Target form
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Summary of Target form
The Target form in ServiceNow is designed to help you track and measure progress toward specific goals within Strategic Planning and Operational Sustainability Workspace. It provides detailed fields to define, monitor, and automate target achievement, supporting both quantitative and qualitative measures. The form integrates with related goals and enables configuration of progress tracking, breakdowns, and confidentiality settings.
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Key Features
- Core Fields: Capture target name, associated goal, description, state (Draft, In progress, Approved, Complete), status, and calculated progress percentage based on target type (Maximize or Minimize).
- Impact on Goal: Assign relative importance to targets for weighted progress calculation, activated via system property.
- Ownership and Contributors: Automatically set owner and contributors based on goal associations, facilitating collaboration.
- Duration: Start and end dates default to the associated goal’s timeline but are editable to fit target specifics.
- Metrics and Measurement: Define unit of measure (quantitative like %, $, #, Days or qualitative like Yes/No), target type (Maximize, Minimize, Milestone), baseline, actuals, and final target values.
- Progress Calculation: Automatic computation using formulas tailored to target type, supporting complex weighted averages when enabled.
- Check-in Frequency and Target Breakdown: Enables setting periodic update intervals (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly) for progress tracking and automatically creates target breakdowns except for qualitative targets.
- Target Value Distribution: Allows specifying if target values accumulate linearly over time or are split equally across periods.
- Remarks and Comments: Fields to document business justifications and facilitate collaboration.
- Confidentiality Controls: Restrict access to target records to specific users or groups, applicable when ESG Management app is installed and configured, ensuring sensitive data protection without affecting overall goal progress roll-up.
- Automation: Automate actual value updates by linking to external data sources such as Benefit Plans, requiring PPM Standard installation for certain scripts.
Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers
By using the Target form, you can precisely define and monitor each target's progress within your strategic goals, ensuring timely updates and clear accountability. The ability to configure check-in frequencies and automate progress updates streamlines tracking efforts, while confidentiality features protect sensitive ESG-related targets. The form’s integration with goals and weighted progress calculations provides a comprehensive view of organizational performance, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.
Use the Target form to track and measure the progress of the goals.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Name of the target. |
| Goal | Name of the associated goal. This field is auto-populated when creating a target from the Targets related list on the Goal form. |
| Description | Brief description of the target. You can refine target description using the Refine records skill, if the ServiceNow Otto for SPM application is installed. |
| State | State of the target: Draft, In progress, Approved, or Complete. |
| Status | Status of the target. The status indicates whether the target breakdown is likely to be completed by the planned end date. |
| Progress | Percentage of the target execution that is complete. The value is calculated automatically. If the Type field is set to Maximize, the progress value is calculated using the following formula:
If the Type field is set to Minimize, the progress value is calculated using the following formula.
For more information on how the progress value is calculated when the weight scale is defined, see Progress value calculation. |
| Impact on goal | A numerical value that represents the importance of the target relative to the other targets of the goal. If there are any subgoals present, they are also considered for relative weights and consequent progress
calculation. By default, the value is (1) Neutral. The available options are:
Note: This field is available only when the sn_gf.weighted_average_enabled system property is set to Yes. |
| Owner | Owner of the target. By default, the name of the user creating the target is populated. |
| Contributors | Users who contributes to the achievement of the target. By default, the contributors of the associated goal are populated. |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Start date | Start date for the target. By default, the start date of the associated goal is populated. |
| End date | End date for the target. By default, the end date of the associated goal is populated. |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Unit of measure | Measure type for the specified value. Usage of the measure such as cost, time, and rate. The available measure types are stored in the Units [sn_gf_units] table. Unit of measure defines the type of the target as qualitative or quantitative. The available unit of measures for the quantitative target are #, $, %, and Days. The available unit of measure for the qualitative target is Yes/No. |
| Type | Target type that signifies the direction of achievement.
The Type field becomes read-only with the value populated as Milestone for qualitative targets (when the Unit of measure field is set to a qualitative target value). |
| Start value | Start value of the target. The start value can also be considered as the present or current value. This field becomes read-only when a value is entered in the Actual value field. Clear the Actual value field to update a value in the Base value field. This field is available when the Type field is set to Maximize or Minimize. |
| Final target value | Final target value of the target. The target value should be aspirational and should challenge the teams. This field is available when the Type field is set to Maximize or Minimize. |
| Baseline reference | Past achievement of the target to provide reference for future performance. This value is only for reference purpose and not considered for target progress calculation. |
| Actuals to date | Actual value of the target at a given time. This field is available when the Type field is set to Maximize or Minimize. |
| Check-in frequency | Option to specify breakdown intervals for the target and how frequently the owner or contributor should update the actual value of the target. Breaking down the target into smaller periods helps you set a target for
smaller periods and focus on the specific breakdown targets. The available options are Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and
Yearly. Target breakdowns are automatically created when you set this field to any of the available options other than None. For more details on target breakdowns, see Target breakdowns in Strategic Planning. Note: The target breakdowns feature isn’t supported for qualitative targets. |
| Target value distribution | Option to specify the target to be calculated cumulatively or non-cumulatively. The available options are Split equally across the time period (non-cumulative) and Spread linearly
across the time period (cumulative). This field is available only when the Check-in frequency field is set to any of the available options other than None. |
| Remark | Remark entered by the user for business justification when updating the actuals. |
| Check-in due date | Due date that the owner or contributor of the target must update the actual value of the target to. |
| Confidential | Option to restrict the access for this target record to the specific users populated in the Allowed groups and Allowed users fields. This field is available when the ESG Management application is installed and the sn_grc.enable_record_confidentiality property is enabled. This field is applicable only when the Classification field in the goal form of the target is populated as Environmental, Social, or Governance. The required role to configure this field is sn_esg.reader. Note:
Irrespective of the target record set to confidential or not, the target progress value rolls up to its goal for calculating the progress value of the goal. |
| Allowed groups | User groups who can access the target record. This field is applicable only for the Operational Sustainability Workspace users. Even though a user group is populated in this field, the users can access the confidential record only if the user group has the sn_esg.reader role. This field is available when the Confidential field is set to true. |
| Allowed users | Users who can access the target record. This field is applicable only for the Operational Sustainability Workspace users. Even though a user name is populated in this field, the user can access the confidential record only if the user has the sn_esg.reader role. This field is available when the Confidential field is set to true. |
| Comments | Detailed comments for the target to facilitate collaboration. |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Automate actual value | Option to enable the target automation feature for the target. |
| Actual value source | Target source table that the data is fetched from to auto-update the actual value of the target on the target's review due date. This field is available when the Automate actual value field is set to true. |
Variables section of the Target form
This section appears based on the context variables available in the target source that is selected in the Actual value source field.