Key alerts – activation and notifications

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Key alerts – activation and notifications

    ServiceNow’s Instance Observer Key Alerts Activation feature, available in the Advanced and Total packages of ServiceNow Impact, enables customers to receive proactive alerts based on moving averages of key instance performance metrics. These alerts use historical thresholds calculated from up to four weeks of data, tailored to your specific instance usage patterns. This functionality helps your team monitor critical metrics and act early to prevent potential issues.

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    Key Features

    • Six critical metrics monitored:
      • Transaction increase and drop moving averages relative to the historical median
      • Response Time moving average exceeding historical median
      • Database Response Time moving average exceeding historical median
      • Default Semaphore Mean approaching max concurrency limits
      • Default Semaphore Queue Depth approaching maximum queue depth limits
    • Dynamic threshold calculation: The system uses the P-Score, a measure of transaction stability on an instance, to determine eligibility and set intelligent, instance-specific alert thresholds.
    • Opt-in alert activation: When an instance meets the minimum P-Score, users are prompted with a banner to enable alerts, receiving tailored notifications based on historical performance data.
    • Regular updates: Thresholds refresh weekly to reflect evolving instance behavior, ensuring alerts remain relevant as usage patterns change.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    These key alerts provide early warning signals about unusual or significant changes in critical instance metrics, enabling your team to be proactive. While not every alert indicates a problem, the notifications highlight deviations from expected behavior that may require investigation or preemptive action. This feature helps improve operational awareness and supports maintaining optimal instance performance by guiding timely responses.

    To implement and customize these alerts for your environment, refer to the configuration guidance in the “Configure Key Alerts” documentation.

    Use the Instance Observer Key Alerts Activation 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.