Control reports

Control reports visualize data over time using standard deviations to show statistical likelihood and identify outliers.

Control reports display data as a series of connected points. The blue line at the center of the report is drawn at the mean. Upper and lower control limits, represented by red lines, indicate the thresholds at which activity is considered statistically unlikely. If the process is in control, all points are plotted within the control limits. You may want to investigate any activity outside these limits.

These reports use Z-scores to indicate statistical likelihood.

Z-score = (Observation - Mean) / Standard Deviation

The upper and lower green lines indicate plus and minus two times the Z-score. The upper and lower red lines indicate plus and minus three times the Z-score.

Note:

When accessibility is enabled, this visualization includes a report that screen readers can interpret. For more information, see Enabling accessibility features.

Figure 1. Control report

Note:

The mean is the sum of the data points on the Data Points line divided by the number of points. These values depend on the aggregation (Count, Average, Sum, or Count Distinct). This mean can differ from averages in other reports based on the same data if the other reports use different aggregations. For example, the mean number of incidents (Count) per month over a period is different from the mean Average duration of those same incidents.

Create a control report

Create a control chart to determine whether a business process is in a state of statistical control.

Before you begin

Role required: itil, report_user, report_group, report_global, report_admin, or admin. To create a meaningful report, you must have the right to access the data you want to report on.

Procedure

1. Perform one of the following actions:
   • On an upgraded instance that has not been fully migrated to Platform Analytics, navigate to All > Reports > Create New.
   • On a new instance or one that has been fully migrated to Platform Analytics, navigate to All > Platform Analytics Administration > Usage and governance > Reports and select New.
2. On instances with Unified Analytics enabled, and on new Zurich instances, both Core UI reports and Platform Analytics experience data visualizations are found in the Platform Analytics library. Navigate to All > Platform Analytics > Library > Data Visualizations and select New. For more information, see Differences between Core UI and Platform Analytics dashboards.
3. On the Data tab, give the report a name that reflects the information being grouped.
4. Select the applicable source for the report.

   Option	Description
   Data source	Also called a report source, a data source is a table with filters applied to provide a single source of information for all users. For more information, see Report sources. Note: If you select a data source used by existing reports, a notification prompts you to view them.
   Table	The raw data from a table with no filters applied. When you select a table, its short description appears below the table name. For trend reporting, you can also select a remote table, which aggregates, in memory, data retrieved from an external source. Then select a Trend by field option to aggregate its data. To learn more about remote tables, see Retrieving external data using remote tables and scripts
   External import	Choose an existing imported report source, or select the Upload icon () to import a new file. See Create a Core UI report from an imported Microsoft Excel document.
   MetricBase	MetricBase enables you to collect, retain, analyze, and visualize custom time series data on the ServiceNow AI Platform. For more information, see MetricBase.

5. Select Next.
6. On the Type tab, enter Control in the filter, select the report type, and click Next.

   The application shows a preliminary version of the report. To view the updated report at any time, select Run.

7. On the Configure tab, fill in the following fields and select Next.

   Table 1. Configure tab

   Field	Description
   Configure function field	Configure fields based on calculation of multiple inputs including arithmetic functions. For more information, see Report on function fields. Function field results are calculated when the report is run. You can use the results for aggregations and grouping. You have to save the report before you can configure function fields. Configured function fields appear in the Group by and Additional group by lists after you save the report.
   Trend by	Table field whose values you want to show in a time sequence. Select the info icon () for a description of the selected field. Note: If you selected a remote table in the Table field, the option you select in this field aggregates the data that was retrieved from an external source and aggregated in memory. To learn more about remote tables, see Retrieving external data using remote tables and scripts.
   per	Time period to group data by. The range of available time periods depends on the calendar that you selected. Time periods range from an hour to a year. You can also specify a date. Note: If reporting per week: When the report range includes more than one calendar year, inconsistencies result when a week is split between two years. To show data values more accurately according to ISO weeks, add and enable the glide.db.aggregates.trend.use_iso_week property in the System Properties [sys_properties] table.
   Aggregation	Mathematical calculation to perform on the data. The default is Count, which shows the number of records selected. To show only unique records, select Count Distinct. Select Average, Sum, or Count Distinct, to show a list of fields from the selected Table. Select a field to Aggregate by from this list. If you group the report by a field and select an Average aggregate, you get the average of each group. If a Total value is shown, it is the average of these group averages, not of the individual field values. Select Minimum or Maximum to show the maximum or minimum value for each segment of the report. For more information on aggregation options, see Aggregation in reporting. If you choose Average,Sum, Count Distinct, Minimum, or Maximum, you may be able to aggregate on fields from extended tables. See How to report on extended tables. For information about aggregating on FX currency values, see FX Currency values in reporting.
   Set Value Formatting	Enables you to configure how to show numerical values in reports, including decimal precision, rounding, minimum and maximum duration units, and abbreviations for duration units. See Value formatting in reports. Note: Decimal precision does not work on currency fields.

8. Optional: Configure the sort order of the applicable fields in the report (column, row, Group by, Stack by or Trend by depending on the report type).
   Select the filter icon () and choose Add Sort.

   1. In the Sorting Order list, choose the field you want to sort on and then choose a-z or z-a for alphabetical order or reverse alphabetical order.

      The list contains all possible fields from the report's source and fields on extended, or related, tables. The only effective values, however, are the fields chosen for the current report (column, row, Group by, Stack by, or Trend by depending on the report type).

      Note:

      On fields from dot-walked (extended) tables, you can only sort on date fields.
   2. Select the sort plus icon () to configure additional sorting order conditions. (Select the sort minus icon ( ) to delete configured sorting order conditions.)
   3. Select Save.

   For fields of the type Choice list, sort order is not determined alphabetically based on Label, it is sorted based on the Value of the choice field. For multi-level pivot table and heatmap reports, sort order is determined by the sequence of the choices in the list.

   

9. Optional: To limit the information displayed in the report, select the filter icon () and specify conditions to filter the report data.
   To learn how to construct conditions, see Condition builder.

   Note:

   In aggregated and list reports, language-dependent filter conditions may return zero results on localized instances.
10. On the Style tab, fill in the fields as appropriate to configure the appearance of the report.
11. Click Save to generate the report.

What to do next

• Select the Report info icon () and add a description of the report.
• Select the sharing icon () to open the Sharing menu. On this menu, you can add the report to a dashboard, export the report to PDF, publish the report to the web, and set visibility and schedules.

Control report style options

Change the look of your control report.

When you create or edit a report, click the Style tab for options to configure the look of your report. The options are organized under two or more of the following tabs: General, Title, Legend, and Axis. To see how the report looks with the changed settings, click Save.

Table 2. Control chart style options

Field	Description
General
Display data labels	Check box to show the value for each data point.
Custom chart size	Enable the option to specify the width and height of the report in pixels. Note: The chart size is ignored when you export the report to PDF. In PDFs, the full page width is used to show the chart.
Chart width	Width of the report in pixels. The default value is 600. This field is available when Custom chart size is selected.
Chart height	Height of the report in pixels. The default value is 450. This field appears when Custom chart size is selected.
Chart size	Chart size. This field is available when Custom chart size is cleared. Options are Small, Medium, and Large. Note: The chart size is ignored when you export the report to PDF. In PDFs, the full page width is used to show the chart.
Drilldown view	List view to show when a user selects a segment of a report for which no drilldown report type is specified. This view is also used when the user reaches the lowest drilldown level of a report. See Configure the list layout . If you specify a Report drilldown, Drilldown view is ignored. For more information, see Define a report drilldown.
Decimal precision	Number of decimal places to show. You can show from zero to four decimal places. Default value: 2. To change the default value, create the system property glide.chart.decimal.precision and specify the value. Note: Percentage labels do not change accordingly with the decimal precision specified.
Title
Show chart title	When the chart title is shown for the report. Never: Never show the chart title. Report only: Shows the chart title on reports. Always: Shows the chart title on reports, dashboards, and landing pages.
Chart title	The chart title has a maximum length of 40 characters. If no title is entered, the report name is used for the title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Size of the chart title	Size of the chart title in pixels. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Chart title color	Color of the chart title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Custom chart title position	Check box to specify X and Y coordinates for the position of the chart title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Title horizontal alignment	How the chart title is aligned horizontally. This field is available when the Custom chart title position option is cleared.
Title vertical alignment	How the chart title is aligned vertically. This field appears when Custom chart title position is cleared.
Chart title X position	Number of pixels to adjust the chart title position right or left. By default the title appears at the center top of the chart. To move the chart title to the right, enter a positive value. To move the title to the left, enter a negative value. This field appears only when Custom chart title position is selected.
Chart title Y position	Number of pixels to adjust the chart title position up or down. By default the title appears at the center top of the chart. To move up the chart title, enter a positive value. To move the chart title down, enter a negative value. This field appears only when Custom chart title position is selected.
Legend
Show legend	Enable this option to show a chart legend. This check box appears when a Group by field is selected on the report form. Legends are truncated by default. To adjust truncation lengths, configure the properties glide.chart.label.legend.truncate_to and glide.chart.label.legend.truncate_to.large. For more information, see Reporting properties.
Legend horizontal alignment	How the legend is aligned horizontally. This field appears when Show legend is selected.
Legend vertical alignment	How the legend is aligned vertically. This field appears when Show legend is selected.
Show legend border	Enable this option to show a border around the legend. This check box appears when Show legend is selected.
Left align legend text	Enable this option to left-align the legend text when the report is viewed in a browser. By default, the legend text is centered. When the report is exported to PDF, PNG, or JPG, the legend remains centered. This check box appears when Show legend is selected.
Axis
Y axis and X axis	Axis to configure the titles, appearance, and labels for.
Title	Title for the axis.
Title size	Size of the axis title in pixels. Default value is 12.
Title bold	Enable this option to show the axis title in a bold typeface.
Opposite	On the X axis tab, enable this option to show the X-axis title on the right side of the report instead. On the Y axis tab, enable this option to show the Y-axis title on top of the report instead of across the bottom.
Display grid	On the X axis tab, enable this option to show horizontal grid lines on the report. On the Y axis tab, enable this option to show vertical grid lines on top the report.
Grid dotted	Enable this option to show dotted grid lines instead of solid lines.
X axis / Y axis label size	On the X axis tab, specify the size of the labels for the rows of the report. On the Y axis tab, specify the size of the labels for the columns in the report.
Label bold	Enable this option to show the labels of the report in a bold typeface.