Introduction

The OCC Dashboard offers various ways to display ITSM tickets. Recently, I wanted to assess the performance of our support team by measuring the change in open incidents over the last months. So I thought about a dashboard that shows at a glance whether more new tickets are being created than we can handle, or whether it is even possible to close more tickets than new ones are appearing.

In this blog post I will show you how to build a dashboard within a few minutes that can display both positive and negative values by using the “Calculation” Data Provider.

Change in open tickets: Only in April and September more incidents were solved than new ones were created

Step 1: Create two CRM searches

Open the CRM WebUI Client.

Create a search across all ticket status for a support team, a transaction type (e.g. ZMIN, ZMRQ…) and the time period you are interested in and save the search.

CRM search: All tickets

Create a second search about the ticket status you consider completed (e.g. “Confirmed” and “Solution Provided”) for the same support team, transaction type and time period as in the first search. Save it.

CRM search: Closed tickets

Step 2: Create an OCC Dashboard

Step 2.1: Create three queries

Take an empty gadget, add a query and give it a name. Use the following settings:

• Data Provider: CRM ( /STDF/DP_CRM )
• Saved Search: Your CRM search across all incidents
• Filter: Creation date
• Backlog: No

Add a second query and repeat the steps above with the following settings:

• Data Provider: CRM ( /STDF/DP_CRM )
• Saved Search: Your CRM search about closed incidents
• Filter: Last modification date
• Backlog: No

Add a third query for calculating the subtraction of your CRM queries.

• Data Provider: Calculation ( /STDF/DP_CALCULATION )
• Operand 1: Your CRM search about all incidents
• Operator: Sub
• Operand 2: Your CRM search about closed incidents

Step 2.2: Gagdet settings

Select a suitable renderer like COLUMN_CHART (or LINE_CHART etc.)

Choose a period and resolution, e.g. the current year from 1^st January with a resolution per month.

Label the chart axes ?

Attention: The Calculation Data Provider is not rendered in the “Preview” section.

Save and have a first look at your dashboard. You can see the results of the CRM searches and the calculation.

Step 2.3: Hide queries

Return to the edit mode and hide the CRM queries. The calculation still works.

Save again and close the editor. Looks great, doesn´t it?

Step 3 (optionally): Data verification

Go to the CRM WebUI Client and open your searches. Sort in ascending order, pick a time period and count the number of tickets.

16 incidents were created in July. Their current status does not matter

12 incidents were closed or set to solution provided in July. Their creation date does not matter

Compare the results of the CRM searches with the Focused Insights Dashboard. The data retrieval as well as the calculation are correct.

Number of incidents (left) and change (right) – Resolution per month (top) and per week (bottom)

Conclusion

Since a single query for tickets always returns a positive number (or zero), displaying the change (positive or negative) is only possible by calculation. The option to show and hide queries as required results in an almost infinite number of possible scenarios. Use your imagination!

I am looking forward to your comments and discussions.

All screenshots were taken by me in SAP Solution Manager 7.2 SPS08 with ST-OST 200 SP03 Wave 7.4