Getting Started With Performance Analytics: Activate

[Heath Ramsey]

Welcome, and congratulations on getting started with Performance Analytics!

This series of articles will help you activate and configure Performance Analytics in your ServiceNow instance. The articles will also help you start analyzing the collected data that is visualized in the dashboards that come with Performance Analytics.

There are two steps you’ll need to complete before getting started:

1. Activate your Performance Analytics license
2. Activate the Performance Analytics content packs associated with your license

Step 1: Activate Your Performance Analytics Subscription

Every ServiceNow instance comes provisioned with Complimentary Performance Analytics for Incident Management — a limited subset of Performance Analytics features and content — for analyzing only the Incident Management process. Activating your Performance Analytics license will remove these restrictions.

The activation process requires these three items:

• The specific Performance Analytics entitlement you purchased
• A user account with the admin role to your ServiceNow instance
• The name of the release version running in your ServiceNow instance

Identify Your Entitlement

Please consult your ServiceNow order form to confirm which applications you have licensed.

Note the Plugin Name which corresponds to your entitlement before moving to the next step.

You have purchased:	Plugin Name
Performance Analytics Premium	Performance Analytics - Premium
Performance Analytics Enterprise	Performance Analytics - Premium
Performance Analytics for APM	Performance Analytics Premium for APM
Performance Analytics for CSM	Performance Analytics Premium for Customer Service
Performance Analytics for GRC	Performance Analytics - Premium
Performance Analytics for HR	Performance Analytics Premium for Human Resource Management
Performance Analytics for ITBM	Performance Analytics Premium for Business Management
Performance Analytics for ITFM	Performance Analytics Premium for Financial Management
Performance Analytics for ITOM	Performance Analytics Premium for IT Operations Management
Performance Analytics for IT Operations Suite	Performance Analytics Premium for IT Operations Suite
Performance Analytics for PPM	Performance Analytics Premium for Project Portfolio Management
Performance Analytics for Security	Performance Analytics Premium for Security Incident Response
Performance Analytics for Service Management	Performance Analytics Premium for Service Management
Performance Analytics for Service Strategy	Performance Analytics Premium for Business Management
Performance Analytics for Software Asset Management	Performance Analytics Premium for Software Asset Management

Identify an Administrator for Plugin Activation

In order to activate the identified plugin, you will need a user account with the admin role to your ServiceNow instance. This will typically be held by the team responsible for managing ServiceNow in your organization.

Activate the Plugin

Follow the guide on the Performance Analytics Subscription Management page here.

Step 2: Activate Performance Analytics Content Packs

Performance Analytics ships with out-of-the-box content (indicators, breakdowns, widgets, and dashboards) for every ServiceNow solution. These content packs contain some initial best practice key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards you can use to get started quickly, but you can always create your own objects as well.

You'll need the following items available to complete this step:

• The name of the specific Performance Analytics entitlement you purchased
• A user account with the admin role to your ServiceNow instance
• A list of content pack plugins associated with your Performance Analytics entitlement

Identify Content Packs to Activate

To view all available Content Packs, visit the Available Analytics and Reporting Solutions page.  In the documentation, you will find detailed information about what is in each content pack including dashboard, reports, indicators as well as the main personas each dashboard is designed for.  This information is best found by navigating to the solution (CSM, ITSM, HR, etc.) and looking at the applicable Content Packs.

Customers with entitlements to Performance Analytics bundled with a "Professional" or "Enterprise" are limited to the content packs that are related to the applications that are in the subscribed product.  If you have questions about your entitlement, please contact your ServiceNow Account Executive.

There is no additional charge for Performance Analytics Content Packs if you are entitled to use Performance Analytics on the applications that the Content Packs apply to.

Content packs are available as plugins or as ServiceNow Store applications that can be activated by your ServiceNow administrator regardless of the instance release version. In order to identify the plugins to activate you will again need the entitlement name from your welcome email. Refer back to the ‘Identify Your Entitlement’ section of this page if you need help locating your entitlement. 

Activate Content Pack Plugins

Use the following steps to activate the plugins you identified in the previous section:

1. Log into your ServiceNow instance with an account that has the admin security role.
   
   
2. In the left-hand navigation pane, go to System Definition > Plugins to view a list of available plugins in the main content pane. 
   
   
3. In the Name search box at the top of the main content pane, type in the name of the plugin you wish to activate. This example shows Performance Analytics - PA Solution Library as the target plugin. 
   
   
4. Click on the name of the plugin in the list to expose the plugin detail page. 
   
   
5. Click the Activate/Upgrade link under Related Links to view the plugin activation dialog box. 
   
   Note: A dependency check may identify additional plugins needed to support the selected plugin. These plugins will also be activated when you click the Activate button. For example, clicking Activate in the image below not only activates the Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Application Portfolio Management plugin, it also activates Application Portfolio Management and two additional Performance Analytics content packs! 
   
   
6. Click the Activate button to view installation progress as the plugin activates. Verify the operation was successful or review the logs for any failures. 
   
   
7. Click the Close & Reload Form button to return to the plugin list.
   
   
8. Repeat steps 3–7 for each plugin you would like to activate.
   
   

You do not need to activate all of your entitled Performance Analytics content packs at one time in order to start using the product. You’re welcome to enable the ones you would like to work with first and come back to the others at a later time.

Once you have activated the plugins you can return to the Performance Analytics Landing Page to continue with the Getting Started process!

[ronhill]

Where can we find the exact Dashboards and PA Widgets you get with each content pack?  I am specifically looking for details related to Event Management.

[jeffrubinoff]

We only started documenting Dashboards and Widgets per content pack in Madrid. While we have been trying to backfill older content packs, we have not gotten to Event Management. You can however find a list of the indicators in this content pack.

For further exploration, would it be possible for you to install the Event Management content pack on a sub-production instance that has Event Management enabled? You can get a list of the Event Management dashboards by filtering on the Alert Management dashboard group in the PA Admin Console:

 

Then you can filter on the dashboards in the group and see the widgets: