CMDB Health KPIs and metrics

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of CMDB Health KPIs and Metrics

    CMDB Health evaluates the overall state of your Configuration Management Database (CMDB) through three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): correctness, compliance, and completeness. Each KPI comprises specific metrics that can be configured for custom evaluations and dashboards. The base system includes all KPIs and their metrics by default.

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    Key Features

    Correctness

    • Orphan: Measures the percentage of orphan Configuration Items (CIs) in the CMDB, identifying those no longer needed based on specific criteria.
    • Staleness: Assesses the percentage of stale CIs, defined as those not updated within a set time period (default is 60 days). The staleness rule can be overridden for specific classes.
    • Duplicate: Evaluates the percentage of duplicate CIs using identification rules, reporting on independent CIs only.

    Completeness

    • Required: Indicates the percentage of CIs missing mandatory fields, marked as incomplete.
    • Recommended: Shows the percentage of CIs lacking fields designated as recommended, which can be configured with scheduled jobs.

    Compliance

    Based on actual CMDB audit results, compliance requires activation of audits to display results. It compares values against expected templates, with the most recent audit data used for assessment. Scripted audits must record their run time for results to be included.

    Relationships

    • Duplicate Relationships: Counts relationships with identical parent and child CIs and types.
    • Orphan Relationships: Identifies relationships missing a parent, child, or both.
    • Stale Relationships: Highlights relationships where either CI is stale.

    Additionally, summaries report relationships not compliant with suggested, containment, and hosting rules.

    Key Outcomes

    Utilizing CMDB Health KPIs enables ServiceNow customers to maintain a high-quality CMDB by identifying and addressing issues related to correctness, completeness, compliance, and relationship health. This ultimately leads to improved data accuracy and operational efficiency within IT service management processes.

    CMDB Health calculates an aggregated score for three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which are correctness, compliance, and completeness, each further consisting of sub-metrics.

    You can configure which KPIs and metrics are included in CMDB Health evaluations and dashboards. In the base system, all KPIs and all their metrics are included.

    To access the CMDB Health Dashboard and view CMDB health, see View CMDB Health Dashboard.

    Correctness

    A KPI which is an aggregation of the following metrics:

    Orphan
    Measures the percentage of orphan CIs in the CMDB. A CI can become orphan if it was unintentionally left in the CMDB when it is no longer needed. A CI is determined to be orphan if:
    • The CI satisfies the criteria in an orphan rule. This criteria checks for specific attributes that a CI must have, and for CIs that have no relationships or that don't have specific relationships.
    • Data is missing for the CI in its respective table, or in one of its parents' table.
    Staleness

    Measures the percentage of stale CIs in the CMDB. A CI is stale if it was not updated within the Effective Duration time period that is specified in the staleness rule that applies to the class.

    The base system includes a default staleness rule for the Configuration Item [cmdb_ci] class, which sets the Effective Duration time to 60 days. This rule applies to all extended CMDB classes, and can be overridden by class specific staleness rules defined by the user. To determine CI staleness, a staleness rule for the CI's class is used if it exists, otherwise, the default staleness rule is used.

    In addition, a relationship in which a stale CI is a parent or a child, is determined to be a stale relationship.

    Note:

    Discovery marks VMware vCenter CIs that no longer physically exist, as stale. By default, this setting takes precedence over a CMDB Health staleness rule defined for the CI. When drilling-down in the CMDB Health Dashboard to Health Results, the Source for CIs determined to be stale by Discovery, is Cloud Discovery.

    For the aggregated score of the correctness KPI to include only health results generated by CMDB Health, set the glide.cmdb.health.src.cmdb_health_audit_only system property to true. In which case, drilling-down to the details of stale CIs still shows those CIs in which source is Cloud Discovery. For more information, see CMDB Health system properties and Discovery for VMware vCenter.

    Duplicate

    Measures the percentage of duplicate CIs in the CMDB using identification rules. Only independent CIs are evaluated for duplication. In a set of duplicate CIs, the count of duplicate CIs is the total number of CIs in the set, minus one. The detailed graphs for a duplicate set of CIs display all the CIs in the set.

    For more details, examples, and troubleshooting information about duplicate metric, see the CMDB Health - Duplicate Metric - algorithm [KB0726425] knowledge base article.

    Completeness

    A KPI which is an aggregation of the following metrics:

    Required
    Measures the percentage of CIs in which fields that are defined as mandatory, are not populated. Missing fields are tagged as incomplete noting that for this CI some information is missing. Required fields are equivalent to the fields that are specified as mandatory in the system dictionary.
    Recommended

    Measures the percentage of CIs in which fields that are set as recommended, are not populated. Out-of-box, no recommended fields are specified.

    You can use the Add Identifier Fields In Recommended Rules scheduled job to set criterion attributes from active identification rules, as recommended fields. You can use the Remove Identifier Fields In Recommended Rules scheduled job to unset criterion attributes from active identification rules, as recommended fields.

    Compliance

    Based on the results of actual CMDB audit runs.

    Note:
    Audit must be activated for the compliance KPI to show results. For more information, see Compliance Activation.
    Audit

    Audit compares actual values of specified fields, against expected values defined in template and scripted audits. Based on the Last run date of audits, CMDB Health identifies the set of the most recent complete audit run, and uses those audit results. To pass the CMDB Health audit test, a CI must be in compliance with all audits for that CI. Create a compliance-type audit, for which the results are calculated into the CMDB Health compliance KPI.

    When running scripted audits, the Last run date is not populated. Therefore, for the compliance KPI to include the results of a scripted audit, update the script in the audit to record the audit run time.

    Relationships

    Measures the health of CI relationships, consisting of the following metrics which are not-configurable:

    Duplicate relationships
    Relationships that have identical parent and child CIs, identical relationship type, and an identical port. Duplicate relationships are displayed per relationship type. In a set of duplicate relationships, the duplicate relationship count is the total number of duplicate relationships in the set, minus one. The detailed graphs for a duplicate set of relationships display all the relationships in the set.
    Orphan relationships
    A relationship that is missing either a parent CI, a child CI, or both.
    Stale relationships
    A relationship in which the parent CI or the child CI is a stale CI.

    A single relationship can fail more than one health test. For example, a duplicate relationship can also be stale.

    Also reports the following relationship-related summaries:
    • Relations not compliant with suggested relations
    • Relations not compliant with containment rules
    • Relations not compliant with hosting rules

    To access the Relationship Health Dashboard and view relationships health, see View relationships health.