Difference between story and ritm

[PoojithaHasthi]

What is difference between story and ritm? As in both of them i am doing customizations as well as configurations....Then what differs between them?

[Aditya_hublikar · Accepted solution]

Hello @PoojithaHasthi ,

A Story and an RITM may look similar from a customization or configuration perspective because both are records where you can apply business rules, scripts, and flows, but their purpose within ServiceNow is very different.

A Story is an Agile work item used by development teams to track product or feature development within backlogs, boards, and sprints, whereas an RITM (Requested Item) is created from a Service Catalog request and represents a service fulfillment process initiated by an end user.

Stories focus on delivering development work, while RITMs focus on delivering services or fulfilling operational requests. The main difference lies in their business context, lifecycle, and module usage rather than the technical customization applied to them.

In simple words story means task from your piece of work ,

RITM means requested item record generated in servicenow to fulfill user catalog request

If this helps you then mark it as helpful and accept as solution.

Regards,

Aditya,

Technical Consultant

[Tanushree Maiti · Accepted solution]

[yashkamde · Accepted solution]

Hello @PoojithaHasthi ,

The basic difference is a Story (Agile) is a development work item used by teams to track product features or enhancements within sprints. A RITM is a record generated from the Service Catalog to track the fulfillment of a specific product or service ordered by an end-user, such as new hardware or access.

If my response helped mark as helpful and accept the solution.

[Tanushree Maiti · Accepted solution]

[yashkamde · Accepted solution]

Hello @PoojithaHasthi ,

The basic difference is a Story (Agile) is a development work item used by teams to track product features or enhancements within sprints. A RITM is a record generated from the Service Catalog to track the fulfillment of a specific product or service ordered by an end-user, such as new hardware or access.

If my response helped mark as helpful and accept the solution.

[its_SumitNow · Accepted solution]

Hi @PoojithaHasthi 

Story (Agile Development)

• Purpose: Track development work, enhancements, new features, or technical debt

• Used for: Building new functionality, customizations, configurations that are planned development work
• Part of: Agile Development module (scrum_story table)
• Lifecycle: Backlog → Ready → In Progress → Code Review → Done
• Examples:
  • "Create new approval workflow for hardware requests"
  • "Build custom dashboard for managers"
  • "Configure catalog item for laptop requests"

RITM - Requested Item (Service Catalog)

• Purpose: Fulfill actual user requests from the Service Catalog
• Used for: Delivering services to end users
• Part of: Service Catalog / Request Management (sc_req_item table)
• Lifecycle: Pending → Work In Progress → Closed Complete/Incomplete/Cancelled
• Examples:
  • User requests a new laptop
  • User requests VPN access
  • User requests software installation

Hope my reponse Helps 🙂

Warm Regards

Sumit 

Technical Conusltant