Introduction
As a SAP Solution Manager system administrator, I decided to create sophisticated dashboards with Focused Insights for the SAP Operations Control Center. In early 2020, a "Cumulation" option in the backlog tab of the DP_CRM data provider was delivered by SAP which was first mentioned in SAP Note 2901349 - Focused Insights ST-OST 200 Wave 6.3.
In this blog post you find a step-by-step guide how to build a smart chart displaying all open Incidents (or Service Requests, Change Requests etc.) created within a chosen period. Furthermore, the gadget includes a detailed table including hyperlinks for navigating straight to the respective tickets in the CRM WebUI Client of the SAP Solution Manager.

That´s what you finally get: A column chart showing the backlog of open incidents

Gadget feature: Jump to a detailed table with all open incidents
Step 1: Create a search for open incidents in the CRM WebUI Client
Create a search for all
external statuses you have determined as open incidents (e.g. ZMIN:E0001 New, ZMIN:E0002 In Process and so on) of your support team and
save it. You do not urgently need to restrict the creation date, however the search – and later on the dashboard gadget – runs much faster if you restrict the search to the time frame you are really interested in.

Step 2: Create a chart in Focused Insights
Select an empty gadget,
add a query and give it a name, e.g. “Open Incidents (cumulated)”.

Find the
CRM Data Provider ( /STDF/DP_CRM ) and assign your saved search.

Choose
Creation date.

Activate the
Cumulation function in the backlog options.

Gadget Settings
Select the
COLUMN_CHART renderer.

Choose a reasonable time period and a suitable resolution (e.g. the current year from the beginning of January with a resolution per month).

Add axis labels.

Keep in mind: Students often fail exams due to missing axis labelling ?
"Advanced" query settings
The default "Jump-in-value" (which is the "Line Chart Renderer") has the effect that you will not get any additional information from the data when you double-click the legend.
Attention: Double-clicking takes only effect in the "real" chart. It does not work in the "Preview" window of the edit mode.



Jump-in to the default line chart renderer by double-clicking the legend
Change the Jump-in dropdown to
DYNAMIC_TABLE. Now a double-click on the legend provides a table with the open incidents including hyperlinks to the respective tickets in the CRM WebUI Client.


Jump-in to the dynamic table renderer by double-clicking the legend
Step 3 (optionally): Chart verification
For verification purposes – or if you want to know how many incidents your support team received, solved etc.) create additional searches in the CRM WebUI Client.
Create a CRM search "All Incidents 2020"
This search comprises all statuses except for “Reversed” as these tickets should not be interesting at all.

Create a CRM search "Closed Incidents 2020"
This search selects tickets which are assume being solved (statuses “Solution provided” and “Confirmed”).

Add three more queries to the existing gadget.
Add a query "New Incidents"
Saved Search: All Incidents 2020

Filter: Creation date

Backlog: No
Add another query "Closed Incidents"
Saved Search: Closed Incidents 2020
Filter: Creation date
Backlog: No
Add one more query "Open Incidents"
Saved Search: Open Incidents 2020 (
the same search as used in the first query!!)
Filter: Creation date
Backlog: No (
different as in the first query!!)
Look at the chart and consider for a minute what you see
Since all queries use the creation date, the number of newly created incidents (blue columns) minus the number of incidents that have since been resolved (green columns) results in the number of incidents that have been created in this month and have not yet been closed (red columns). For example, four out of 14 incidents created in January are still open. Each of the eight tickets created in February have be solved between February and today, so the cumulated number of open incidents remains at four. In March two more open tickets are added and so on. The purple columns finally adds up all open tickets of each month.

Conclusion
In this example the support team started with zero open incidents on 1 January and has got 91 new incidents assigned since the beginning of the year. 75 of them have been solved, so (as of October) 16 open incidents remain. Obviously, the number of open incidents tends to increase steadily. In the long run, that´s not good.
A small drawback of this Data Provider is the fact that a CRM search has to be saved. As this search sticks to a certain user, only this one can use it in Focused Insights during creation time.
However, the dashboard can be viewed by any user. Give it a try and leave a comment!
SAP Solution Manager 7.2 SPS08 with ST-OST 200 SP03 Wave 7.3
All screenshots were taken by me