Self-Service Analytics concepts
Summarize
Summary of Self-Service Analytics concepts
The Self-Service Analytics framework in ServiceNow enables you to measure the effectiveness of your self-service channels by quantifying case deflections. A case deflection occurs when a user finds a resolution through self-service options—such as Knowledge Base, Communities, Service Catalog, or Virtual Agent—without creating a new case. This framework helps you understand how well your self-service content prevents case creation, improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
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By default, the framework powers the Self-Service Analytics dashboard for customer service but can also be integrated into dashboards of other applications leveraging the Subscriptions and Activity Feed Framework. It comes with predefined configurations for common user entities like consumers and customer contacts, and can be customized for additional user types.
Key Features
- Activity Patterns: Defined using combinations of pattern elements and pattern element groups, these represent user behavior associated with deflection outcomes. Pattern elements track specific user activities (e.g., viewing a knowledge article once), while pattern element groups combine multiple elements logically with frequency conditions (e.g., occurred once, optionally many times).
- Deflection Outcomes: Activity patterns lead to one of three outcomes:
- Confirmed Deflection: Self-service content definitely prevented case creation.
- Potential Deflection: Content was viewed and no case was created, but the reason is uncertain.
- No Deflection: A case was created after viewing self-service content.
- Deflection Configuration: Defines a time window for monitoring whether a case is created after user activity on self-service channels. This window controls how deflection outcomes are determined based on subsequent case creation within that timeframe.
- Activity Context and Groups: Organizes user activities into logical groups such as Catalog, Knowledge, Communities, Virtual Agent, and Case, helping to structure how analytics interpret user interactions.
- Deflection Metrics: Outcomes from matched activity patterns are recorded in the Deflection Metric table, with data collection managed via scheduled jobs for ongoing analytics.
Practical Benefits and Usage
ServiceNow customers can use the Self-Service Analytics framework to:
- Gain clear visibility into how effectively self-service channels reduce case volumes.
- Identify usage patterns that correlate with successful deflections, enabling targeted improvements to self-service content and channels.
- Customize activity patterns and deflection windows to align analytics with unique business requirements and user behaviors.
- Leverage out-of-the-box configurations to quickly deploy analytics for common consumer and customer contact scenarios, accelerating insights.
By implementing this framework, you can better optimize your self-service offerings, reduce support overhead, and enhance customer experience through data-driven decision-making.
You can quantify your self-service effectiveness by measuring case deflections.
The Self-Service Analytics framework enables you to measure case deflection by defining user activity patterns for a deflection outcome. A case deflection is when you are able to provide a resolution using one of the self-service channels, such as Knowledge, Communities, Catalog, and Virtual Agent, to a user who intended to create a case and as a result, no case is created.
By default, the Self-Service Analytics framework is used by the Self-Service Analytics dashboard for customer service. The framework can also be used in dashboards of other applications that use the Subscriptions and Activity Feed Framework.
The system includes predefined configurations for the Self-Service Analytics framework components associated with consumers and customer contacts. You can also configure these components for other user entities.
Self-service analytics components
- Activity pattern (see Activity pattern components)
- Deflection outcome (see Deflection outcome components)
Activity pattern components
- Activity pattern
- A combination of pattern element, pattern element group, or both for a user entity such as
consumers or customer contacts that is linked to an outcome. Each pattern element or pattern
element group is implemented as regular expressions.
Example: The activity pattern Contacts: Case: Confirmed Deflection is a combination of pattern element groups Self-Service: Helpful and Self-service actions: Optionally Many.
- Deflection outcome
- An activity pattern can lead to a deflection outcome. See Deflection outcome components.
- Primary activity
- The final activity that determines the outcome associated with an activity pattern based on
whether it happens or not.
Example: For the primary activity Customer created a case if the system does not find a match (that is a case was not created), the outcome Confirmed deflection is associated with the activity pattern Contacts: Case: Confirmed Deflection.
- Pattern element group
- A logical combination of two pattern elements, pattern element group, or both and how many times the combination occurs. For more information, see Pattern element group components.
Pattern element group components
- Pattern element group
- A logical combination of two pattern elements, pattern element group, or both and how many
times the combination occurs. Each pattern element group is implemented as regular
expressions.
The occurrence of the logical combination result is one of the following types:
- Once
- Optionally Once
- Optionally Many
- At Least Once
- Range
Example 1: In the following table, the Knowledge engagements once pattern element group is true when it occurs only once and either Article viewed once is true or Article marked with positive feedback once is true.
Table 1. Pattern element group example 1 Pattern element group First Element Second Element Operator Occurrence Knowledge engagements once Article viewed once Article marked with positive feedback once Or Once Example 2: In the following table, the Self-service engagements optionally many pattern group is true when engagements either have not occurred or have occurred multiple times and either the Knowledge or catalog engagements once is true or the Communities or virtual agent engagements once is true.
Table 2. Pattern element group example 2 Pattern element group First Element Second Element Operator Occurrence Knowledge or catalog engagements once Knowledge engagements once Catalog engagements once Or Once Communities or virtual agent engagements once Communities once Virtual agent engagements once Or Once Self-service engagements optionally many Knowledge or catalog engagements once Communities or virtual agent engagements once Or Optionally Many - Pattern element
- Denotes a single activity type and how many times it occurs. Each pattern element is
implemented as regular expressions.
Example: The pattern element Article viewed once denotes that the activity Viewed a knowledge article must occur once.
- Activity type
- An action that a user (consumer or customer contact) performs.
Example: The activity type Viewed knowledge article occurs when a user views a knowledge article.
Activity context components
- Activity context
- A collection of activity groups a user might perform such as Catalog, Knowledge, Case,
Communities, and Virtual Agent.
Example: The activity context Contact is a collection of activity groups Catalog, Knowledge, Case, Communities, and Virtual Agent associated with the customer contact.
- Activity group
- A logical grouping of activity types performed on the same object type such as a knowledge
article, community answer, or customer service case.
Example: The activity group Knowledge is a logical grouping of the activities Viewed knowledge article and Marked the article helpful performed on a knowledge article.
- Activity context group
- An activity group that has been added to a context.
Deflection outcome components
- Deflection outcome
- In the context of deflection, an activity pattern can lead to one of the following three
outcomes:
- Confirmed deflection
- The self-service content definitely prevented a case from getting created.
- Potential deflection
- The self-service content was viewed and no case was created, but it's unclear whether the content is the factor that prevented the case from getting created.
- No deflection
- A case was created after the self-service content was viewed.
- Deflection configuration
- Associates a window (duration) with an activity context. The window defines how long a
system will wait for a case to be created to match with a deflection pattern.
Example: To track the create case activity for a consumer within a day, set the window as 1 day.
- If the consumer created a case within that window, the deflection pattern matched is a No deflection.
- If the consumer did not create a case within that window, the deflection pattern matched is a Potential deflection.
- If the consumer did not create a case and the last activity is submitted positive feedback for any self-service channel content within that window, the deflection pattern matched is a Confirmed deflection.
- Deflection metrics
- A transactional table that stores the outcome of matched patterns. By default, the scheduled job for Self-Service Analytics captures data and stores the generated data in the Deflection Metric [ssa_deflection_metric] table.
- Deflection pattern
- Associates deflection configuration with an activity pattern. A deflection pattern is implemented as a table.