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Tutorial17 03 2025Servicenow Reporting Secrets Drive Business Growth with Data

ServiceNow Reporting Secrets: Unearth Hidden Insights to Drive Business Growth

ServiceNow is a powerful platform for managing workflows and automating IT processes. However, the real value of ServiceNow lies not just in its automation capabilities, but also in its ability to provide valuable insights through robust reporting. Many organizations only scratch the surface of ServiceNow’s reporting potential. This blog post will delve into advanced reporting techniques and strategies to unlock hidden insights and drive significant business growth.

Understanding the Foundations of ServiceNow Reporting

Before diving into advanced techniques, it’s crucial to understand the basic building blocks of ServiceNow reporting:

  • Tables: The foundation of any report. Data is stored in tables, and you must understand the table structure and relationships to create meaningful reports. Common tables include incident, problem, change_request, sc_request, task, and sys_user.
  • Data Sources: Define where the report retrieves data. A data source specifies the table and any necessary filters or joins.
  • Report Designer: The primary interface for creating and customizing reports. It allows you to select the data source, chart type, grouping, aggregation, and styling.
  • Report Types: ServiceNow offers various report types, including:
    • List Reports: Display data in a tabular format.
    • Bar Charts: Visualize data with bars, suitable for comparing categories.
    • Pie Charts: Show proportions of a whole.
    • Line Charts: Track trends over time.
    • Area Charts: Similar to line charts, but with the area under the line filled.
    • Histograms: Display the distribution of numerical data.
    • Box Plots: Show the median, quartiles, and outliers of a dataset.
    • Heatmaps: Use color to represent data values in a grid.
    • Funnel Charts: Visualize the stages of a process and the conversion rate between them.

Advanced Reporting Techniques

Now, let’s explore some advanced techniques to elevate your ServiceNow reporting capabilities:

  1. Database Views:

    Database views combine data from multiple tables into a single, virtual table. This is extremely powerful when you need to create reports that span related tables without complex scripting.

    • Use Case: Imagine you want to report on the average time it takes to resolve incidents based on the user’s location. The user’s location is stored in the sys_user table, while incident information is in the incident table. A database view can join these tables based on the caller_id field in the incident table and the sys_id field in the sys_user table.

    • Implementation: Create a new database view by navigating to System Definition > Database Views. Define the tables to join and the join conditions.

  2. Scripted Reports:

    For complex reporting requirements that cannot be met using the Report Designer alone, scripted reports provide unparalleled flexibility. You can use JavaScript to manipulate data, perform calculations, and customize the report output.

    • Use Case: Calculate the percentage of incidents resolved within SLA for each assignment group, considering different SLA definitions based on priority. This requires querying the SLA records, calculating resolution times, and comparing them to the SLA targets, which is beyond the capabilities of standard reports.

    • Implementation: Scripted reports use a GlideRecord object to query the database and a GlideAggregate object to perform aggregations. You can add conditions, group by fields, and calculate custom metrics.

    • Example:

      (function process(/*RESTAPIRequest*/ request, /*RESTAPIResponse*/ response) {
 
    var groupMetrics = {};
    var gr = new GlideRecord('incident');
    gr.addQuery('active', true);
    gr.query();
 
    while (gr.next()) {
        var assignmentGroup = gr.getValue('assignment_group');
 
        if (!groupMetrics[assignmentGroup]) {
            groupMetrics[assignmentGroup] = {
                total: 0,
                withinSLA: 0
            };
        }
 
        groupMetrics[assignmentGroup].total++;
 
        // Simple check for demonstration purposes; in real-world scenarios,
        // you'd need to properly calculate SLA compliance based on SLAs active during the incident's lifecycle.
        if (gr.getValue('priority') <= 2) {
            groupMetrics[assignmentGroup].withinSLA++;
        }
 
    }
 
    var output = [];
    for (var group in groupMetrics) {
        var slaPercentage = (groupMetrics[group].withinSLA / groupMetrics[group].total) * 100;
        output.push({
            group: group,
            slaPercentage: slaPercentage.toFixed(2) + '%'
        });
    }
 
    response.setContentType("application/json");
    response.setBody(JSON.stringify(output));
 
})(request, response);

  3. Performance Analytics Integration:

    Performance Analytics (PA) is a separate ServiceNow module that provides a more comprehensive approach to reporting and analysis. It allows you to define indicators, targets, and breakdowns to track key performance metrics over time.

    • Use Case: Track the trend of first call resolution (FCR) rate for the service desk over the past year, broken down by service offering. PA can automatically collect FCR data, calculate the rate, and display it in interactive dashboards.

    • Implementation: Define an indicator source to specify the table and conditions for collecting FCR data. Create indicators to calculate the FCR rate. Use breakdowns to categorize the data by service offering. Schedule data collection jobs to automatically update the indicators.

  4. Interactive Filters:

    Interactive filters allow users to dynamically filter the data displayed in reports and dashboards. This provides a more interactive and personalized reporting experience.

    • Use Case: Allow users to filter incidents by assignment group, priority, and state on a dashboard. This enables users to focus on the incidents that are most relevant to them.

    • Implementation: Create interactive filters and link them to the reports on the dashboard. Define the filter type (e.g., choice list, date range) and the fields to filter on.

  5. Scheduled Reports:

    Automate the delivery of reports to stakeholders on a regular basis. This ensures that they have access to the information they need without having to manually generate the reports.

    • Use Case: Automatically email a weekly report of open incidents to the IT service desk manager.

    • Implementation: Schedule reports to run at specific times and frequencies. Specify the recipients, format (e.g., PDF, Excel), and content of the email.

  6. Custom Report Sources:

    While ServiceNow tables are the most common data sources, you can also create custom report sources to retrieve data from external systems or APIs. This allows you to integrate data from other sources into your ServiceNow reports.

    • Use Case: Report on the status of servers monitored by an external monitoring tool. You can create a custom report source that retrieves data from the monitoring tool’s API and displays it in a ServiceNow report.

  7. Report Drill-Downs:

    Enable users to drill down from summary reports to more detailed information. This allows them to investigate specific trends and issues in more depth.

    • Use Case: Start with a pie chart showing the distribution of incidents by category. Allow users to click on a category to view a list of all incidents in that category.

  8. Conditional Formatting:

    Highlight important data points in reports using conditional formatting. This makes it easier to identify trends and outliers.

    • Use Case: Highlight incidents that have been open for more than five days in red.

  9. Utilizing Calculated Fields:

    Calculated fields allow you to create new fields on the fly within a report, based on existing fields. This is helpful for deriving new metrics without modifying the underlying data.

    • Use Case: Calculate the age of an incident in days and then group incidents by age ranges (e.g., 0-1 day, 1-3 days, 3-7 days).

Visualizing the Reporting Process

Real-Life Examples

  • Reducing Incident Resolution Time: Create a report showing the average resolution time for incidents by assignment group and category. Identify groups or categories with high resolution times and investigate the reasons behind them. Implement process improvements or provide additional training to reduce resolution times.
  • Improving Change Management Success Rate: Create a report tracking the success rate of change requests, broken down by change type and risk level. Identify change types or risk levels with low success rates and implement additional controls or approvals to improve the success rate.
  • Optimizing Resource Allocation: Create a report showing the workload distribution across different teams and individuals. Identify teams or individuals who are overloaded or underutilized and reallocate resources accordingly.
  • Enhancing Customer Satisfaction: Create a report tracking customer satisfaction scores for different services or products. Identify areas where customer satisfaction is low and implement improvements to address the issues.

Key Reporting Tables to Master:

  • Incident (incident): Stores information about incidents.
  • Problem (problem): Tracks problems.
  • Change Request (change_request): Manages change requests.
  • Request (sc_request): Holds service catalog requests.
  • Task (task): A generic task table from which many tables inherit.
  • Service Level Agreement (sla): Stores SLA definitions and instances.
  • User (sys_user): Contains user information.
  • Group (sys_user_group): Holds group information.

Referencing Useful Resources:

Conclusion

ServiceNow reporting is a powerful tool that can provide valuable insights to drive business growth. By mastering the basic building blocks of reporting and exploring advanced techniques like database views, scripted reports, and Performance Analytics integration, you can unlock hidden insights and make data-driven decisions. Remember to focus on identifying key business needs, designing reports that effectively communicate information, and continuously monitoring and refining your reports to ensure they are providing value.

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