alerts support is only available for Advanced and Total packages of ServiceNow Impact.

    Keys alerts activation will provide you with proactive alerts about moving averages, a statistic that captures the average change in a data series over time, for six critical metrics:

    1. Transaction (increase) Instance: Indicates transaction moving average increases by a certain percentage of it's historical median for a certain time period.
    2. Transaction (drop) Instance: Indicates transaction moving average drops by a certain percentage of it's historical median for a certain time period.
    3. Response Time – Instance: Indicates the moving average of response time is greater than the historical median in a certain time period.
    4. Database Response Time: Indicates the moving average of database response time is greater than the historical median in a certain time period.
    5. Default Semaphore Mean: Indicates the default semaphore mean is approaching limits of max concurrency by a certain factor in a certain time period.
    6. Default Semaphore Queue Depth: Indicates the default semaphore queue depth is approaching limits of maximum queue depth by a certain factor in a certain time period.
    Note:
    It is important to note that each notification may not represent an issue, moreover signals about a data point that is unusual or does not conform to the expected patterns for that specific metric. Users can be proactive, where necessary, and act on a notification accordingly that may avoid a future issue.

    Instance Observer utilizes the P-Score to assess instance usage, then calculate the thresholds exclusively for those instances. The P-score is a rating determined by the number of transactions on an instance, providing a higher score when the instance's transactions remain consistently stable.

    • When an instance meets the required P-Score for eligibility, users will see a banner to opt-in for the alerts activation feature. Users will receive intelligent thresholds under the IO recommended condition for all six metrics derived from historical data.
    • If an instance has a low P-Score, the banner to opt-in for alerts activation feature will not be visible. The P-Score is regularly refreshed, and as instances grow in the future, you will see the option to opt-in for the alerts activation feature. Thresholds are refreshed automatically weekly for instances meeting the minimum P-Score criteria.

    To set up alerts, see Configure key alerts.