Getting Started With Performance Analytics: Configure

[Heath Ramsey]

You've successfully activated your unlimited version of Performance Analytics, and you have enabled the out-of-the-box content you can use to start visualizing process- and service-related data in your ServiceNow instance!   Now it's time to roll up our sleeves and put Performance Analytics to work for you.

What Do You Get With The Performance Analytics Out-Of-The-Box Content?

So what did activating the plugins do for you?   The plugins installed a lot of data structures that will help you gather the statistics about your processes and services.   It also installed the jobs needed to allow you to quickly collect that data.   Additionally, the plugins installed core visualizations and dashboards that will immediately allow you to see trends.   Here are the specific architectural pieces that were installed and that you need to be familiar with as you start working with Performance Analytics:

• Indicators and Indicator Sources:   Each activated plugin installs the necessary data structures to support the daily measurements for your process.   For example, the Change Management out-of-the-box content provides data that can be used to monitor trend information on strategic Key Performance Indictors (KPIs) like % of changes closed before planned end date, % of new emergency changes, % of urgent changes, and more.   Each activated plugin installs additional indicators and indicator sources to support that targeted process or service.   ServiceNow provides the "best practice" KPIs for each process, but you can create your own additional indicators and indicator sources for your organization's needs.
• Breakdowns and Breakdown Sources:   Breakdowns add a dimension of analysis to your indicators.   For example, you can look at the Number of Open Changes By Assignment Group.   Or you can see the Number of New Changes By Priority. The values   for each breakdown, also called "elements", are controlled by the Breakdown Source, which determines the specific element list for classification.   For example, instead of seeing ALL assignment groups in your instance for Number of Open Changes, you can limit the element list to just those groups that are part of the change process by configuring the Breakdown Source.
• Data Collection Jobs:   The indicators and breakdowns represent the data structures that are available to be analyzed. However, the data representing process or service performance presented through indicators and breakdowns is collected by data collection jobs.   These jobs collect the initial historic data and are then scheduled to run on a periodic basis (usually daily).
• Widgets and Dashboards:   The indicators and breakdowns are the building blocks for collecting and analyzing Performance Analytics data.   Widgets and dashboards give you the ability to present the data in a meaningful way to your organization.   The widgets are the visualization blocks or reusable views of indicators and breakdowns.   You can then place multiple widgets on a single dashboard to drive insight across processes and services.   For example, you can choose widgets containing Incident Management, Change Management, and Problem Management data and place them on a single dashboard to provide all needed information about the IT service management workload across the organization.
  
  

  Important Note!

  Each indicator has its own detailed scorecard that gives you interactive analytics capability.   After you get your dashboards and widgets configured, don't be afraid to click on the data in a widget to see this detailed scorecard.

Now it is up to you to provide the final tweaks so that you can get meaningful data to analyze.   There are two basic steps that need to be performed in the table below.   Click each image to go to the article describing how to Configure and Collect your data in Performance Analytics.

Configure Sources	Collect Data

Once you have completed these 2 steps, you are ready to start analyzing your data!   Go to the Analyze step in this Getting Started guide.