Indexing multiple indicators in a formula

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated May 8, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Indexing multiple indicators in a formula

    Index indicators enable you to combine multiple performance indicators into a single weighted score to measure the overall gap to target across processes, services, groups, or business entities. This aggregation helps clarify overall performance trends when individual indicators provide mixed or ambiguous results.

    Show full answer Show less

    The index indicator calculates a weighted average of multiple indicators’ indexed scores, each normalized to 100. This approach provides a clear, consolidated view of overall performance and progress toward goals.

    Key Features

    • Indexed scoring: Converts each indicator's actual score relative to its target into an indexed value centered around 100.
    • Direction handling: Applies different formulas for indicators with Maximize or Minimize directions to ensure score improvements always increase the index indicator's score.
    • Weighted aggregation: Supports combining multiple indicators either with equal weights or custom weighting, producing a single overall score indexed to 100.
    • Use of PAFormulaUtils API: Provides methods such as pa.getGap() and pa.getGlobalTarget() to compute gaps and targets from the Analytics Hub within formula indicators.
    • Target and norm values: Requires indicators to have defined targets or norm values; indicators with zero targets cannot be included due to division constraints.

    Practical Application

    To create an index indicator in ServiceNow:

    • Navigate to Platform Analytics Administration > Indicators > Formula Indicators and create a new formula indicator.
    • Name the indicator meaningfully (e.g., "Aggregate incident gap") and set the direction to Maximize.
    • Build a formula using the PAFormulaUtils API methods to calculate the normalized gaps for each contributing indicator and aggregate them. For example, to equally weight three indicators (percentage of overdue incidents, average age of open incidents, number of open incidents), you compute each gap divided by its global target, average them, and subtract from 100.

    This method produces a single performance score reflecting the collective achievement toward targets, simplifying performance analysis and decision-making.

    Important Considerations

    • Always set the index indicator's direction to Maximize to ensure improvements in underlying indicators increase the index score.
    • Indicators without targets should use norm values; those with zero targets cannot be included.
    • The index indicator’s target should be set to 100, representing the ideal scenario where all contributing indicators meet their targets.

    You can write a formula to measure what the gap is to the overall target of multiple, combined indicators. Such a formula indicator is called an 'index indicator'.

    The performance of processes, services, groups, and other business entities are often tracked and monitored using more than one indicator. When viewing and analyzing performance of these processes, business services, or workgroups, the overall picture can be confusing and ambiguous. For example:
    • Although the scores for three indicators improved somewhat, the scores for 2 of them are still below target and 1 is above target.
    • The score for one indicator remained more or less the same and is still below target.
    • The score for one indicator did significantly deteriorate, but is fortunately just above target.
    Looking at this information, the answers to the following questions are not clear:
    • Is the overall performance of the process/service/group still at or above the desired level?
    • Did the overall performance improve?

    An index indicator can answer these questions. With an index indicator, the scores of multiple indicators are aggregated into one score. It is a weighted average of several indicators. If the weighted sum of these indicators is improving, the calculated score of the index formula goes up. As with any other indicator, the index indicator shows if the score is good or not and if the score has improved or not.

    The principle behind an index indicator is to calculate a score value indexed to 100 for each indicator. When you have these indexed scores, you are mathematically allowed to calculate an overall average of them.

    To be included in an index indicator, an indicator must have a direction and a target. The basic formula to calculate the indexed score for an indicator that has a Maximize direction is:
    100 + (((actual score - target) / target) * 100)
    For indicators that have a Minimize direction, the formula is:
    100 - (((actual score - target) / target) * 100)

    If you are weighting the indicators evenly, you can index the final aggregation to 100 instead of indexing the individual indicators to 100.

    You can use methods of the PAFormulaUtils() API to get the gap between score and target for the indicator from the Analytics Hub. For more information, see Get analytics methods in formulas:
    pa.getGap(indicator, On date) / pa.getGlobalTarget(indicator, On date)

    Because of the different operator for the different direction, if the score of an underlying indicator is improving (up or down), the index indicator score is increasing. Therefore, always set the direction of the index indicator to Maximize.

    If no target value is set for an indicator, use a norm value instead. Indicators that have a target or norm value equal to 0 cannot be used in the index indicator, because it would require dividing by 0.

    Set a target of 100 for each index indicator. This target is the calculated, overall, indexed score if all underlying indicators have an actual score equal to their target or norm value.

    An index indicator is measuring what the gap is to the overall target of multiple, combined indicators. It is measuring the 'Percentage of Target Achievement'.

    Index indicator using PAFormulaUtils() methods

    In the following example, you want a single index that aggregates the gap between score and global target for the following indicators:
    • The percentage of incidents that are overdue.
    • The average age of the last update of open incidents.
    • The total number of open incidents.
    To get this single index, follow these steps to produce an index indicator:
    1. Navigate to Platform Analytics Administration > Indicators > Formula Indicators and select New. Index indicators are a use case of formula indicators.
    2. Give the indicator a meaningful name, such as Aggregate incident gap.
    3. Set the Direction to Maximize.
    4. In the Formula field, use the Browse for a method and Browse for an indicator functions to create the following formula:
      var a = pa.getGap($[[% of open overdue incidents]], score_start) / pa.getGlobalTarget($[[% of open overdue incidents]],score_start);
var b = pa.getGap($[[Average age of last update of open incidents]], score_start) / pa.getGlobalTarget($[[Average age of last update of open incidents]], score_start);
var c = pa.getGap($[[Number of open incidents]], score_start) / pa.getGlobalTarget($[[Number of open incidents]], score_start);
var res = 100 - (100 * (a + b + c) / 3);
res;
      The three indicators are weighted equally, so the aggregation is indexed to 100 instead of the individual indicators.