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Release: Australia · Updated: 2026-03-12 · Official documentation · View source

Service management states

From creation until closure, SM application requests for work (for example, work orders and facilities requests), and their respective tasks follow a life cycle tracked by the State field in Field Service Management and Facilities Service Management.

The life cycle is controlled through business rules and UI actions that are updated by the system automatically.

Note: The State field on the record is always read-only.

  • State flow customization
    State flows control the sequence in which records transition between states in Service Management applications.
  • State flow example
    Your business processes might require work order tasks to be accepted automatically when dispatched to an agent.
  • Implications of disabling SM state flows
    State flows are used by SM applications to control how a work order or request automatically transitions from one state to the next. When state flows are disabled, various aspects of the ServiceNow system are also changed, as described here.

Parent Topic:Service Management

Related topics

[bundle-fsm.t_CustomizeAStateFlow]