State model and transitions

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of State Model and Transitions in Change Management

    Change Management in ServiceNow provides a state model to track and manage change requests through a series of defined states. This enables organizations to monitor the progress of changes, enforce approvals, and communicate status updates effectively. Different types of changes—normal, standard, and emergency—follow different state progressions tailored to their approval and implementation needs.

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    Change States and Notifications

    Change requests flow through these key states:

    • New (-5): Change request is being prepared but not yet submitted.
    • Assess (-4): Peer review and technical approval occur.
    • Authorize (-3): Final authorization and scheduling by Change Management and CAB.
    • Scheduled (-2): Change is scheduled and awaiting start; notification sent to requester.
    • Implement (-1): Actual work is performed; notification sent to requester.
    • Review (0): Post-implementation review and success assessment; notification sent to requester. Cancel action disabled in this state.
    • Closed (3): Change is completed and closed.
    • Canceled (4): Change can be canceled at any point except when closed; notification sent to requester.

    Email notifications are automatically sent to the requester when the change moves into Scheduled, Implement, Review, or Canceled states.

    State Progression by Change Type

    • Normal Changes: Progress through all states from New to Closed.
    • Standard Changes: Pre-authorized; bypass Assess and Authorize states but require approval to proceed or rejection to revert to New.
    • Emergency Changes: Similar to standard but require authorization before implementation.

    Reverting Change Requests

    Emergency and Normal change requests can be reverted to the New state from Assess or Authorized states using the "Revert to New" action. This restarts workflows and cancels pending approvals, useful when scope adjustments are needed before approval.

    Modifying Change Request Types

    ServiceNow allows modification of the change request Type field only when the request is in the New state and no approvals exist. For example:

    • Standard changes can be changed to Normal or Emergency.
    • Normal and Emergency changes can be interchanged.
    • If a Normal or Emergency request is rejected and reverts to New, its type can be modified again.

    State Model Attributes and Customization

    Change Managers can assign attributes to states to enforce specific actions, such as:

    • allowcimodification: Controls if Configuration Items can be modified in that state.
    • allowimplementation: Indicates whether the change is in an implementation phase.

    Attributes apply only if included in the state model and can coexist with existing implementation states.

    Extending and Configuring the State Model

    Organizations can add new states to the existing state model to meet unique requirements. Additionally, state transitions and criteria can be customized using script includes or UI policies, allowing flexibility in how change requests move through states.

    Change Management offers a state model to move and track change requests through several states.

    Figure 1. Example of state transitions for a normal change request
    State transitions in a normal change request

    The following table provides a list of all the states that a change request can progress through. Email notifications can be sent to the user who requested the change when it progresses to the following states: Scheduled, Implement, Review, and Canceled.

    Table 1. Change states
    State Description State value
    New Change request is not yet submitted for review and authorization. A change requester can save a change request as many times as necessary while building out the details of the change prior to submission. -5
    Assess Peer review and technical approval of the change details are performed during this state. -4
    Authorize Change Management and the CAB schedule the change and provide final authorization to proceed. -3
    Scheduled The change is fully scheduled and authorized, and is waiting for the planned start date. An email notification is sent to the user who requested the change. -2
    Implement The planned start date has approached and the actual work to implement the change is being conducted. An email notification is sent to the user, who requested the change. -1
    Review The work has been completed. The change requester determines whether the change was successful. A post-implementation review can be conducted during this state. An email notification is sent to the user who requested the change.
    Note:
    You cannot cancel the change request if it is in the Review state.
    		 0
    Closed All review work is complete. The change is closed with no further action required. 3
    Canceled A change can be canceled at any point when it is no longer required. However, a change cannot be canceled from a Closed state. An email notification is sent to the user who requested the change. 4

    Normal, standard, and emergency changes progress through states in different ways.

    Figure 2. Change state progress

    State progress for different changes

    • Normal changes progress through all states.
    • Standard changes are considered to be pre-authorized, so they bypass the Assess and Authorize states that trigger approval records. Approving these changes progress the change to the next appropriate state. Rejecting these changes send them back to New state.
    • Emergency changes are similar to standard changes, except that they must be authorized.

    Revert a change request to a New change

    Change Management allows the Emergency and Normal change types to be reverted to the new state which is the first approval state using the Revert to New action from the Context Menu. This action is performed if the approval was requested and the submitter recognizes that not all configuration item in the scope of the change is included before submitting for approval.

    • To modify the Normal change request to the New state, modify the state of a change request from Assess state to New state by clicking Revert to New from the Context menu.
    • To modify the Emergency change request to the New state, modify the state of a change request from Authorized state to New state by clicking Revert to New from the Context menu.
      Note:
      When you revert to New from the Assess state or the Authorized state, the workflow is restarted and all pending approvals are cancelled.

    Modify change request type

    • A new ACL for change_request.type has been added that allows modification of the Type field in change request when the change request is in a New state and no approvals have been generated yet for it.
    • In case of Standard change request, you can modify the type of the change request from Standard to Normal or Emergency, if the state of a change request is New.
    • In case of Normal or Emergency change request, you can modify the type of the change request from Normal to Emergency or vice versa if the state of a change request is New.
    • If a Normal or Emergency change request is rejected, the state of the change request is set to New. As the state of the change request is New, you can modify the type of the change request again. For example, if your Emergency change request is rejected on the grounds that the change request is Normal, you can modify the Type of the change request to Normal and resubmit the change request.

    Disabled Cancel change action

    The Cancel option for a change request in the Review state is disabled. This restricts cancelling the request when the work is complete and is waiting for review.

    Change model attributes

    The Change Manager has the option to mandate specific actions when a Change Request is moved to a specific state. Attributes assigned to that state determine what actions can take place.

    By default, there are two attributes to manage a change request:
    • allow_ci_modification – Allows to modify the CI. Attributes are only considered if they are included in a model. If the allow_ci_modification attribute is not added to a model, it defaults to its initial state.
    • allow_implementation – Indicates that the change will be implemented. By enabling allow_implementation, this feature replaces the implementation states field currently present on the Change model. Both the states listed in the implementation states field and the attribute will be respected.