Understand your Scheduled Jobs dashboard

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Understand your Scheduled Jobs dashboard

    The Scheduled Jobs dashboard in ServiceNow provides key health metrics and insights into the status and performance of scheduled jobs on your instance. Accessible viaAll > System Diagnostics > Scheduled Jobs Dashboard, this dashboard helps you monitor job execution, identify issues, and take corrective actions to maintain job scheduling reliability.

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    Key Features

    • Stuck Jobs: Displays jobs pinned to non-existent nodes, often due to cloned instances. You can delete these jobs permanently or recover them to clear the node assignment and enable rerunning based on the next scheduled time.
    • Permanent Error Jobs: Shows jobs in a Permanent Error state, which can occur after upgrades or manual state changes. Actions include deleting permanently or recovering jobs by resetting their state to Ready, allowing them to run again.
    • Pending Jobs: Lists jobs scheduled to run soon.
    • Running Jobs: Lists jobs currently executing.
    • Jobs Classification (optional): Allows grouping jobs by filter conditions for better tracking of job completion history using the Job Classification Rules table. The default classification is based on Trigger Type and Job Name.
    • Total Execution Count: Graph showing the number of scheduled job executions over the last 24 hours (data available for up to 7 days), sourced from the sysschedulerjobhistory table. Clicking on the graph displays detailed job history lists grouped by classification.
    • Average Lateness: Graph showing average lateness in milliseconds of all scheduled jobs over the last 24 hours (data available for up to 7 days). Lateness measures how late jobs run compared to their scheduled time. Clicking the graph displays detailed job history.
    • Scheduled Job Trends: Lists completed jobs grouped by classification over the last 24 hours, sourced from sysschedulerjobhistory. Provides insights into job execution patterns and performance.

    Key Details for Use

    • Both Stuck Jobs and Permanent Error Jobs data come from the systrigger table and are essential for cleaning up and maintaining healthy scheduling.
    • The lateness metric is calculated as the difference between the current time and the job’s scheduled run time if the scheduled time is in the past; otherwise, lateness is zero.
    • The Scheduled Job Trends table includes important metrics such as Job Classification, Priority (lower number means higher priority), Execution Count, Average Processing Time, and Total Processing Time to help analyze job performance.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    Using this dashboard, you can proactively identify and resolve scheduling issues like stuck or errored jobs, monitor job execution volume and timeliness, and analyze trends to optimize scheduled job performance. This ensures your instance’s scheduled tasks run smoothly, improving operational reliability and efficiency.

    Visit scheduler dashboard to learn about key health metrics and insights of scheduled jobs.

    Navigate to All > System Diagnostics > Scheduled Jobs Dashboard.

    Scheduled jobs dashboard.

    The following cards show up on the dashboard
    Field Description

    Stuck Jobs

    The scheduled jobs that are pinned to a non-existent node show up here. If a scheduled job is assigned to run on a non-existent node and is a parent job that doesn't have Startup as the Trigger Type, it is classified under Stuck Jobs. The System ID column states the node that the job was assigned to run. One of the reasons of a job being classified as Stuck Jobs is if an instance was cloned from another instance and now there are jobs pinned to run on the old instance's nodes. You can take the following actions on the stuck jobs:
    • You can delete it to remove the job from sys_trigger permanently.
    • You can recover these jobs which clears theSystem ID column data and allows it to run again based on its Next Action time.

    Permanent Error Jobs

    The scheduled jobs which have a State of Permanent Error show up here. If you have upgraded from a pre-Utah version to a more recent version, a fix script is executed and it sets the scheduled jobs to Permanent Error state if the job was a parent job or a standalone job and picked up to run on a specific node that no longer exists. You can also set the job state to Permanent Error manually. You can take the following actions on the permanent error jobs:
    • You can delete it to remove the job from sys_trigger permanently.
    • You can recover these jobs which set the state back to Ready. It can again run based on its Next Action time.
    Pending Jobs Jobs that are to be executed soon.
    Running Jobs Jobs that are actively running.
    Jobs Classification (optional) Optional way to group certain jobs based on filter conditions to collect job completion history by the defined group/classification. You can set up these classifications in the Job Classification Rules table. The default classification is TriggerType.JobName.

    Total Execution Count

    Graphical representation of the total number of scheduled job executions on your instance over a period of time. The default time period is last 24 hours. You can view the data only from last 7 days. The data originate from the sys_scheduler_job_history table.
    Note:
    When you click on an execution count in the graph, the Scheduled Job History list shows up. The list of jobs have been grouped using Jobs Classification concept with Trigger Type as either Run Once or Recurring.
    Average Lateness Graphical representation of the average lateness in milliseconds of all scheduled jobs on your instance over a period of time. The default time period is last 24 hours. You can view the data only from last 7 days. The data originates from the sys_scheduler_job_history table.
    Note:
    When you click on a lateness average data in the graph, the Scheduled Job History list shows up. The list of jobs have been grouped using Jobs Classification concept with Trigger Type as either Run Once or Recurring.

    Scheduled Job Trends

    List of completed jobs grouped by Job Classification concept. The default time period is last 24 hours. You can view the data only from last 7 days. The data originate from the sys_scheduler_job_history table.

    Note:
    For both Stuck Jobs and Permanent Error Jobs tiles, the data and columns originate from the sys_trigger table. Both the tiles are used to cleanup jobs and keep the scheduled jobs in a positive state. Select the required tile to see the list view of the jobs. The Lateness column on both the lists refers to how late the job is based on the time it was supposed to run. If Next Action is in the past, the lateness is calculated as the current time minus the next action time. For example, if the job was scheduled to run two minutes ago, then lateness is two minutes. If the job is scheduled to run in the future, then the lateness is 0.

    Scheduled Job Trends

    This table provides details on the history of completed jobs by classifications. Default view provides the data for last 24 hours.

    Field Description
    Job Classification Provides a way of grouping similar type of jobs based on job name, trigger type (recurring, run once, etc.).

    Priority

    Priority at which the jobs are processed.
    Note:
    The lower the number, the higher is the priority. For example, priority of 10 is higher than 100.
    Execution Count Number of times the job has been executed within a timeframe.
    Average Processing Time(s) Average time needed to process the jobs.
    Total Processing Time(s) Total time needed to process the jobs.