Create indicator form

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Create indicator form

    The Create indicator form allows ServiceNow customers to define application or capability indicators within the indicator framework. These indicators help assess and score applications or capabilities based on various data sources and criteria. This functionality supports Enterprise Architecture by enabling structured measurement and performance analysis.

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    Key Features

    • Indicator Definition Fields: Define essential properties such as the indicator name, short description, result limit (to optimize performance by capping displayed records), category, direction (minimize or maximize values), unit of measurement (e.g., numbers, percentages), automatic refresh interval, and order for display sequencing.
    • Data Source Configuration: Choose where indicator data is collected from, including:
      • Performance Analytics: Collect scores from Performance Analytics indicators.
      • Custom Script: Write and customize scripts to gather data from other applications, with sample script examples provided for guidance.
      • Query Condition: Select tables and apply filters to extract relevant data.
      • Assessments: Use assessment records for scoring and ranking, integrating with metric types and survey assessments.
      • Indicators: Define child indicators that roll up data to a parent indicator, enabling hierarchical data consolidation.
    • Performance Analytics Indicator Field: When Performance Analytics is selected as the data source, specify the related indicator and ensure collection frequencies align to avoid errors.
    • Normalized Script: Use standardized scripts to evaluate and score based on normalized metrics, which can be derived from assessments, queries, custom scripts, or Performance Analytics indicators.
    • Click Through Configuration: Customize how users navigate from an indicator to detailed views, choosing window type (new window, same window, dialog box) and scripting the URL for quick access to related dashboards or applications.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Create tailored indicators for applications or capabilities to measure and improve performance within your organization.
    • Utilize flexible data sourcing options, including scripting and Performance Analytics integration, to gather relevant, real-time data.
    • Optimize performance by limiting result sets and scheduling automatic refresh intervals.
    • Enable hierarchical indicator structures with child and parent relationships for comprehensive reporting.
    • Enhance usability by configuring click-through navigation, streamlining access to detailed information and facilitating faster decision-making.

    Create an application or capability indicator to assess applications or capabilities within the indicator framework.

    Table 1. Create indicator form fields
    Field Description
    Name Name of the application or capability indicator.
    Short description Short summary of the application or profile indicator.
    Result limit The maximum number of records an indicator displays when running an associated script. This enables better performance of Enterprise Architecture by not processing too many records.
    Category Category that the indicator is associated with.
    Direction Business applications or capabilities with maximum or minimum values.
    • Select Minimize if lower values are better.
    • Select Maximize if higher values are better.
    Unit The type of unit in which indicator scores are displayed. Units can be numbers, percentages, currencies, quantities of time, or any other entity you define.
    Automatic refresh interval The refresh interval to update the indicator scores within the defined time range.
    Order The position of the indicator in the sequential order of all other indicators while accessing an application or capability.
    Table 2. Data source configuration section fields
    Field Description
    Data source

    Defines the location from which the indicator receives data.

    • Performance Analytics: Collects scores from indicators created in Performance Analytics. See Performance Analytics indicators.
    • Custom Script: Allows you to write a script that collects data from another application. Beneath the Data Source field, a sample script appears. Customize the script as needed. An example custom script is:
      var results = {};
 var applications = [];
 var incidentCount = 0;
 
 var applicationsGr = new GlideRecord("cmdb_ci_business_app");
 applicationsGr.addQuery('active', true);
 applicationsGr.query();
 //for each application get incident count at business service level
 while(applicationsGr.next()) {
    incidentCount = 0;
    
    var gr = new GlideRecord("incident");
    gr.addEncodedQuery("opened_atBETWEEN"  + startDate  + "@" +   endDate);
    gr.addQuery('cmdb_ci_business_app', applicationsGr.getUniqueValue());   
    gr.query();
    
    incidentCount = gr.getRowCount();
    var appInfo = {};
    appInfo.appId = applicationsGr.getUniqueValue();
    appInfo.weight = incidentCount;
    applications.push(appInfo);
    }
 results.applications = applications;
 results;
    • Query Condition: Allows you to select a table to run filters on to obtain data.
    • Assessments: Allows you to evaluate, score, and rank records by assessing records in a table. See Create metric types and generate assessable records. To view results of survey assessments within APM, see Generate survey assessments and view results within APM.
    • Indicators: Allows you to add dependent child indicators. Through the child indicators, data is gathered to the parent indicator.

      For example, if the parent indicator is number of issues, the dependent indicators can be number of incident counts, number of problems, and changes. These dependent indicators are child indicators and the number of incidents, problems, and changes recorded are consolidated up to the parent indicator as the number of issues.
    Indicator The Indicator field appears when Performance Analytics is selected from the Data source list.

    Indicators are statistics that are used to measure current conditions and forecast trends.

    Note:
    If the collection frequency of the application indicator isn’t greater than the frequency at which the data of the Performance Analytic indicator are generated, then the system displays an error message: Frequency of the indicator must always be greater than or equal to the frequency of the datasource configuration indicator. For more information, see Collection of PA indicator score data.
    Default breakdown Name of the Performance Analytics breakdown.
    Normalized script A script to evaluate and score business applications and capabilities using standardized metrics. It involves using indicators that provide a normalized score for the condition they are evaluating. These indicators can be based on assessments, query conditions, custom scripts, or performance analytics.
    Table 3. Click Through section fields
    Field Description
    Click through URL navigation type Select whether to view the application or capability indicator details in a new window, in the same window, or in a dialog box.
    Click through URL script The script associated with an indicator that allows users to select a URL and view the indicator data in a related application or dashboard. This enables quick access to relevant information, or actions related to the indicator data.