Supercharge Your ServiceNow: Performance Analytics Strategies You Can Implement Today

ServiceNow is a powerful platform for streamlining IT and business operations. However, simply implementing ServiceNow isn’t enough. To truly maximize its value, you need to understand how your processes are performing. This is where Performance Analytics (PA) comes in. Performance Analytics provides the insights you need to identify bottlenecks, track progress, and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement. This post will outline actionable strategies you can implement today to supercharge your ServiceNow with Performance Analytics.

Understanding Performance Analytics in ServiceNow

Performance Analytics allows you to collect, analyze, and visualize data over time, enabling you to track key performance indicators (KPIs), identify trends, and measure the effectiveness of your processes. It shifts the focus from simply reacting to incidents to proactively improving services.

Key Components of Performance Analytics

• Indicators: Metrics you want to track, such as the number of resolved incidents, average resolution time, or customer satisfaction scores.
• Indicator Sources: Define the data sources from which indicators are calculated (e.g., the Incident table).
• Breakdowns: Categorize indicators by different dimensions, such as assignment group, category, priority, or location.
• Dashboards: Visualize indicators and breakdowns using charts, scorecards, and other widgets to gain a comprehensive view of performance.
• Data Collector: Automates the process of collecting data and storing it in the PA data warehouse.
• Scores: The actual numerical values captured for indicators over time.
• Targets: Goals you set for your indicators (e.g., reduce average resolution time by 10%).
• Thresholds: Define acceptable ranges for your indicators (e.g., alert if average resolution time exceeds 4 hours).

Strategy 1: Start with a Clear Business Objective

Before diving into the technical aspects, define what you want to improve. Don’t just collect data for the sake of it. Link your Performance Analytics initiatives to specific business objectives.

• Example: Instead of simply tracking “Incident Resolution Time,” aim to “Reduce Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) of High-Priority Incidents by 15% within the next quarter to improve service availability and minimize business impact.”

By defining a clear objective, you can focus on relevant indicators and breakdowns, ensuring that your efforts drive meaningful results.

Strategy 2: Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once you have a business objective, identify the KPIs that will help you measure progress towards that objective. KPIs should be:

• Specific: Clearly defined and measurable.
• Measurable: Quantifiable, allowing you to track progress.
• Achievable: Realistic and attainable.
• Relevant: Aligned with your business objectives.
• Time-bound: Have a defined timeframe for achieving the goal.

Practical Examples:

Strategy 3: Leverage Existing ServiceNow Data

ServiceNow contains a wealth of data that can be used for Performance Analytics. Start by leveraging data from core modules such as:

• Incident Management: Track resolution times, incident categories, assignment groups, and customer satisfaction.
• Problem Management: Analyze recurring incidents to identify root causes and prevent future occurrences.
• Change Management: Monitor the success rate of change requests and identify potential risks.
• Request Management: Track the fulfillment time for service requests and identify bottlenecks.
• Service Level Management: Track the percentage of service level agreements met.

Example: Incident Management Report

Let’s create a simple report to view the number of open incidents grouped by priority:

1. Navigate to Reports > Create New.
2. Source Type: Table
3. Table: Incident
4. Type: Bar
5. Group by: Priority
6. Run report

Strategy 4: Implement Breakdowns for Deeper Insights

Breakdowns allow you to slice and dice your data to identify specific areas of improvement. Common breakdowns include:

• Assignment Group: Identify groups that are consistently underperforming.
• Category: Pinpoint areas where incidents are frequently occurring.
• Priority: Understand the impact of high-priority incidents.
• Location: Identify geographical areas with specific issues.
• Configuration Item (CI): Find unreliable configurations.

Example:

Instead of just tracking the overall “Average Incident Resolution Time,” use a breakdown to analyze “Average Incident Resolution Time by Assignment Group.” This will help you identify specific groups that need additional training or resources.

Strategy 5: Build Interactive Dashboards

Dashboards provide a central location for visualizing KPIs and breakdowns. Create dashboards that are tailored to specific audiences, such as IT managers, service desk agents, or business stakeholders.

Dashboards should be:

• Visually Appealing: Use charts and graphs that are easy to understand.
• Interactive: Allow users to drill down into the data for more details.
• Actionable: Provide insights that can be used to drive improvement.

Example Dashboard Components:

• Scorecards: Display key KPIs, such as “Number of Open Incidents” or “Average Resolution Time.”
• Time Series Charts: Track KPIs over time to identify trends.
• Bar Charts: Compare performance across different assignment groups or categories.
• Pie Charts: Show the distribution of incidents by priority or impact.

Strategy 6: Automate Data Collection and Analysis

The Data Collector automates the process of collecting data and storing it in the Performance Analytics data warehouse. Schedule data collection jobs to run regularly (e.g., daily or weekly) to ensure that your data is up-to-date.

Use the Automated Indicator Breakdowns (AIB) feature to automatically generate breakdowns based on your data. This can save you significant time and effort.

Strategy 7: Set Targets and Thresholds

Setting targets and thresholds allows you to proactively monitor your performance and identify potential issues.

• Targets: Define the desired level of performance for each KPI.
• Thresholds: Set acceptable ranges for your KPIs. Configure alerts to be triggered when thresholds are breached.

Example:

Set a target to “Reduce Average Incident Resolution Time by 10% within the next quarter.” Set a threshold to trigger an alert if “Average Incident Resolution Time exceeds 4 hours.”

Strategy 8: Continuously Monitor, Analyze, and Improve

Performance Analytics is an ongoing process. Regularly monitor your dashboards, analyze your data, and identify areas for improvement. Use the insights you gain to:

• Optimize your processes.
• Improve training for your staff.
• Allocate resources more effectively.
• Make data-driven decisions.

Share your findings with stakeholders and solicit their feedback. This will help you ensure that your Performance Analytics initiatives are aligned with business objectives.

Strategy 9: User Roles and Access Control

ServiceNow provides roles to control access to Performance Analytics features. This ensures that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized personnel. Roles such as pa_viewer, pa_analyst, and pa_admin can be assigned to control user permissions for viewing, analyzing, and configuring Performance Analytics data. Implementing proper access control is crucial for maintaining data security and compliance.

Strategy 10: Leverage ServiceNow’s Predictive Intelligence

ServiceNow’s Predictive Intelligence module can enhance your Performance Analytics by predicting future trends and proactively identifying potential issues. By analyzing historical data, Predictive Intelligence can forecast incident volumes, predict change request success rates, and identify high-risk areas. This allows you to take proactive measures to prevent problems and improve overall service performance.

Flowchart Summary

Real-life Example: Improving Incident Management

A large enterprise implemented Performance Analytics to improve its incident management process. They started by defining the objective of “reducing the impact of IT incidents on business operations.”

They identified the following KPIs:

• Average Incident Resolution Time
• Number of High-Priority Incidents
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

They used breakdowns to analyze these KPIs by assignment group, category, and location. They discovered that one assignment group was consistently underperforming, and that certain types of incidents were taking significantly longer to resolve.

Based on these insights, they provided additional training to the underperforming assignment group and streamlined the process for resolving the most common types of incidents. They also created a dashboard to track their progress and share their findings with stakeholders.

As a result, they were able to:

• Reduce Average Incident Resolution Time by 20%
• Decrease the Number of High-Priority Incidents by 15%
• Increase Customer Satisfaction Score by 10%

This example demonstrates the power of Performance Analytics to drive meaningful improvements in IT service management.

Reference URLs:

• ServiceNow Performance Analytics Documentation 
• ServiceNow Community - Performance Analytics 
• ServiceNow - Performance Analytics and Reporting 

Conclusion

Performance Analytics is a critical component of a successful ServiceNow implementation. By following the strategies outlined in this post, you can unlock the full potential of your ServiceNow platform and drive continuous improvement across your organization. Remember to start with clear objectives, identify relevant KPIs, leverage existing data, implement breakdowns, build interactive dashboards, automate data collection, set targets and thresholds, and continuously monitor and improve. By embracing a data-driven approach, you can transform your ServiceNow implementation from a reactive tool to a proactive engine for business success.