Who is this article for?

Users who want to create trending reports in the Classic UI

Reporting authorities, roles, and record access controls restrict data visibility.

Trend is one display option available after Performing a Search in the Classic UI. See Understanding saved search display types in the Classic UI for other output options.

Enabling Trend Analysis
A Trend Analysis license allows use of the trend output to analyze trends over time. Depending on your organization's contract, Trend Analysis may not be enabled in your subscriber area. Contact us for additional information.

If you've licensed Trending, you can use the trend output to analyze your search results over time. Trend output groups your results by a "Trending Field" and a "Date field" to produce a grid of occurrences over time. This grid is color coded based on the trend profile that you choose. Profiles are set up to highlight periods of time where the number of occurrences of a category of your search results are occurring more often than normal. Clicking on a cell within the grid takes you to the Statistical Process Control (SPC) chart for that category ending with the period of the cell. The SPC chart view shows graphically how the data is performing over time. From here, you can click on a specific data point to view the search results that represent those occurrences.

Refine your search results 
Before you embark on the task of generating a report, it is crucial to take the time to set these filters appropriately. This will allow you to focus solely on the desired data sets, which can lead to more accurate and meaningful insights. By establishing clear parameters for your search, you can streamline the reporting process and increase the overall quality of the information you are working with. 

Trending Field

The Trending Field drives how the trend output is categorized. Each row of the Trend output grid represents a distinct value in the Trending Field. For example, the Trending Field could be the Category associated with a ticket, or the Cause Code associated with a Condition Report. Only the values included in your search output will be displayed in the summary grid. For example, if your search does not include any Cause Codes in the Management Direction category, then none of those codes will show up in the grid. Additionally, the number of rows returned is limited by both the number of rows chosen in the trend profile settings and the overall subscriber setting that limits the maximum number or rows returned from any search.

Depending on the context of your search, the trending fields available are the discrete valued fields available to the search. In the context of a module, these are the picklist and reference fields. In the context of a cross-module search, Trending Fields are the Distinct Value common fields. Additionally, module developers can optionally exclude certain fields from the list of Trend Fields for a module.

Date Field & Frequency

The Date Field is the other key input to the trend output grid. It drives the columns of the output. Any date field available in the output of your search can be the Date Field. Like Trending Fields, module developers can exclude specific fields from the list of Date Fields.

Frequency works in conjunction with the Date Field to build the list of columns in your grid output. Frequency are Weekly, Monthly, or Quarterly. For example, if you choose Date Created and Monthly, you will get one column for each month where the values in the cells are the count of occurrences by the Date they were Created. Weekly frequencies start on Sunday and end on Saturday. Quarterly frequencies are the standard four quarters of the year: Q1 = Jan. 1st - March 31st; Q2 = Apr 1st - Jun 30th; Q3 = Jul 1st - Sep 31st; Q4 = Oct 1 to Dec 31st. Monthly frequencies start on the first day of the month and end of the last day.

Trending Period

The trending period (start and end) determines the range of columns in your output grid. Depending on the frequency, you will get one column for each week, month, or quarter within the start and end date range. The system will automatically select the periods that fully encompass the start and end date that you chose. If you choose 4/16/2017 as the start date with a monthly frequency, the column that represents 2017-Apr will include all data within that month even if it occurred before 4/16/2017. If you really want to exclude part of a period, use the filters on the left to refine your search output. The width of the trending period range also determines the number of periods shown in the drill down SPC chart.

The Baseline Period sets the SPC parameters for the drill down SPC Chart and the scoring calculations associated with the profile. By default, the Baseline Period is set to the twenty-four periods prior to the Trending Period. 

If you choose a monthly frequency and a Trending Period from 4/1/2017 to 4/30/2018. The Baseline Period would default to the 24 months prior to 4/1/2017: 4/1/2015 to 4/30/2017. This is a key tuning parameter for your trend output because it drives most of the calculations. 

Set the Baseline Period to a time when you know the process was "in control" or "normal". Once you set that period, you can monitor future periods against it to see if the process is occurring at an abnormal rate. 

Click the search button to update your output after changing the baseline period. 

Since Heat Map based Trend Profiles do not use a Baseline Period, the Baseline Start and End dates are not selectable.

The Mean and Standard Deviations used in the scoring profiles (below) are derived from the data in the Baseline Period. The Mean is the sum of all the baseline values divided by the number of baseline values. 

The Standard Deviation is the square root of the Variance, which is defined as the sum of the squares of each values distance from the mean, divided by the number of data points minus 1.

So given twelve values in a baseline period of 5, 11, 12, 3, 0, 1, 15, 10, 9, 5, 6 and 8, we would calculate:

Mean

Variance

Standard Deviation



References to Standard Deviation in Trend Profiles will typically refer to the number of Standard Deviations a value is from the mean. So "more than two standard deviations below the mean" would mean that a value was more than two times the standard deviation amount below the mean value. 

In the example above, that would mean anything below -2.04 (4.56 x 2 = 9.12; 7.08 - 9.12 = -2.04) and none of the data points would qualify.

Exporting and notifications

Like other searches, Trend Output searches can be saved for later use, shared with other users, exported to Excel, and set to run on a schedule with a notification. 

Unlike other searches, Trend Output searches have a unique trigger that allows you to schedule a notification only when the number of points in one of the most recent cells exceeds a threshold. This type of notification is useful for getting alerted when a cell turns red.

The notification email optionally contains the output of the Excel grid as an attachment. PDF attachments are not currently supported.

Trend Profiles

The Trending Profile determines the evaluation criteria that applies coloring to your Trend Output. Administrators with the proper role can create and manage trend profiles. There is no limit to the number of profiles that can be created. All profiles are available to all users. By default, Trending has three profiles:

1. Heat Map: The cells of each row in the trend output grid are colored with a gradient between white and red based on their relative size. Administrators can update the coloring scheme for this profile and optionally choose to color the cells based on their relative size amongst all rows.
2. Outliers: Each cell is colored either white, yellow, or red based on whether the value of the cell is either an extreme outlier (red), an outlier (yellow), or normal (white). Outlier detection is based on the simple box-plot approach where extreme outliers are cells that are beyond one of the outer fences of the baseline data and outlier cells between the inner and outer fences. See also, Tukey's Fences.

3. Statistical Process Control (SPC): The SPC profile uses the Shewhart individuals control chart approach to calculate whether a cell's value is in control or not. The SPC profile uses rules to assign violation points based on conditions that may apply to a cell:

   Rule	Points
   3 most recent points are either increasing or decreasing	5
   2 out of the last 5 values are either 2 standard deviations above or below the mean	5
   The most recent point is either above or below the control limits	10

   Each cell's color is based on the sum of the violation points that it meets. The fields are displayed as red if it is ten or more points; yellow, if between 4 and 10; and white if it is under 4.

   

Control Limit Calculation

Control limits are automatically calculated and applied to any relevant rules associated with the current trend profile. The basis for the control limit calculations is the Shewhart individuals control chart. The system performs the following calculations:

1. The average (x̄) of the occurrences for each period within the baseline range.
2. The average Moving Range (MR) over the baseline range where the moving range is defined as the absolute value of the difference between the number of occurrences in period(n) and period(n-1).
3. The Upper and Lower Control Limits (UCL & LCL) are a constant value derived from the x̄ and the Average Moving Range from step 1 and 2. These values are calculated on the Baseline Period data set and applied to the Trending Period. Assuming the Trending Period and Baseline Period do not overlap, no data within the Trending Period influences the UCL and LCL.

Scoring Criteria

Each of the following scoring criteria, based on Nelson Rules, may be applied to a trend profile. There are two versions of each rule, one that considers data offset from the most recent data point and another that considers all the data within the Trending Period range. For example, the rule "The most recent X points are alternating in direction" considers the most recent X points starting with the current period. The corresponding floating rule, "X points in a row are alternating in direction", considers whether any X points in a row within the Trending Period range are alternating. In the examples below, red data points indicate points that violate the rule.