Control reports

Control reports visualize data over time using standard deviations to show statistical likelihood and identify outliers.

Control reports display data as a series of connected points. The blue line at the center of the report is drawn at the mean. Upper and lower control limits, represented by red lines, indicate the thresholds at which activity is considered statistically unlikely. If the process is in control, all points are plotted within the control limits. You may want to investigate any activity outside these limits.
Figure 1. Control report
Control report
Note: The mean is calculated by taking a sum of the data points on the Data Points line and dividing by the number of points. These values depend on the aggregation (Count, Average, Sum, or Count Distinct). This mean can differ from averages in other reports based on the same data if the other reports use different aggregations. For example, the mean number of incidents (Count) per month over a period is different from the mean Average duration of those same incidents.

Create a control report

Create a control report to determine whether a business process is in a state of statistical control.

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. Creating Reports
    Field Description
    Name Unique and descriptive name for your report.
    Description Click the information icon (Detailed description) to enter a more detailed description of what the report does and its purpose.
    Data Specify the table or report source containing the data set that you want to include in the report. From the first choice list, select Table or Report source. Then select the specific table or predefined data set from the second choice list.
    Type Select Control.
    Style your chart Click the gear icon (Cogwheel) after the Type field to configure chart style options for the look and layout of the chart.
    Trend by Select the table field whose values you want to display in a time sequence.
    per Time period to group data by. Time periods range from an hour to a year. You can also specify a date.
    Note: Reporting per Week is not supported when the report range includes more than one year. Inconsistent results are produced when a week is split between two years.
    Aggregation

    Select a computational method for aggregating report data. The default is Count, which displays the number of records selected.

    To display only unique records, select Count Distinct. For example, if you want a report on the distinct number of users who have one or more of the roles in a given list of roles. Users with more than one role would be counted twice unless you use Count Distinct.

    Select Average, Sum, or Count Distinct, to display a list of fields from the selected Table. Select a field to aggregate by from this list. For example, if you select a duration field, such as Business duration on the Incident table, the aggregated data is expressed in days, hours, and minutes. If you select an integer field, such as Priority, the data is expressed as a decimal value number.

    Note:
    Note: For duration values, it is not possible to customize the unit of measurement displayed in the aggregation axis.
    Add Filter Condition Create conditions for filtering data to include in the report. For example, to include only records with priorities of 2 – High and 1 – Critical, select [Priority] [less than] [3 – Moderate].
    Add "OR" Clause Select a second condition that must be met if the first condition is invalid. For example, select [Assignment Group] [is] [Database], to include records that are assigned to the Database group if the first condition is false.
    Add Sort Select fields to sort data by. For example, to sort results from lowest to highest priority, select [Priority] [z to a]. For reports with Group by, Stack by, Row/Column or Trend by fields to configure, you can sort by fields that are not listed in the Group by, Stack by, Row/Column or Trend by options. Add sort cannot be applied to dot-walked fields.
  3. Click Save 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.

Control report style options

Change the look of your control report.

When you create or edit a report, click the Style tab for options to configure the look of your report. The options are organized under two or more of the following tabs: General, Title, Legend, and Axis. To see how the chart looks with the changed settings, click Save.

Table 2. Control chart style options
Field Description
General
Display data labels Check box to display the value for each data point.
Custom chart size Check box to specify the width and height of the report in pixels.
Note: The chart size is ignored when you export the report to PDF. In PDFs, the full page width is used to display the chart.
Chart width Width of the report in pixels. The default value is 600.

This field is available when Custom chart size is selected.
Chart height Height of the report in pixels. The default value is 450.

This field appears when Custom chart size is selected.
Chart size Chart size. This field is available when Custom chart size is cleared. Options are Small, Medium, and Large.
Note: The chart size is ignored when you export the report to PDF. In PDFs, the full page width is used to display the chart.
Drilldown view List view to display when a user selects a segment of a report for which no drilldown report type is specified. This view is also used when the user reaches the lowest drilldown level of a report. See Configure the list layout . If you specify a Report drilldown, Drilldown view is ignored.
Note: All users can view report visualizations, such as pie charts and column reports. However, the last level of a drilldown is always a list. Platform access control lists determine user access to list information. Users who do not have rights to any part of the list data see the message "Number of rows removed from this list by Security constraints:" followed by the number. See Access control rules.

For more information, see Define a report drilldown.
Decimal precision Number of decimal places to display. You can display up to four decimal places. By default, whole numbers are displayed.
Title
Show chart title When the chart title is displayed for the report.
  • Never: Never displays the chart title.
  • Report only: Displays the chart title on reports.
  • Always: Displays the chart title on reports, and dashboards and homepages.
Chart title The chart title has a maximum length of 40 characters. If no title is entered, the report name is used for the title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Size of the chart title Size of the chart title in pixels. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Chart title color Color of the chart title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Custom chart title position Check box to specify X and Y coordinates for the position of the chart title. This field appears when Report only or Always is selected from the Show chart title list.
Title horizontal alignment How the chart title is aligned horizontally. This field is available when Custom chart title position is cleared.
Title vertical alignment How the chart title is aligned vertically. This field appears when Custom chart title position is cleared.
Chart title X position Number of pixels to adjust the chart title position right or left. By default the title appears at the center top of the chart. To move the chart title to the right, enter a positive value. To move the title to the left, enter a negative value.

This field appears only when Custom chart title position is selected.
Chart title Y position Number of pixels to adjust the chart title position up or down. By default the title appears at the center top of the chart. To move up the chart title, enter a positive value. To move the chart title down, enter a negative value.

This field appears only when Custom chart title position is selected.
Legend
Show legend Check box to display a chart legend. This check box appears when a Group by field is selected on the report form.
Legend horizontal alignment How the legend is aligned horizontally. This field appears when Show legend is selected.
Legend vertical alignment How the legend is aligned vertically. This field appears when Show legend is selected.
Show legend border Check box to display a border around the legend. This check box appears when Show legend is selected.
Left align legend text Check box to left-align the legend text. By default, the legend text is centered. This check box appears when Show legend is selected.
Axis
Y axis and X axis Axis for which you want to configure the titles, appearance, and labels.
Title Title for the axis.
Title size Size of the axis title in pixels. Default value is 12.
Title color Color of the axis title. Default value is Black.
Title bold Check this box to display the axis title in a bold typeface.
Opposite On the X axis tab, select this check box to display the X-axis title on the right side of the report instead. On the Y axis tab, select this check box to display the Y-axis title on top of the report instead of across the bottom.
Display grid On the X axis tab, select this check box to display horizontal grid lines on the report.

On the Y axis tab, select this check box to display vertical grid lines on top the report.
X axis / Y axis grid width Width of grid lines on the report. Default value is 1 pixel.
Grid color Color of grid lines. Default value is LightGrey.
Grid dotted Check this box to display dotted grid lines instead of solid lines.
From Specify a minimum Y-axis value to limit the amount of information in the report. If you select an aggregation field that is not of the type Number, the From and To fields are not available.
To Specify a maximum Y-axis value to limit the amount of information in the report. If you select an aggregation field that is not of the type Number, the From and To fields are not available.
X axis / Y axis label size On the X axis tab, specify the size of the labels for the rows of the report.

On the Y axis tab, specify the size of the labels for the columns in the report.
Label bold Check this box to display the labels of the report in a bold typeface.