Indicator form

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated June 25, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Indicator form

    Application indicators in ServiceNow provide key business metrics to evaluate applications across various dimensions such as cost, quality, technical risk, investments, user satisfaction, and business value. Starting with the Xanadu release, the application indicators module is integrated into the Enterprise Architecture Workspace, enhancing management capabilities.

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    Administrators with the snapm.apmadmin role can create and manage these indicators using the Indicator form, which defines the data source, frequency, targets, and other attributes essential for accurate measurement and scoring.

    Key Features

    • Name and Unit: Define the indicator's name and measurement units, which can be numeric, currency, time-based, or custom.
    • Frequency: Sets the data collection interval, impacting how often scores are updated. Note that when using Performance Analytics as the data source, frequency selection is disabled.
    • Target Values: Configure minimum and maximum target values to guide scoring. The form supports intelligent handling of target values across different scoring periods through the "Consider Absolute Values" option, allowing flexible normalization based on frequency alignment.
    • Direction and CI Class: Specify if higher or lower values are better (maximize or minimize) and associate the indicator with a specific configuration item type.
    • Data Source Options: Indicators can pull data from multiple sources including Performance Analytics, custom scripts (allowing tailored data collection with scripting), query conditions on tables, assessments for scoring records, or dependent child indicators for hierarchical aggregation.
    • Consolidation Methods: Aggregation of data can be done using sum, average (default), maximum, or minimum, allowing flexible summarization of results over time or categories.
    • Assessment Metrics: When using assessments as a data source, specific metric types and categories can be selected to tailor the scoring approach.
    • Query Configuration: For data sources based on queries, users can define filter conditions, aggregate fields and types, grouping parameters, and consolidation fields to refine and categorize indicator data.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    This indicator form enables customers to systematically measure and score application performance and health metrics within ServiceNow. By configuring indicators with appropriate data sources and aggregation logic, organizations can:

    • Track application-related metrics consistently and at desired intervals.
    • Set meaningful targets to drive improvements and align with business objectives.
    • Use custom scripts and queries to incorporate data from multiple sources and customize scoring logic.
    • Leverage assessments to evaluate and rank applications based on defined criteria.
    • Aggregate related metrics through child indicators to obtain comprehensive views of complex metrics.

    Understanding and configuring these fields correctly ensures accurate, actionable insights into application portfolios, facilitating better decision-making and prioritization within Enterprise Architecture and Application Portfolio Management initiatives.

    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.
    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 selected, absolute target maximum and target minimum values are applied only when the indicator frequency matches the fiscal period being scored. When the frequencies do not match, the system derives the target minimum and maximum values from the application weights of all indicators in the current scoring run.

    When the check box is cleared, the system uses intelligent logic to calculate target maximum and target minimum values based on the actual application weights, regardless of whether the indicator frequency matches the fiscal period being scored.

    Example: Monthly cost indicator scored quarterly

    An indicator named Monthly Infrastructure Cost has a frequency of Monthly, with a Target maximum of $50,000 and a Target minimum of $10,000.

    • Check box selected, scoring period is Monthly (frequency matches): The system applies the absolute values—$50,000 and $10,000—in the normalization formula.
    • Check box selected, scoring period is Quarterly (frequency does not match): The system ignores the absolute values and derives the target maximum and minimum from the actual application weights in the current scoring run.
    • Check box cleared (any scoring period): The system applies intelligent logic, comparing the defined target values with actual application weights and using whichever is more appropriate for each boundary.
    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.