Reporting and Replicator

A common use case for Perspectium Replicator is replicating ServiceNow data to a database in support of a reporting requirement.
What Should be Shared?

Primary Data
One common question is “what should be shared?”. Most customers share their Task (task) table and their Configuration Item table (cmdb_ci). With Replicator it is then a simple matter of adding a filter to keep certain tasks and CI classes out of the share. It will share and create the specific task tables in the database such as Incident (incident) or Change (change_request) for which that record was created. This also applies to CIs, a Server CI will create the cmdb_ci_server table in the database. The Replicator database agent knows how to translate ServiceNow specific fields into the appropriate database fields types and creates the tables and fields automatically. In a few minutes or hours (depending on volumes) the customer has a fully reportable database.

Core or Shared Data
Additional record types are sometimes shared to augment the primary record (in this use case incident). Location, User, Groups, Company, etc are part of the common, core, or shared data set of referenced data that doesn’t change often, but is used by an incident.
Display Value vs Referenced Record
One feature that alleviates the need to include referenced records, is that Perspectium Replicator provides the display value of referenced records. If the report “open incidents older than a month” needs to display the Assigned To user or the Location, the display value of the referenced user or location record is available to be used. This minimizes the amount of data that needs to be replicated and simplifies the database schema.
Setting Up the Shares
Step 1 – Bulk Shares
Establish a baseline of data in the database.
Customers use the Replicator bulk share feature to manually share out a select set of data at one time. In our reporting requirement above, it might be all the open incidents.

Step 2 – Dynamic Shares
Setting up a dynamic share to share in near real time any new incidents, or updates to existing incidents, to keep the data fresh
This way the reporting team knows it has the most up to date data and doesn’t need to find an additional way to get data directly out of ServiceNow.

The Replicator database agent identifies new fields in any of the tables being shared and updates the data schema in the database automatically.
Don’t Share Everything
Because Perspectium Replicator can share any table in ServiceNow it is tempting to take the “share anything” to an extreme. Attachments, journal records, and audit records can be replicated to the database, but are of limited to no value in a report and so should be excluded, unless specifically asked for.

Perspectium Replicator makes using Analytics tools, reporting tools, etc. a simple matter of selecting your table from a drop down setting the appropriate filter and letting the data and the data schema automatically be created in the database.

Yes it really is that simple.