Getting started with reports

This video guides you through using dashboards and creating reports to share
information about your applications.

Using dashboards
Responsive Dashboards in the content frame let users share widgets like Reports
and Performance Analytics visualizations. This dashboard is shared among users
with the itil role. We can create our own dashboards and view dashboards that
other people have shared with us. If we have editing privileges for a dashboard
like we do here, we can add reports and other widgets with live data so that
other people sharing the dashboard can see them.

Generating reports from Lists

You can create reports right from a list. Just right click a column label to
generate bar chart and pie chart reports like we’ve done here. Report data is
grouped by the column you click. If the list was filtered, the report only includes
the filtered data.

Creating reports from Report Designer

You can also leverage existing reports. Here we are logged in as Beth Anglin. To
view the reports shared with Beth, first go to the Reports application and then
click View/Run. From the Reports list, we see reports created by the logged in
user. In this case, Beth hasn’t created any reports yet. You can also see reports
that are shared by specific groups or users, reports that are shared as global,
and all reports that the logged in user can see. You can open and run any of
the reports in the list.

Now let’s create a bar chart report of Open Incidents based on Priority. To
create a new report, we can click the Create New module or click Create a
report.

First, we’ll give the report a name. This is a mandatory field. It is important to use
a name that is logical and clear. We’ll call our report Incident Priority. Next, we
select a Source type. You can create a report from a data source or a table.

© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
Here’s the difference. When you're using a table, you need to provide all the
conditions to select report data from the table, even if many of the conditions
are the same from one report to another. But a report source defines a standard
set of conditions for querying a particular table, which can be reused in other
reports. Note that in the Report Designer, the Report Sources are called Data
Sources. So, to use an existing set of conditions we select Data source as the
Source type, and then select the data source for Open Incidents.

If there's already a report based on that data source, a message is displayed.

Click the link to review the list. It's a good idea to check because the report
you're creating might already exist. But this time an existing report is not
available. So, we’ll go back to finish creating our report.

With the first three fields set, we click Next, which advances us to the Type tab.
You can jump to any part of the Report Designer by clicking the tabs at the top
or navigate by clicking Back or Next. Here under the Type tab, choose the
format for your report: bar charts, pie charts, time series, multidimensional, and
lots more. There's a description of each type at the top of the section. For our
report, let’s choose a simple bar chart. The data is displayed in the visualization
we chose, in this case, a bar chart. And here's the incident data. Easy!

We’ll group the data by priority. Then we can refresh the report by clicking Next,
Run, or the Run report icon. Now we see a visualization of all the open incidents
grouped by Priority.

When we're happy with the way the data is displayed, we go to the Style tab to
change the size, colors, and other visual aspects. There are various options
available to help you customize the visualization of your report. There is a good
selection of colors to choose from. Let’s give the bar chart some color variations
to set the data apart. For the Chart color, we’ll use the color palette. Now, let’s
refresh the report. Ok! Our report looks great, so let’s save it. And now our report
is ready to use and share.

Sharing reports
To share a report, we click Share or the Sharing icon in the header. Report
creators can add a report to a dashboard or export it to PDF. To add a report to
a dashboard, click Add to Dashboard. Then select a dashboard from those you
can edit. But we won’t add a report to a dashboard, so we’ll just cancel this.
Exporting the report to PDF is also an option, but remember that when you
export to PDF, you lose the benefit of sharing real-time information.
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© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
Additional report sharing options are available based on role. These include
share a report with other ServiceNow Users and Groups, schedule a report, and
publish or unpublish a report. The suggested option is to share the report. Click
Share to view the options. You can share the report to only yourself, everyone in
specific roles, or different groups and users. Users must already have access to
the data to see it in a report. Reports that present aggregate data such as pie
or bar charts do not require access to underlying data.

Publishing creates a URL for others to access the report, including people who
are not ServiceNow users. When anyone navigates to the URL, the report is
generated with current data. So, make sure the URL is shared only with people
who should have access to the data. After you publish the report, you can un-
publish it at any time.

Click Schedule to schedule the report to be run and shared with users and
groups via email. Add the text of the email in the introductory message.

For more information, please see our Product Documentation, Knowledge Base,
or Podcast. Or ask a question in the ServiceNow Community.

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© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.