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Most Performance Analytics indicators I inherit have three problems: the data source has a quietly changed condition, the breakdown explodes the score count, and the formula uses a field that gets deprecated. The indicator design pattern that survives a year is more disciplined than the platform’s templates suggest.

Name the question, then the indicator

Indicators die when the underlying business question shifts and the indicator does not. Write the question in the indicator’s description field and review it quarterly.

Description: How many P1 incidents were resolved within 4 hours,
restricted to the IT Production assignment groups?
Owner: SRE Lead
Reviewed: 2026-04-15

Lock the data source

A data source with a condition like priority<=2 will silently expand if priority semantics change. Be explicit:

Table: incident
Conditions:
  priority IN (1)
  resolved_at IS NOT EMPTY
  assignment_group IN (group list)

Reference assignment groups by sys_id in a custom system property, not by name. Names get renamed.

Score frequency vs collection frequency

The two settings most people confuse. Collection is when the platform recomputes against the data source. Score frequency is the time bucket. For a 4-hour SLA indicator, daily collection with daily scoring is right. For a monthly KPI, weekly collection is fine and saves cycles.

Breakdowns multiply scores — be careful

A single indicator with a breakdown by 50 assignment groups produces 50 scores per collection. Add a date breakdown of 365 days and you have 18,250 scores per collection per indicator. Ten indicators like this and the scores table is gigabytes.

Limit breakdowns to dimensions you actually slice in dashboards.

Use Formula indicators sparingly

Formula indicators chain other indicators. They are one redefinition away from breaking. Reserve them for ratios and rates that have an executive owner.

Keep an indicator change log

Every change to an indicator definition (script, condition, source) gets a comment in the indicator’s description with date and reason. When the dashboard moves, the audit trail is in the right place.

What to do this week

Pick your top 10 dashboard indicators. Confirm each has the question, owner, and review date in the description, the data source uses sys_ids not names, and the breakdown count is justified. Anything failing this audit is a candidate for rebuild.

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