Performance Analytics measures it. VividCharts presents it.
The short answer. Performance Analytics is ServiceNow's analytics capability. It tracks indicators over time and answers why a number moved. VividCharts is a presentation layer that runs on ServiceNow data and produces the deck, the one pager, and the client facing report that leadership actually reads. They solve different problems, so teams commonly run both. Intuit does, and has talked about it publicly.
Most teams asking "VividCharts or Performance Analytics?" are asking an either/or question about two tools that do different jobs. Performance Analytics is built to analyze what is happening inside ServiceNow. VividCharts is built for the up and out reporting: anything you are about to put in front of leaders, or out to stakeholders who are not in ServiceNow frequently, if ever.
ServiceNow Performance Analytics
ServiceNow's analytics capability. It collects indicator scores over time, builds scorecards and breakdowns, and lets you drill into what is driving a trend. It is the right tool when the question is "why did this number move, and what is driving it?" It lives in ServiceNow, and it is built for people who open ServiceNow.
VividCharts
A presentation layer that builds reports from ServiceNow data automatically, including Performance Analytics indicators. Instead of a dashboard someone has to log in to read, you get a formatted deck, one pager, or client facing report that refreshes on your cadence. ServiceNow is all we do, and reporting specialists work alongside your team to build the first set.
| ServiceNow Performance Analytics | VividCharts | |
|---|---|---|
| What is its job? | Analyze trends and causes inside ServiceNow | Present ServiceNow data to an audience outside the dashboard |
| Who is it for? | People who work in ServiceNow regularly | Leaders, clients, and stakeholders who open ServiceNow rarely, if ever |
| What does it produce? | Indicators, scorecards, breakdowns, dashboards | Decks, one pagers, PDFs, scheduled report packages |
| Where does the data come from? | ServiceNow tables, collected over time | ServiceNow data, including Performance Analytics indicators |
| What happens before a leadership meeting? | Someone opens the dashboard and screenshots it | The report is already built and current |
| How does the format get standardized? | Dashboard layout, per instance | Reusable templates applied across teams and portfolios |
| Do I need the other one? | Not to analyze trends | Not to build a deck, but PA makes the deck smarter |
When you do not need us
If the following describe your situation, Performance Analytics on its own is the right answer and you should not buy a presentation layer to sit on top of it.
- Your audience opens ServiceNow. If the people who need the numbers are already in the platform every day and are happy in a dashboard, a deck is a step backward.
- The question is "why." Trend analysis, forecasting, breakdowns by assignment group, drilling from a spike to its cause. That is exactly what PA is built for, and it does it well.
- Nobody is asking you for a file. If no one has asked for a PDF, a deck, or a one pager in the last quarter, there is nothing for us to automate.
We would rather tell you this now than three months into an implementation.
Where the up and out reporting starts
The pattern is consistent. Dashboards are working fine, and then the output has to leave the dashboard.
- The deck gets rebuilt every cycle. Steering committee on Thursday, QBR at month end, status report every Friday. Same structure, new numbers, rebuilt by hand each time.
- The audience is not in ServiceNow. An executive sponsor, a client, a vendor, a board. They need the answer in a format they already read.
- The format has to be consistent. Twenty project managers producing twenty different status layouts makes portfolio comparison impossible before anyone argues about the data.
- The work is scaling faster than the team. More programs, more clients, more reviews, and the same number of people assembling slides.
- The review does not look like anyone else's. Custom tables, a process you built yourself, a format a client dictated. Our ServiceNow reporting specialists go deep with your team and build the report to what the review actually needs, rather than asking the review to fit a template.
Running both
Performance Analytics does the measurement. VividCharts takes that output, applies a template, and produces the report on the cadence you set. The analyst work and the assembly work stop competing for the same person's Thursday afternoon.
Intuit has described this pairing publicly: Performance Analytics on the back end for the analysis, VividCharts to make that data clear and shareable for the people who need to act on it.
How Intuit uses Performance Analytics and VividCharts together on ServiceNow
What this looks like at scale
CDW, a Fortune 500 technology solutions provider, automated more than 60 client facing visualizations directly in ServiceNow. The published result: $2.6 million saved annually and the equivalent of 20,000 hours of manual reporting eliminated.
A PMO leader at a US health system replaced a weekly manual status cycle with standardized reporting built from live SPM data.
Templates plus the people who build them
VividCharts ships a library of prebuilt ReportFlows for the reviews teams already run: project status, portfolio steering committee, demand review, SLA scorecard, MBR and QBR, pre-CAB. Our ServiceNow reporting specialists work with your team to adapt the first set to your data and your process. You are not starting from zero, and you are not figuring it out alone.
FAQ
Is VividCharts a replacement for Performance Analytics?
No. Performance Analytics analyzes ServiceNow data over time. VividCharts presents ServiceNow data, including Performance Analytics indicators, as finished reports for people outside the dashboard. Teams commonly run both.
Do I need Performance Analytics to use VividCharts?
No. VividCharts builds reports from your ServiceNow data whether or not you have Performance Analytics. If you do have PA, those indicators become available to the reports.
Is VividCharts a BI tool like Power BI or Tableau?
No. External BI tools require you to move ServiceNow data into a separate platform and maintain it there. VividCharts runs on ServiceNow and builds reports from the data in the platform, so the reporting layer follows the same process the data already follows.
What about Platform Analytics?
Platform Analytics is ServiceNow's newer analytics experience, and Performance Analytics capabilities are part of it. The reason teams add VividCharts does not change with the interface: the deck still has to get built, and the audience still is not in ServiceNow.
Can VividCharts report across multiple ServiceNow tables?
Yes. Reports are built from any ServiceNow table you already run on, including incident, task, project, and custom tables, so a report can follow a process across the tables it actually spans.
See it on your data
A 30 minute walkthrough in a real ServiceNow instance. Bring the report you rebuild most often and we will show you what it looks like when it builds itself.