Business rule affecting project Tasks

Derek10 · ‎09-09-2015

I'm looking for the business rule that affects the following:

New project tasks in the SN Project module are set by default to be in an Open state. If the project itself is in a different state, creating the new task will set the overall project state to Open. Likewise, changing a project state can change all the related project tasks to the same state as the overall project.

It seems we had a issue where the project was moved forward a phase, then moved backward and it reset all of the existing closed tasks.

Has anyone run into this issue?

kellykaufmann · ‎12-27-2015

Hi Solon - one big lesson we learned this past year is to not mess with the built-in project states or project task states. There are tentacles EVERYWHERE that you will days, weeks, months later realize you broke some functionality by not using or changing certain states. In the end, we ended up undoing all our changes and going back to OOTB, and speaking with SN about some changes coming in Geneva that would solve some of the challenges we were having that was leading to us making all those changes. I suggest instead you reach out to SN regarding their planned Geneva changes to see if that will fix what you need as well.

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Valor1 · ‎09-09-2015

If you're trying to track down which Business Rule(s) is/are affecting a record, turn on System Diagnostics > Debug Business Rule (Details).

This will show you the *fields* that change as a result of each business rule.

kellykaufmann · ‎09-25-2015

Hi Derek.... I believe new project tasks are in 'Pending' state until the project is 'started' or until someone makes a change to that task (e.g. update the % complete). When a project is 'started' and the first task(s) are set to 'Start ASAP', those tasks will automatically change from 'Pending' to 'WIP'. Not 'Open' as you say. Did you change the logic to have it go to 'Open' state first instead of WIP?

BTW you may want to ask this question here: Space: Project Portfolio Management | ServiceNow, and join the PPM community here Group: ServiceNow User Group - SIG - PPM | ServiceNow. I have a blog post on all I've learned about the states. I highly recommend NOT messing with project states or project task states - there are more tentacles than you'd expect.

As you're digging into this...Here's a few state rules I've collected along the way (I put this in our PM guide). Hope this is helpful.

Task State Logic:

Can skip states.
All tasks are in 'Pending' state until the project is 'started' or until someone makes a change to that task (e.g. update the % complete). When a project is 'started' and the first task(s) are set to 'Start ASAP', those tasks will automatically change from 'Pending' to 'WIP'.
When a predecessor task is closed, successor task state will automatically change from 'Pending' to 'WIP'.
Once a task is started (in 'Open' or 'WIP' state), cannot change the 'Time Constraint' ('Start ASAP' vs 'Start on a Specific Date' of that task, and cannot create a new predecessor for that task.
Project tasks can be updated by anyone when the task — and parent project — is in any state. This means people can edit tasks of a project in the 'Pending' state. If anyone or any action changes a task state from 'Pending', this will automatically change the state of the project to 'WIP'.
When the last task is closed, the project will automatically close. Make sure you create a final project task like "confirm project for closure". This final task should be after production validation tasks.
Known bug: If all tasks are closed but one task is changed to "open" state, the project will automatically close. Recommendation: Change the last task to WIP when it is ready to be worked on.
Changing the % complete of a task ... for tasks currently in the 'Pending' state it will change the task state to 'WIP'.
If the project & all project tasks are in 'pending' state, and you change a project task to the 'open' state...the project state will automatically change to 'open'
Changing the project state from 'Open' to 'WIP' auto-changes all task states that are set to 'start ASAP' w/no predecessors and in 'Pending' and 'Open' states to the WIP state.
Changing a project state from WIP back to 'Open' will auto-change the project tasks back to 'Open' state.

Anthony Okumura or others can confirm my logic statement to confirm it's how OOTB functionality works (we had changed logic and then tried to back out of all our logic changes so I'm cautious that there is still some of our logic changes in there that I am communicating as OOTB).

solonxu · ‎12-25-2015

Hi, Kelly, thank you very much for the replying. You mentioned "Can skip states". Wondering if you could explain more about that? Do I have to change OOB business rule to do that?

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kellykaufmann · ‎12-27-2015

That simply means that you don't have to go through the states in order. You could change the state directly from Pending to Complete.