Executive Dashboard provides business intelligence regarding the performance of your service desk. Agents with access to Executive Dashboard can set the types of data they wish to display and observe that data, seeing it change dynamically as the Executive Dashboard is refreshed.
For detailed information, refer to the FootPrints Reference Manual.
Access to the Executive Dashboard is enabled by the Workspace Administrator. Individual agents with Executive Dashboard access set:
Whether the FootPrints homepage or the Executive Dashboard is the default page when they log in to FootPrints.
The reports they see in Executive Dashboard.
When the Executive Dashboard is first displayed, it shows all of the built-in reports. You can then edit or discard the reports to display only the information you want to see. Built-in Executive Dashboard reports are (click the links to view the details of how to edit each type of report):
Statistics Report—This is similar to an Activity Report, and can show, for example, your totals and carryover for a period: how many issues were created, closed, active etc.
Watchlist Report—You can watch a problem type or other field and track how many of those problems were created or activated during a specific period (day, week, month, quarter, or year). If you use saved searches to track this type of information, the Executive Dashboard allows you to create a Watchlist that replaces those searches and see everything at a glance because multiple fields can be watched in one Watchlist.
Service Level Agreement (SLA) report—SLAs may include agreements regarding "thresholds". That is, they may require a specific amount of "up time" for a customer. The SLA report allows you to specify the thresholds and see how agents are doing in maintaining them. For example, if the minimum threshold is 93% up time, the report might show a line that is green when safely above the threshold, yellow when the threshold is being approached, and red when the threshold is breached. Agents can create reports tied to specific service levels, so that one report might be for the "Platinum" service level and another might be for the "Gold" service level, and so on, or combine all service levels in one report.
Resolution Rate Report—A First Contact Resolution Rate and a Resolution Rate report are combined so that you can watch the convergence of those two types of information in one place. The periods to be observed (per day, week, month, quarter, and year) are configurable.
Activity Report—A line graph tells you how many issues were active for a specific period so that you can observe the activity at various points. For example, if you tracked activity during the month, you might see how many issues were created on each day, how many were closed on each day, etc. This enables you to see where activity spikes for different statuses.
Issue Lifecycle
The Issue Lifecycle is defined by five "events": Creation, Activation, Response, Resolution, and Closure. The workspace administrator defines in which of these portions of the Issue Lifecycle each of the issue statuses falls. For example, the Open status might be defined as falling during the Creation period, which is before Activation. A status of "Assigned" might be defined as falling during the Activation period but before the Response. A status that indicates an issue as having been Responded to by the agent (Agent Responded) can be defined under the Response Event.
The issue and time measures display in the Executive Dashboard are metrics derived from the following issue lifecycle:
A change in status causes an event in the issue lifecycle to be recorded. For example, changing from Inactive to Open can cause the Activation Event.
Events are defined as follows:
Creation—The event that marks the creation of an issue. An issue is not necessarily Active when it is Created. Some activity, such as assignment, may have to occur before the issue is considered to be Active.
Activation—The event that marks the activation of an issue. Before this event happened, the issue was not considered Active. This event happens once in the lifecycle of an Issue. Activation usually is not undone but it can be undone if an issue goes back to a Pre-Active status; in this case, the system considers the Activation Event as not having occurred and it is erased from the reporting history. An issue is Active from the time it is Activated until reaches Resolution.
Response—The event that marks an issue as being responded to by an agent. This event happens once in the lifetime of an issue. This event cannot be undone. Transitioning from a Responded status to a not Responded status does not change the fact that the Responded status already happened. An issue is considered Responded to from the time a Response occurs and for all time after that.
Resolution—The event that marks the resolution of an issue. This even happens once in the lifetime of an issue. This event can be undone if an issue transitions from a resolved status to an unresolved status, in which case the system considers the issue as never had been resolved; the Resolution Event is removed from the reporting history. This is important to note since it may result in different numbers being reported at different times. For example, Executive Dashboard might show 35 issues as resolved the previous month one day, but one of those issues might return to an unresolved status at some point. If the same report is viewed the next day, the number of issues that were resolved in the previous month would show as 34. An issue is not yet Closed when it has been Resolved. Customers may require some additional processing to occur before an issue is Closed.
Closure—The event that marks the closure of an Issue. This even happens once in the lifetime of an issue. This event is undone when an issue transitions back from the closed status to an unclosed status, in which case the system considers the issue as never had been closed; the Closure Event is removed from the reporting history. As with Resolution, this could result in different numbers showing up in a report at different times. In a report, all issues that have been Closed also count as Created, Activated, Resolved and Responded To.
Events in the Issue Lifecycle for reporting always occur in the order in which they appear in the user interface (Creation, Activation, Responded To, Resolution and Closure). An issue cannot have an event in its lifecycle happen without all the preceding ones having happened as well.
An issue that is created in a Closed status will have the following events marked in the following order: Creation, Activation, Resolution, Responded and Closure.
An issue that is created in an Active Status will have the following events marked in the following order: Creation and Activation.
When a status is put in the Resolved category in the Issue Lifecycle, a transition to this status not only will cause the Resolution Event to happen, but will also cause the Creation, Activation, and Response Events to happen if these events did not already occur.
View the Executive Dashboard
To view the Executive Dashboard, select Reports from the FootPrints toolbar, then select Executive Dashboard from the drop-down menu.
Make Executive Dashboard the Default Page
You can make the Executive Dashboard your default page when you log into FootPrints. This means that the Executive Dashboard is the first page you see when you log in. This is useful for people who want to view the Executive Dashboard reports but have no need to learn anything else about navigating within FootPrints.
To make the Executive Dashboard your default homepage, you must edit the Personal Info tab of your Preferences. Refer to Customizing Your Preferences for details.
Remove a Report
To remove a report from the Executive Dashboard, click the trash can icon beside the report name. If a report is removed and you wish to restore it, you must click the Change Dashboard link at the top of the reports view and then click the Add Now button for the report. Any customizations you made for the report will be gone so you will have to customize it all over again.
Common to All Executive Dashboard Reports
Some factors are common to all types of Executive Dashboard report.
Three categories of report are available for all Executive Dashboard reports:
Created—The Created report contains only issues that were created during the specified period. This means that issues that are active during the specified period but which were not created during that period are not included in the report.
Activated—The Activated report contains only issues that were Activated during the specified period. For example, if an Issue is resolved this time period but it was activated on a previous time period, then the issue is not part of the Resolved count. Issue creation is not pertinent to this report and the Created data are not included in this report. For example, if an Issue is resolved this time period but it was activated on a previous time period, then the issue is not part of the Resolved count.
All Activity—All issues, regardless of whether they were Created or Activated during the specified period, are included in this report. For example, if an issue is resolved this time period but was activated or created in a previous time period, this issue is part of the Resolved count.
