Overview of reporting and analytics for developers

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 24, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Overview of Reporting and Analytics for Developers

    Effective reporting is crucial for any application development, as it enables actionable insights for driving change. ServiceNow provides two user interfaces for reporting: the Core UI and the newer Platform Analytics technology. The Core UI includes the Reporting application and PA Widgets, while Platform Analytics offers Data Visualizations for comprehensive data reporting from various sources.

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    Key Features

    • Core UI: Includes Reporting application for table data and PA Widgets for Performance Analytics indicators on responsive dashboards.
    • Platform Analytics: Allows developers to create Data Visualizations that can be placed on dedicated dashboards, enhancing reporting capabilities.
    • Guidelines for Reporting: Use filters to avoid performance issues when working with large tables or many value fields. Consider scheduling exports for regular reporting needs.
    • Multiple Data Visualization Options: Create visualizations directly in Platform Analytics, utilize UI Builder for customization, or integrate dashboards into your own workspaces.

    Key Outcomes

    By leveraging the reporting and analytics capabilities of ServiceNow, developers can create effective and performant reports and visualizations that enhance the user experience. This functionality supports informed decision-making and helps organizations track key performance indicators effectively.

    Most applications that you create have some level of reporting requirements. Reports should be actionable to drive change.

    "Reporting" generally refers to showing the data inside facts tables like Incident [incident]. You can also create key performance indicators (KPIs) to track changes in this data over time, through the Performance Analytics application.

    Currently the ServiceNow AI Platform® is in transition between two user interfaces for showing this information:
    • The older Core UI technology. This UI includes the Reporting application, which only shows data directly from tables, and PA Widgets, which show data from Performance Analytics indicators. Both reports and PA widgets can be placed on Core UI responsive dashboards. For more information, see Reporting, dashboards, and Performance Analytics in the Core UI.
    • The newer Platform Analytics technology. This UI includes Data Visualizations, which let you report on data from any source. These visualizations can be placed on Platform Analytics dashboards, along with Platform Analytics filters. For more information, see Platform Analytics experience.

      All Platform Analytics objects are rooted in the Next Experience UI Framework and are available to developers. However, a non-developer can still build their own objects through the Platform Analytics experience, without using UI Builder. For more information, see Platform Analytics experience.

    Note:
    Although "reporting" is a general term, this documentation usually uses "report" and "reporting" to refer to the Core UI Reporting application and "visualization" or "visualize" to refer to Platform Analytics data visualizations, for disambiguation.

    Follow these guidelines when building reports or data visualizations:

    • Creating reports or visualizations on large tables can negatively impact performance. Be sure to filter by a date range or other limiting criteria rather than showing all records on the table.
    • Grouping by fields that contain many possible values can negatively impact performance.
    • If loading a report or visualization gives a Long running transaction timer message, consider adding more data filters to reduce the load time.
    • If you need to export a report, data visualization, or dashboard on a regular basis, schedule the export and email.
    In Platform Analytics, you have several possibilities for showing multiple data visualizations on one page:
    • Create the data visualizations and the dashboards entirely inside the Platform Analytics experience. This approach does not require a developer role or special technical knowledge, and probably should be explored before you try a more complex solution.
    • Create data visualization components in a generic UI Builder page, along with filters and other components. This approach gives you the most freedom as a developer, but also requires the most configuration.
    • Create the data visualizations and the dashboards inside the Platform Analytics experience, but then place the dashboards inside UI Builder pages using the Dashboard page template. This approach lets you use the convenience of the Platform Analytics experience to create dashboards, data visualizations, and filters in your own experiences/workspaces. It also gives you the freedom to customize the page configuration partially. For more information, see Creating Platform Analytics pages in your own workspace.
    • Create a technical dashboard and populate it inside UI Builder. This approach is almost the same as creating your own UI Builder page from scratch, but the dashboard is available in the dashboard library, has dashboard details, and can be shared like other dashboards. For more information, see Technical dashboards.