Connecting EAP with Collaborative Work Management
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Summary of Connecting EAP with Collaborative Work Management
The integration between Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) and Collaborative Work Management (CWM) enables organizations to unify strategic program planning with team-level execution within a single system. This connection eliminates silos, enhances visibility, and improves delivery predictability by aligning enterprise priorities across all levels of agile planning and execution.
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Program managers and release train engineers use EAP to define Program Increment (PI) objectives, align Epics, Features, and Stories, create sprints, and manage cross-team dependencies. After each PI, retrospectives and roadmap updates are conducted to support continuous planning.
Product owners and agile teams use CWM to plan and execute sprints, manage stories alongside operational tasks such as incidents, and conduct team-level retrospectives—all within the same workspace. This reduces context switching and ensures both planned and unplanned work remain aligned with strategic goals, providing leadership with end-to-end transparency of progress against PI objectives.
Workflow of EAP - CWM Integration
- An EAP administrator connects an EAP team to CWM, which automatically creates a new Space and Board in the CWM workspace for that team.
- Existing work items assigned to the EAP team are imported into the new CWM Board using Connected Work filters.
- The Sprint Planning view is enabled on the CWM Board, displaying existing work items and sprints for seamless management.
- Teams must have appropriate CWM access, and the CWM user role ([sncwm.cwmuser]) should be assigned to all team members.
- Teams can create, manage, and update work progress directly from the CWM Board, with status updates reflected back on the EAP Agile Team dashboard.
Managing Sprints for EAP Teams in CWM
- Sprints created and scheduled in EAP automatically sync to CWM and appear in the Sprint Planning view on the CWM Board.
- Teams update work status and can mark sprints as complete within CWM. Incomplete work can be moved to the backlog or subsequent sprints.
- New sprints must be created in EAP, as sprint creation is tied to defining Planning Intervals (PIs) for the parent Agile Release Train (ART) in EAP. These sprints then sync automatically to CWM.
Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
This integration streamlines agile planning and execution by providing a unified platform that connects strategic objectives with team-level work. It helps reduce operational inefficiencies caused by tool switching, ensures comprehensive visibility of both planned and unplanned tasks, and improves alignment with enterprise priorities. Customers can expect enhanced planning accuracy, better collaboration across teams, and transparent progress tracking from leadership down to individual contributors.
Enhance visibility and streamline planning for your Agile teams by connecting Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) with Collaborative Work Management (CWM).
Overview of EAP-CWM connection
The EAP-CWM integration enables organizations to connect strategic program planning with team-level execution in a single system, eliminating silos and improving delivery predictability.
Using EAP, program managers and release train engineers can define Program Increment (PI) objectives, align Epics, Features, and Stories, create sprints for teams, and manage cross-team dependencies. After completing a PI, they can conduct PI retrospectives and update roadmaps for the next cycle. These capabilities ensure that enterprise priorities are clearly structured and traceable across all levels.
By linking EAP to CWM, product owners and team members can plan and execute sprints, manage agile stories alongside operational tasks such as incidents, track progress, and hold team-level retrospectives, all within the same workspace.
This connection between the applications reduces context switching and ensures that both planned and unplanned work is accounted for, without losing alignment to strategic goals. The result is end-to-end transparency where leadership can track progress against PI goals through EAP, while teams maintain flexibility to adapt to changing priorities.
Workflow of EAP-CWM integration
- EAP admin connects an EAP team to CWM. See Connect an EAP team with CWM.
- A new Space and Board are created for this EAP team in the CWM workspace.
- Existing work items assigned to this EAP team are brought over to the newly created CWM Board through Connected Work filters.
- Sprint planning view is enabled for this CWM Board where the existing work items and sprints are automatically shown.
- Check team's access to CWM and provide the CWM user [sn_cwm.cwm_user] to all team members.
- EAP team can start creating more work, manage current work, and update progress directly from the CWM Board. See Sprint planning in CWM.
- The team's progress and work status is reflected back on the Team dashboard in the EAP workspace. See EAP Agile Team dashboard
Creating or managing sprints for EAP teams in CWM
For EAP teams integrated with CWM, existing sprints and their scheduled work automatically sync to CWM. These details are displayed in the Sprint Planning view on the CWM Board.
As the team progresses through assigned work, they can update the work status directly in the Sprints section. The sprint can be marked Complete from this view and any incomplete work items can be moved either to the backlog or the next sprint, if it exists.
New sprints for the team must be created in EAP. After creating new sprints in EAP, they will sync to CWM, allowing the team to schedule work into these sprints from CWM.