Pareto reports

Pareto charts help you identify the most important dimension in a large set of dimensions. Columns show data in descending order. A line shows cumulative percentage.

Pareto charts contain both bar and line graphs. The bars display the data in descending order from left to right, and the line graph shows the cumulative totals from each category in the same order. The left Y axis is the record count, and the right Y axis is the cumulative percentage of the total number of records evaluated. The blue line at the 80% mark helps determine which data is the most influential in the process. The data to the left of the intersection of the line graph and the 80% mark have the greatest effect on the overall outcome.

The figure below shows that five callers account for 80% of the incident calls, while seven account for the other 20%.
Figure 1. Pareto chart
Pareto chart

Create a Pareto report

Create a Pareto report to identify the most important factors in a large set of factors.

Before you begin

Role required: itil, report_group, report_global, report_admin, or admin. To create a meaningful report, you must have the right to access the data you want to report on.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Reports > Create New.
  2. Fill in the fields, as appropriate.
    Table 1. New Pareto chart report
    Field Description
    Name Unique and descriptive name for your report.
    Type Pareto chart.
    Table ServiceNow table against which this report will be run.
    Group by Select a field to organize data into groups from the selected table. For example, in an incident report that is grouped by Assignment group, all incidents belonging to Software, Service Desk, Network, and so on, are placed in separate groups. Make sure you give the report a name that reflects the field you select.

    Click plus icon to select additional group by fields. When you select Additional group by fields, a control is added to the bottom of the report that groups the report by any one of the additional fields.

    Note: It is not possible to group or stack reports by the Tags field.
    Export details Check this box to indicate whether to display (selected) or hide (cleared) the report attributes at the top of the page when exporting to PDF.
    Header Footer Template Page header and footer template to use when exporting the report to PDF.
    Visible to
    Users to whom the report is available:
    • Me allows only the report creator to view the report.
    • Everyone allows all users to view the report.
    • Groups and Users allows the report creator to specify groups and users who are authorized to see the report.

    Groups and Users is visible to users with the report_group role.
    Groups

    Groups whose members are authorized to see the report.

    This field is visible only when Groups and Users is selected.
    Users

    Users who are authorized to see the report.

    This field is visible only when Groups and Users is selected.
    Filter and Order Conditions for filtering and ordering data. For example, you might create a condition that states Priority + less than + 3 - Moderate to have the report include only records with priorities of 2- High and 1 - Critical. To order the results from lowest to highest, specify sorting based on Priority and set the sort order to z to a.
    Note: Keywords is a special field used for text searches across all fields. It’s use in a filter or condition, in combination with other conditions, may return inconsistent results.
    Chart size Size of chart: large or small.
    Other threshold Maximum number of individual values represented as slices. Pie charts display 12 slices by default, showing largest values from the selected data. Remaining values are grouped into an Other category.
    Display grid

    Check box for indicating whether to display (selected) or hide (cleared) details of the report data in a table below the chart.

    All reports that use charts, including reports that are used on homepages, display a table of report data if the system property glide.ui.section508 is set to true, regardless of the Display grid setting. The table containing the data is collapsed by default.
    Use color palette

    Check box for indicating whether to assign (selected) or not assign (cleared) a single color to all bars in pareto charts for the specific report. By default, this setting is derived from the value of the system property glide.ui.chart.use_full_color_palette.

    If chart colors are defined for specific table fields or if colors are specified for report ranges, they will be used if the check box is selected. If the check box is selected and no chart colors or report range colors are specified, the default color palette is used. If the check box is cleared, the default color will be used unless the property glide.ui.chart.color is set.
    Display percentages Computational method used for calculating percentages for each element in a data set. The default method, Aggregation computes percentages for each element using the sum of all elements in the data set. Record count computes percentages for each element using the total number (count) of elements in the data set.
  3. Click Save or Insert and stay to generate the report.

What to do next

Add reports to homepages or dashboards, publish to the internet, schedule email distribution of PDFs or URLs of published reports, and share reports with others. For more information, see Distribute reports.

Pareto report style options

Change the look of your Pareto report.

When you create or edit a report, click the gear icon (Cogwheel) after the Type field to open the Style your chart dialog box with options to configure the look of your chart. Chart options are automatically saved when you click Close. To see how the chart looks with the saved settings, click Save.

Table 2. Pareto chart style options
Field Description
General
Chart color If no group by is used, Use one color is automatically selected. Select a single predefined system color.
If a group by is used, select one of the following options:
  • Use color palette: Select a color palette from the predefined system color palettes.
  • Use several colors: Define a custom set of Colors using hex codes. You can add any number of colors.
  • Use chart colors: Use the colors defined in Reports > Chart Colors.
Display data labels Select this check box to display the current value for each bar. This field is available when you select None from the Stacked by list.
Custom chart size Select this check box to specify the chart's width and height in pixels.
Chart size Select a chart size. This field is available when Custom chart size is cleared.
Drilldown View Select a view that determines how detailed records are shown when a specific part of the chart is clicked. This option is available for charts with drill-down capabilities. If you select a view that has no fields in common to link to the table that the report is based on, the default view is used. See Drilling down within reports .
Title
Show chart title Select when the chart title is displayed.
  • Never: never displays the chart title.
  • Report only: displays the chart title on reports.
  • Always: displays the chart title on reports, dashboards, and homepages.
Chart title Enter a title for this chart. The title has a maximum length of 40 characters. If no title is entered, the report name is used for the title. This field is available when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Chart title size Enter the size of the chart title in pixels. This field is available when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Chart title color Select the color for the chart title. This field is available when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Custom chart title position Select this check box to specify the X and Y coordinates for the position of the chart title.
Title horizontal alignment Select how the chart title is aligned horizontally. This field is available when Custom chart title position is cleared.
Title vertical alignment Select how the chart title is aligned vertically. This field is available when Custom chart title position is cleared.
Axis
Axis button Configure the titles, appearance, and labels of the X and Y axis. For the Y axis, you can also specify a From and To range. If you select an aggregation field that is not of the type number, such as an average or a sum with a business duration, the From and To fields are not available.