PA vs standard reports
Standard ServiceNow reports show you the current state of data — how many open incidents right now. Performance Analytics stores historical snapshots and lets you analyse trends over time — how did incident volume change over the past 6 months?
PA requires historical data collection to exist. You cannot retroactively analyse trends from before PA was collecting data.
Indicators
An Indicator is the core PA object — it defines what is being measured. An Indicator specifies: the table to query, the filter conditions, the aggregate function (COUNT, SUM, AVG), and the collection schedule.
Example: "Open P1 Incidents" — COUNT of incident records where active=true and priority=1.
Score collection
PA collects indicator scores on a schedule (daily is most common). Each collection run calculates the current value of the indicator and stores it as a Score record. The Score record has: the indicator, the date, and the numeric value.
Breakdowns
Breakdowns let you slice indicator data by a dimension — view "Open Incidents" broken down by Assignment Group, Priority, or Category. A breakdown is defined separately and linked to indicators.
Building a useful dashboard
The most used PA dashboards have three things:
- A headline KPI scorecard showing current values vs target
- Trend lines for the most important metrics over the past 30-90 days
- A breakdown chart for the metric that drives the most decisions (assignment group performance, category distribution)
Avoid dashboards with 20 charts — they get ignored. 3-5 focused metrics that stakeholders actually care about are more valuable.
Targets
Set targets on Indicators to show red/amber/green status on scorecard widgets. Navigate to the Indicator record, open the Targets tab, and define the threshold values and directions (above/below target is good or bad).