Before you create assessments, assign the assessment_admin role to the appropriate users in your organization and determine your objectives for the assessment.

Decide which sets of records in the system to assess, which themes you are interested in, and which traits to measure. Consider your organization's options for obtaining the data to compare. If you intend to use assessment questionnaires, consider which people can answer the questions.

Assessment terminology

Assessment admins use several terms when working with assessments.

TermDescription
Metric type A metric type defines a set of records to evaluate, such as vendors, projects, or employees.
Assessable record An assessable record links a record to evaluate, such as the company record for Amazon or the user record for a sales representative, to a metric type, such as vendors or employees. You define sets of assessable records when you create metric types.
Metric category A metric category represents a theme for evaluating assessable records. Categories contain one or more individual metrics, which define specific traits or values that comprise the theme. Examples of categories include overall vendor performance or quality of delivery services. You can also set filter conditions that control which assessable records to evaluate for the metrics in a category.
Metric A metric is a trait or value used to evaluate assessable records. A metric can measure subjective values in an assessment questionnaire, or gather objective values in a database query run by a script. Examples of metrics include perceived courtesy of sales representatives or number of incidents per vendor.
Category user A category user is a person who knows about a specific category. One person can be a category user for multiple categories. Examples of category users include a vendor manager who oversees all purchasing operations or a supervisor of a sales team.
Stakeholder A stakeholder is a category user who knows about a specific assessable record. Examples of stakeholders include a vendor manager who coordinates purchases from Amazon or a supervisor of a sales team who manages a specific employee.
Assessment instance An assessment instance represents one assessment questionnaire assigned to one user. The system generates a new assessment instance for each assigned user when:
  • The assessment generation scheduled job runs.
  • An assessment administrator creates an on-demand assessment.
Scorecard A scorecard provides a visual illustration of an assessable record's performance, based on assessment results. Use scorecards to view a variety of data summaries for one assessable record and to compare the ratings with other assessable records.
Decision matrix A decision matrix is a graph with two axes that plots the assessment results for multiple assessable records. Use decision matrixes to determine the relative standing of assessable records in selected categories.
Bubble chart A bubble chart is a graph with three axes that plots the assessment results for multiple assessable records. Use bubble charts to determine the relative standing of assessable records in selected categories, with an emphasis on one category.

Assessment roles

The Assessments application requires certain roles to perform assessment tasks. No role is required to take assessment questionnaires that are assigned to you.

Role Title Role Name Description
Assessment administrator assessment_admin Assessment administrators set up assessments. They know which records to evaluate, the criteria on which to evaluate the records, and who to assign assessments to.
Note: By default, users with the assessment_admin role have limited system rights and might not have access to all source records to assess. When planning assessments, grant additional roles to assessment administrators as needed. For example, to create and manage vendor assessments, the assessment administrator must also have the vendor_manager role, which grants access to the Company table and other relevant tables.
ITIL user Base system roles ITIL users perform basic technician operations in the system. In the Assessments application, they have read access to the Assessable Record table.
Administrator Base system roles Administrators have access to all aspects of the assessment process. Only administrators can set up assessment schedules.

Assessment methods

The available methods are Assessment, for non-scripted metrics, and Script, for scripted metrics. Each method serves a different function and can be used with certain data types.

Use the Method field to specify how to use the metric.

Assessment method

Metrics with the Method set to Assessment are called non-scripted metrics. Use each non-scripted metric to define a question for assessment questionnaires. Non-scripted metrics are useful if you want to obtain subjective data like personal opinions.

You can use the Assessment method with these Data type values:
  • Attachment
  • Checkbox
  • Choice
  • Date
  • Date/Time
  • Likert Scale
  • Number
  • Percentage
  • String
  • Template
  • Yes/No

Script method

Metrics with the Method set to Script are called scripted metrics. Use each scripted metric to define a custom script for database queries. Scripted metrics are useful if your system contains reliable data for the traits you want to evaluate.

You can use the Script method with these Data type values:
  • Duration
  • Number
  • Percentage

Use the Script field to write JavaScript code. By default, the field contains information about available variables and an example, which you can use as the basis of your script or replace entirely.

You must use the following variables in your script:
  • primary: Input variable used to access the sys_id of the record being assessed.
  • string_result: Output variable that contains the display string value for this metric
  • actual_result: Output variable that contains the actual value for this metric. The system uses this variable to populate the Actual value field on the Metric Result form. For each actual_result, you must specify a corresponding scaled_result value.
  • scaled_result: Output variable that contains a numerical scaled value to represent an actual value. The system uses this variable to populate the Scaled value field on the Metric Result form. Ensure the scaled values you specify are between or equal to the Min and Max values for the metric. The Scale definition field determines how the system uses the scaled value. A scale definition of Low means smaller numbers are better, such as for a metric that measures the number of incidents for a vendor. High means larger numbers are better, such as for a metric that measures user satisfaction on a scale of one to five.

Script example

The metric Number of active devices uses the script pictured below. The primary variable is used to find CIs that are associated to the vendor record being assessed. The script retrieves the actual_result, the number of CIs associated to the vendor, then calculates the correct scaled_result. The script uses a series of scaled values, from the Min to the Max value, to represent actual values. Because the Scale definition is set to High, the greatest scaled values are best, meaning a vendor associated to the most CIs scores highest. The system stores the actual and scaled values in a metric result record for the vendor.
Figure 1. Scripted metric example
Scripted metric example