What is the OOTB solution for controlling Incident state transitions?

[SaitejaN]

Hi everyone,

I'm working on customizing the Incident form and want to understand what out-of-the-box (OOTB) features ServiceNow provides for managing state transitions.

Specifically, I’m looking for a way to control which state options appear based on the current state — for example:

• From New, allow only In Progress and Canceled

• From In Progress, allow On Hold and Resolved

• From Resolved, allow Closed, and optionally show a message like “This process has been closed”

I’ve seen some client scripts that manually add/remove options, but I’d prefer a configuration-based approach if available. Is there an OOTB feature or plugin that handles this without scripting?

Thanks in advance!

— Saiteja

[Mark Manders]

OOB you can use state models (sys_state_model). Client scripts were used before the introduction of state models. 

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/yokohama-platform-administration/page/administer/state-model/...

The message is something you will have to add through a client script/ui policy/business rule.