Indicator form

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Indicator form

    Application indicators measure business metrics across various dimensions such as cost, quality, technical risk, investments, user satisfaction, and business value. Starting with the Xanadu release, the application indicators module has moved to the Enterprise Architecture Workspace, enhancing indicator management capabilities for ServiceNow customers.

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    Users with the role snapm.apmadmin can create and manage application indicators using the indicator form, which defines how metrics are calculated and sourced.

    Key Features

    • Name and Unit: Define the indicator name and unit of measurement such as number, currency, time, duration, or custom units.
    • Frequency: Set the data collection interval, which must align with the fiscal period for target normalization. Performance Analytics data source disables frequency selection.
    • Target Values: Specify maximum and minimum target values for normalization, applicable unless using Assessments data source.
    • Direction: Indicate whether higher or lower values are better by selecting "Maximize" or "Minimize."
    • Active Status: Enable or disable the indicator.
    • CI Class: Associate the indicator with a Configuration Item (CI) type for scoring.
    • Consider Absolute Values: Optionally apply absolute target values or rely on intelligent logic for normalization.
    • Short Description: Provide a brief summary of the indicator’s purpose.

    Datasource Configuration

    The indicator’s data source determines how its values are collected and aggregated:

    • Performance Analytics: Collects scores from existing Performance Analytics indicators. Requires frequency compatibility between indicator and data source to avoid errors.
    • Custom Script: Allows scripting to collect data from other applications, such as querying incident counts related to business applications.
    • Query Condition: Filters data from a selected table using specified query conditions.
    • Assessments: Enables scoring by evaluating records in a table, useful for metric types and survey assessments within APM.
    • Indicators: Supports hierarchical indicators by consolidating child indicators into a parent indicator.

    Consolidation Method: Defines how values are aggregated, with options like sum, average (default), minimum, or maximum, to suit reporting periods such as quarters.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    ServiceNow customers can use the indicator form to create precise, customizable metrics for evaluating application health and performance. By selecting appropriate data sources and consolidation methods, customers can tailor indicators that reflect their unique business requirements and align with fiscal cycles.

    This enables better decision-making by providing normalized, actionable insights into application portfolio management, facilitating investment prioritization and risk assessment.

    Application indicators are business metrics that assess the applications across dimensions such as cost, quality, technical risk, investments, user satisfaction, and business value.

    Important:

    Starting with the Xanadu release, the application indicators module is moved to the Enterprise Architecture Workspace. To learn more, see Manage indicators. To view the updated indicator form fields, see Create indicator form.

    Role required: sn_apm.apm_admin

    Indicator form fields

    Field Description
    Name Name of the application indicator.
    Unit

    A number, currency, time, duration in minutes, hours, days, month, or quarter, or rate.

    You can also create units according to your requirements.
    Frequency Frequency determines the interval at which the data for the indicator source should be collected.

    The Frequency field isn’t available when Performance Analytics is selected from the Data source list.

    The indicator frequency must match the fiscal period being scored for the Target maximum and Target minimum values to be applied during normalization. If the frequencies don’t match, the system uses dynamic normalization instead.
    Target maximum Maximum value for the indicator.

    The Target maximum field isn’t available when Assessments is selected from the Data source list.
    Active Select the Active option to enable the indicator.
    CI Class CI type for which the score is generated.
    Direction Business application with maximum or minimum values. Select Minimize if lower values are better. Select Maximize if higher values are better.
    Target minimum Minimum value for the indicator.

    The Target minimum field isn’t available when Assessments is selected from the Data source list.
    Consider Absolute Values Option to consider values from the Target maximum and Target minimum fields.

    This field is available only when values are entered in the Target maximum and Target minimum fields.

    When the check box is cleared, values for target maximum and target minimum are considered based on the intelligent logic.

    The target maximum and target minimum values are applied only when the indicator frequency matches the fiscal period being scored. If the frequencies don’t match, the system uses dynamic normalization regardless of whether this check box is selected.
    Short description Short summary of the application indicator.
    Table 1. Datasource Configuration section fields
    Field Description
    Default breakdown Name of the Performance Analytics breakdown.
    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.
    • 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 is 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.
    Consolidation Computational method for aggregating the values, a function such as sum, average, maximum, or minimum.

    Default is Average. For example, Average is the sum of the monthly values divided by the total number of months in a quarter.

    If you select Maximum or Minimum, then it’s the maximum value or the minimum value of a month in the quarter, respectively.

    If you select Sum, then it’s an aggregate of all monthly values in the quarter.
    Custom script The Custom Script field appears when Custom Script is selected from the Data source list.
    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;
    Assessment Metric Type Type of metric that is used to assess the indicator.

    Assessment Metric Type field appears when the Data source is Assessments.
    Assessment Metric Category Category of the metric.
    Query table Table from which the queries are filtered.
    Query conditions The conditions based on which the query is filtered.
    Aggregate field The field from the selected table is displayed for the records that match the query conditions.
    Aggregate type Type of aggregation applied for calculation of indicator scores.

    The available options are:

    • Sum
    • Count
    • Avg
    • Min
    • Max
    Group by Categorize the data returned by the query, based on values of a specific field in the query table. For example, if you want to group the data by the life cycle stage status of applications, select Life Cycle Stage.
    Consolidation field The field from the query table on which the computational method for aggregating the values is applied.