The auditing and reporting features of Data Content Manager rely on Blueprints, which visually represent the data models you want to implement in ServiceNow.
Blueprints can be created from templates we provide or from scratch for any use case, as long as the data resides in your ServiceNow. For example, we provide an extensive library of templates to align with the CSDM.
Click to learn more about Blueprints and how to create them.
Once you have a Blueprint, the next step is to run audits. The audit will compare your actual data against the requirements you set in the Blueprint.
The audit will produce detailed audit results, which are used to report deviations and create dashboards and workspaces for all relevant stakeholders.
Watch this short video to see how audits work:
How to run Audits with Data Content Manager
Setting Up Your Audit
You can run audits once you have defined your data quality requirements in a Blueprint. You can run one-time audits to get immediate results. This is usually done to get an initial assessment of your data and to verify that your Blueprint is set up as intended and that the audit produces results as expected.
Once you’re happy with the Blueprints, audits are set to run at regular intervals, usually once per week. The scope of the audit can be adjusted to focus on only the most critical things first, or it can be expanded later, or adjusted as requirements change.
When the audits run regularly, they will catch deviations in your data when they happen, so that any issues can be remediated before they cause potentially expensive problems.
Interpreting the Results
Once an audit is complete, the results are immediately accessible. The Audit Results overview will show you how many audited records contain data gaps against the Blueprint. For each audited record, all the details of the audit’s findings are available.
Audit results can also be viewed based on Blueprint Elements, which are all the different data quality requirements you defined in your Blueprint. This view quickly reveals which aspects of your data are problematic. For example, you might find that your Business Applications are missing a lot of owners or required CI relationships.
Digging Deeper with Audit Messages
Audit Messages will tell you precisely what your data gaps are against the Blueprint. For example, if your Business Application is missing a mandatory CI Relationship, reference, or owner, the audit messages will tell you.
You only need to define the Blueprint to include the details you want to audit; DCM takes care of the rest.
DCM Audit Dashboards
The DCM Audit Dashboards compile results from all audits into a single view, personalized to different roles, such as data owners, data domain owners, and data providers – all the way down to an individual’s personal data quality targets and KPIs.
The dashboards are dynamic, with drilldowns so that you can pinpoint data quality issues that are relevant to you.
Again, you only need to create your Blueprints, run audits and Data Content Manager automatically provides the dashboards.
The Dashboards provide a holistic picture of your data quality relative to your requirements, assist in communicating with stakeholders, and prioritize efforts.
Engage with the Data Quality Workspace
One of the biggest problems in improving data quality is engaging the people who are expected to update their records but may not even know how to do it. Examples of these people could be Business Application owners who need to update the data on the Applications they own but may not know how to do it, even if they want to.
This is where the Data Quality Workspace comes into play. It simplifies updating data for individual records, making it a point-and-click exercise instead of finding and filling out complicated forms. It is point-and-click for CI relations, too, making it very difficult to make mistakes. The Blueprint in the background ensures everything is updated correctly.
The detailed audit results that DCM provides make it possible to personalize the workspace so that individuals see only data gaps that they are responsible for and that they are required to fix. People see only their own, personal data quality metrics, which they can directly affect with their own actions.
This personalized approach goes a long way toward engaging your data providers and makes it possible to involve many people with minimal effort. Again, set up the Blueprints, and the Data Content Manager takes care of the rest.
Learn more about the Data Quality Workspace!
Why Data Quality Audits Matter
By outlining data requirements in DCM Blueprints and conducting regular audits, maintaining data quality in ServiceNow becomes a systematic process. This approach removes uncertainty and provides the necessary information to allocate efforts and resources efficiently.
This ensures compliance with your data standards, drives efficiency and clarity across your operations, and effectively helps you implement data governance. This, in turn, can significantly improve the return on your ServiceNow investment.
After all, AI Agents will not work as intended if the data they rely on is not of good enough quality.
Further Information
- Video: How to Design a DCM Blueprint
- Can You Get A Whopping 1436% ROI by Improving CI Data Quality?
- Video: How to Improve Foundation Data in ServiceNow and CSDM
- Discover How to Simplify CSDM Compliance
Get a Free Guided Trial
A Guided Trial allows you to experience the power of Data Content Manager in your own ServiceNow instance with your own data. We will guide you through installation, creating Blueprints, running Audits, and interpreting results.
There’s no cost or commitment since we know this is the easiest way for you to experience the power of Data Content Manager.
