How to Create Custom Reports and Dashboards in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Quick Summary: What Does This Guide Cover?
This guide explains how to build, configure, and schedule custom reports and dashboards inside ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus — giving IT teams and service desk managers the performance visibility they need to make data-driven decisions. The table below maps every reporting capability covered in this article to its location and primary use case.
| Reporting Feature | Location in ServiceDesk Plus | Primary Use Case |
| Built-in report library | Reports > All Reports | Quick access to standard ITSM metrics |
| Custom tabular reports | Reports > New Report > Tabular | Flexible column-based data exports |
| Matrix reports | Reports > New Report > Matrix | Cross-tabulation of two dimensions (e.g. group × category) |
| Summary reports | Reports > New Report > Summary | Aggregated KPI totals with grouping |
| Trend reports | Reports > New Report > Trend | Performance over time (daily, weekly, monthly) |
| Scheduled report delivery | Reports > Schedule | Automated email delivery on a defined cadence |
| Homepage dashboards | Home > Dashboard > Customise | Real-time widget-based service desk overview |
| Analytics Plus integration | Admin > Integrations > Analytics Plus | Advanced multi-source dashboards and AI insights |
| Report sharing & permissions | Reports > Share Report | Distribute reports to stakeholders by role |
| Export formats | Reports > Export (PDF, XLS, CSV) | Offline distribution and external presentation |
What Is ManageEngine ITSM and How Does It Relate to Reporting?
ManageEngine ITSM — centred on ServiceDesk Plus — is a comprehensive IT service management platform that captures data at every stage of the incident, problem, change, asset, and service request lifecycle. Every ticket created, every SLA breached, every change approved, and every asset discovered generates a data record inside ManageEngine. Custom reports and dashboards transform that raw data into the actionable intelligence IT leaders, service desk managers, and business stakeholders need to measure performance, justify investment, and drive continuous improvement.
ServiceDesk Plus includes a built-in reporting engine that covers the most common ITSM metrics out of the box, alongside a flexible custom report builder for organisation-specific needs. For teams that require deeper analytics — multi-source dashboards, predictive trends, or AI-assisted insights — ManageEngine extends ServiceDesk Plus with Analytics Plus, a dedicated business intelligence module that integrates directly with the platform.
Consequently, this guide walks through both layers: the native reporting and dashboard capabilities within ServiceDesk Plus itself, and the advanced Analytics Plus module for teams that have outgrown standard reports. Each section explains not only how to configure the feature but also what questions it helps IT teams answer — ensuring that every report and dashboard you build delivers genuine decision-making value rather than data for its own sake.
Why Do Custom Reports Matter More Than Built-In Reports in ManageEngine?
ServiceDesk Plus ships with more than 150 pre-built report templates covering incidents, problems, changes, assets, and service requests. These built-in reports provide a strong foundation, but they reflect generic ITSM best practices rather than your organisation’s specific priorities, team structure, and SLA commitments. As a result, most service desks quickly discover that built-in reports answer some questions but leave critical gaps.
For example, a built-in incident volume report shows total tickets by category — but it does not show ticket volume by department crossed against resolution time by support group, which is what a service desk manager needs to identify staffing imbalances. A custom report in ManageEngine fills that gap precisely. According to Forrester Research’s analysis of ITSM programme maturity, organisations that develop custom reporting aligned to business outcomes demonstrate 2.4x higher stakeholder confidence in IT than those relying solely on default tool reports.
Furthermore, custom reports in ManageEngine enable accountability. When a specific team, category, or time window consistently appears in breach reports, the data creates a clear basis for process improvement conversations. Without custom reports tailored to your environment, those patterns remain buried in raw data — visible to no one and actionable by no one.
How Do You Build a Custom Report in ServiceDesk Plus?
What Are the Four Custom Report Types and When Should You Use Each?
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers four custom report types, each suited to a different analytical purpose. Understanding when to use each type prevents the most common reporting mistake — choosing the wrong format and producing a report that technically runs but fails to answer the question it was designed for.
| Report Type | Best For | Example Question It Answers |
| Tabular | Detailed record-level data with selected columns | Which tickets breached SLA this month, and who owned them? |
| Matrix | Cross-tabulation comparing two dimensions | How many incidents did each support group resolve per category? |
| Summary | Aggregated totals grouped by a single dimension | What is the average resolution time per technician this quarter? |
| Trend | Performance metrics tracked over a time series | How has first-call resolution rate changed week over week? |
Navigate to Reports > New Report in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to access the report builder. Select the report type first, then choose the data module — Incidents, Problems, Changes, Assets, Service Requests, or a combined view. The module selection determines which fields are available for columns, filters, and grouping in subsequent configuration steps.
How Do You Configure Filters and Columns in a Custom Report?
After selecting the report type and module, the report builder in ManageEngine presents two critical configuration panels: Columns and Filters. Columns define what data the report displays. Filters define which records the report includes. Getting both right determines whether the report delivers clean, actionable output or an overwhelming data dump.
For columns, add only the fields that directly answer the report’s core question. A report designed to measure technician resolution performance, for example, needs Technician Name, Ticket ID, Category, Priority, Created Time, Resolved Time, and Resolution Time — not every available field. ManageEngine allows column reordering via drag-and-drop and supports calculated fields for metrics like elapsed time that do not exist as raw fields in the database.
For filters, apply date range filters first to define the reporting period, then add dimension filters to narrow the scope. ManageEngine supports both static filters (fixed values, such as ‘Priority equals P1’) and dynamic filters (relative values, such as ‘Created Date is in the last 30 days’) that keep the report current without reconfiguration. Use dynamic filters for all scheduled reports so the data refreshes automatically with each delivery.
How Do You Add Grouping and Sorting to Custom Reports in ManageEngine?
Grouping transforms a flat data list into a structured, readable report. ManageEngine’s report builder supports up to three grouping levels — for example, grouping first by Support Group, then by Category, and finally by Priority — creating a hierarchical view that reveals patterns invisible in ungrouped data.
Apply sorting to the most analytically significant column. For a breach analysis report, sort by Resolution Time descending so the worst-performing tickets appear at the top. For a volume report, sort by Ticket Count descending to surface the highest-demand categories immediately. ManageEngine also supports sub-totals and grand totals on numeric columns — enable these for any report where aggregated figures matter to the reader, such as total tickets handled per technician or total SLA breach count per month.
How Do You Schedule and Share Reports in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Building a report once and reviewing it manually defeats much of the purpose of reporting. ManageEngine’s report scheduling feature automates delivery, ensuring stakeholders receive current data on a defined cadence without anyone remembering to run and distribute the report manually.
To schedule a report, open the report in ManageEngine and click Schedule. Define the frequency — daily, weekly, or monthly — the delivery time, the output format (PDF or XLS), and the recipient list. The recipient list supports both ManageEngine technician accounts and external email addresses, making it straightforward to send operational reports to IT managers and summary reports to business stakeholders who do not have ServiceDesk Plus logins.
Additionally, ManageEngine allows report sharing within the platform through the Share Report function. Sharing a report with a role — rather than an individual — ensures that new team members automatically gain access when they join, eliminating the manual permission maintenance that makes report libraries difficult to keep current. Set view-only permissions for stakeholders who consume reports and edit permissions for senior technicians who need to refine report parameters over time.
How Do You Build and Customise Dashboards in ServiceDesk Plus?
What Types of Dashboard Widgets Does ManageEngine Support?
The ServiceDesk Plus homepage dashboard provides a real-time visual overview of service desk performance through configurable widgets. Each technician and manager can customise their personal dashboard view, while administrators can create shared dashboards that appear consistently for defined role groups.
ManageEngine supports the following widget types on the dashboard:
- Summary widgets: Display a single aggregated metric — such as total open tickets, tickets resolved today, or SLA compliance percentage — as a prominent number or gauge. Ideal for at-a-glance status monitoring.
- Chart widgets: Render bar charts, pie charts, and line graphs from report data directly on the dashboard. Link chart widgets to the underlying custom report so clicking a segment drills into the detail view.
- List widgets: Show a scrollable list of recent tickets, pending approvals, or overdue tasks. Technicians use list widgets to monitor their personal queues without navigating away from the dashboard.
- Trend widgets: Display a sparkline or line graph showing metric movement over time. Use these for KPIs like MTTR, first-call resolution, or ticket volume to surface directional trends at a glance.
- Announcement widgets: Display IT announcements or maintenance notifications to all service desk users. Useful for broadcasting planned downtime without generating individual tickets.
How Do You Build a Service Desk Manager Dashboard in ManageEngine?
A service desk manager needs a dashboard that answers four questions at a glance: How many tickets are open and at what priority? Are we meeting SLAs? Which technicians carry the heaviest load? What are the top incident categories this week? Build this dashboard in ManageEngine by combining the following widgets:
- Open ticket summary by priority: Add a summary widget filtered to open tickets, grouped by Priority (P1–P4). This gives immediate visibility into critical workload.
- SLA compliance gauge: Add a gauge widget showing current SLA compliance percentage against your target threshold (for example, 95%). Color-code the gauge so it turns amber below 90% and red below 80%.
- Technician workload bar chart: Add a chart widget showing open ticket count per technician. This surfaces workload imbalances that require reassignment before they cause SLA breaches.
- Top 5 incident categories: Add a pie chart widget showing ticket distribution across the top five categories this week. This enables quick identification of emerging problem areas.
- Tickets breached today: Add a list widget showing all tickets that breached SLA in the current day, sorted by breach duration. This creates direct accountability for follow-up.
Save the dashboard layout and share it with the ‘Service Desk Manager’ role in ManageEngine so every manager across the team sees the same consistent view — enabling unified performance conversations in team meetings rather than each manager working from different data cuts.
How Does ManageEngine Analytics Plus Extend ServiceDesk Plus Reporting?
For organisations that need reporting capabilities beyond what ServiceDesk Plus’s native report builder provides, ManageEngine Analytics Plus delivers a full business intelligence layer integrated directly with the platform. Analytics Plus connects to ServiceDesk Plus data through a native connector and supplements it with data from other ManageEngine products — OpManager, AssetExplorer, and Desktop Central — as well as external sources like Google Analytics and Salesforce.
Analytics Plus enables several capabilities that the native report builder does not support. First, it offers cross-module reporting — for example, correlating incident volume with asset health data to identify which infrastructure components generate the most service disruption. Second, it supports AI-powered anomaly detection, alerting managers when a metric deviates significantly from its historical pattern without requiring manual threshold configuration. Third, it provides a drag-and-drop dashboard designer with pixel-level layout control, producing presentation-quality dashboards suitable for executive briefings and board reporting.
To connect Analytics Plus to ServiceDesk Plus, navigate to Admin > Integrations > Analytics Plus in ManageEngine and follow the guided setup wizard. The initial data sync typically completes within 30 to 60 minutes depending on historical data volume. After sync, Analytics Plus automatically refreshes data on a configurable schedule — most organisations set hourly refreshes for operational dashboards and daily refreshes for trend and strategic reports.
Which KPIs Should Every ServiceDesk Plus Report Track?
The following table lists the core ITSM KPIs that every service desk reporting programme should cover, with the corresponding ManageEngine report type and recommended review cadence:
| KPI | ManageEngine Report Type | Review Cadence | Target Benchmark |
| Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) | Summary – grouped by category | Weekly | < 4 hrs (P2), < 24 hrs (P3) |
| First-Call Resolution Rate | Summary – grouped by technician | Weekly | > 70% (HDI benchmark) |
| SLA Compliance Rate | Trend – monthly view | Monthly | > 95% across all priorities |
| Ticket Volume by Category | Trend – weekly view | Weekly | Used for staffing & capacity planning |
| Reopened Ticket Rate | Summary – grouped by technician | Monthly | < 5% of resolved tickets |
| Backlog Growth Rate | Trend – daily or weekly | Weekly | Stable or declining trend |
| Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) | Summary – grouped by group | Monthly | > 4.0 / 5.0 |
| Change Success Rate | Summary – change module | Monthly | > 95% implemented without incidents |
What Are the Key Conclusions About Reporting and Dashboards in ManageEngine?
Custom reports and dashboards in ManageEngine ITSM ServiceDesk Plus are not simply a convenience feature — they are the mechanism through which IT teams translate operational activity into strategic insight. Every incident resolved, every SLA met or missed, and every change deployed generates data inside ManageEngine. Custom reports make that data visible; dashboards make it actionable in real time; scheduled delivery makes it consistent across the organisation.
Throughout this guide, we covered the four custom report types — tabular, matrix, summary, and trend — and explained when to use each. We walked through column selection, filter configuration, grouping, and sorting best practices that produce clean, decision-ready output rather than data overload. We also covered dashboard widget types, the service desk manager dashboard design, scheduled report delivery, and the advanced capabilities that ManageEngine Analytics Plus adds for organisations with more sophisticated analytical needs.
The KPI table in this guide provides a concrete starting framework — but the real value emerges when IT teams customise ManageEngine reports to reflect their own SLA commitments, team structure, and business priorities. Organisations that invest in thoughtful reporting design consistently demonstrate stronger stakeholder alignment, faster identification of service quality gaps, and more effective resource allocation decisions. ManageEngine ITSM gives teams every technical capability they need to reach that level of reporting maturity; this guide shows precisely how to use it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus supports report export in three formats: PDF, XLS (Excel), and CSV. Access the export option by opening any report and clicking the Export button in the top-right corner of the report view. PDF export produces a formatted document suitable for email distribution and printed presentations, preserving column widths, groupings, and sub-totals. XLS export delivers the raw data in a spreadsheet format ideal for further analysis in Excel or Google Sheets — particularly useful for finance teams that need to manipulate the data independently. CSV export provides a plain-text delimited file for importing into external business intelligence tools or databases. Scheduled reports in ManageEngine also offer PDF and XLS as delivery format options, so recipients automatically receive the format they prefer without any manual export step.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus does not impose a hard limit on the number of custom reports you can create. In practice, the most effective service desk reporting programmes maintain between 15 and 30 actively used custom reports — covering the core KPIs for incident management, SLA performance, technician productivity, change management, and asset tracking. Beyond that number, report libraries tend to become difficult to navigate and maintain. The best practice is to audit your report library quarterly in ManageEngine, retiring reports that no longer answer current business questions and replacing them with reports aligned to evolving priorities. ManageEngine’s report folder structure supports organising reports by audience (technician-level, manager-level, executive-level) and by module, making the library easier to manage as it grows.
