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sourceDocument: Australia Strategic Portfolio Management
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-business-management

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ft:publication_title :

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# Substates in EAP

# Substates in EAP {#ariaid-title1}

Release version: Australia  
Updated October 14, 2026  
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## Summary of Substates in EAP

Substates in Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) allow teams to break down a story state into smaller, more detailed steps that align with their unique workflows.
While story states are standardized across teams, substates provide granular tracking within those states, enabling better visibility and management of work in progress.
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## Key Features

* **Customizable Substates per Team:** Each team defines substates specific to their process without impacting other teams, maintaining the overall state structure.
* **Planning Board Visualization:** Substates appear as individual lanes on the team's Planning board, showing where work is waiting within a state.
* **Work-in-Progress (WIP) Limits:** Teams can set WIP limits on individual substates (e.g., Code review) to control workflow bottlenecks.
* **Substate Attributes:** Each substate has a name, belongs to one state, and has an order determining its position on the board. One substate per state can be designated as the default.
* **Automatic Story Assignment:** Stories in a state without a substate are automatically assigned to the default substate when substates are created or changed.
* **Substate Field on Stories:** A substate field appears on story forms and lists for the team's current state, enabling direct substate selection and updates aligned with state changes.

## How Substates Work in Practice

Scrum masters manage substates from the Substates tab in the Team Settings. When a state has substates, the Planning board replaces the single state lane with lanes for each substate, showing story counts and enabling focused monitoring. Changing a story's state updates the substate to the new state's default by default, preserving workflow consistency.

## Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

* Gain enhanced visibility into the specific stages of work within a story state, improving tracking and team coordination.
* Maintain standard state reporting and planning practices while adding detailed process steps unique to each team.
* Prevent work pile-up by applying WIP limits to critical substates, improving flow and delivery speed.
* Allow tailored workflows that reflect each team's actual working practices without disrupting other teams or overall processes.  
Divide a story state into substates in Enterprise Agile Planning so that a team can track work in more detail.

Story states are the same for every team, but teams don't all work in the same steps. When a team does several kinds of work within one state, the Planning board shows a single lane for all of it. The team can't see where in the state
its work is waiting.

A substate helps divide a story state into smaller steps that match how a team works. For example, a team can divide the Work in progress state into Code review and other steps. Each
substate belongs to one team and one state, so each team defines the substates that fit its own process. Other teams and their states aren't affected.

A scrum master creates and manages substates from the Substates tab of the Team
Settings page. For more information, see [Create substates for a team in EAP](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/k0fzYzryCcu~OEWRzWTYyg "Add substates to a story state for an Agile Team to track work in more detail on stories and on the Planning board in Enterprise Agile Planning.").

## Benefits of substates {#substates-in-eap__substates-in-eap-benefits}

Substates give a team a closer view of its work while the standard states stay the same:

* A story keeps its state. Substates add detail within the state, so planning that relies on states continues to work.
* Each team sets its own substates. A change by one team doesn't affect the substates of another team.
* The Planning board of the team shows one lane for each substate, so the team can see where work is waiting within a state.
* A team can set a WIP limit on a single substate lane, such as Code review, to keep work from piling up at one step. For more information, see [Set WIP limits for Kanban lanes in EAP](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/RvoGcRW4O8xgaH_e4sUFnw "Limit the amount of work in progress for each state or substate of an Agile Team in Enterprise Agile Planning so that the team keeps its workload under control.").

## What defines a substate {#substates-in-eap__substates-in-eap-properties}

Each substate has a state that it belongs to, a name that users see, and an order. Substates with lower order numbers appear first within the state. A substate can also be the default for its state.

For the fields that you complete when you create a substate, see [Create substates for a team in EAP](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/k0fzYzryCcu~OEWRzWTYyg "Add substates to a story state for an Agile Team to track work in more detail on stories and on the Planning board in Enterprise Agile Planning.").

## Default substates {#substates-in-eap__substates-in-eap-default-substate}

A team can have one default substate for each state. The first substate that you create for a state becomes the default automatically, even if you don't select Use as default. A state that has substates
therefore always has a default substate. If you mark a different substate as the default, the new default replaces the previous one, and a message tells you about the change.

When the first default substate is set for a state, the stories in that state that have no substate are moved to it. This update runs in the background, and a message tells you that it started.

## Substates on stories {#substates-in-eap__substates-in-eap-stories}

Story forms and lists have a Substate field. The field lists the substates of the story's team for the story's current state. The field doesn't appear when the team has no substates for the state. It also
doesn't appear for a story that belongs to a team above the Agile Team level in the Agile structure.

The substate of a story follows its state:

* When you change the state of a story, the substate changes to the default substate of the new state. If the new state has no substates, the field is cleared.
* If you change the state and choose a substate in the same update, your chosen substate is kept.
* If you change only the substate, the state changes to the state that the substate belongs to.

## Substates on the Planning board {#substates-in-eap__substates-in-eap-planning-board}

On the Planning board of a team, a state that has substates shows one lane for each substate in place of the lane for the state. Each lane header shows the substate name, the number of stories in the lane, and the state that the
substate belongs to. After you create the first substate for a state, the lane might be empty until the background update finishes. Refresh the board to see the stories that moved to the default substate.
Figure 1. Substate lanes on the Planning board