Demand workflow

Release version: Zurich

Updated March 12, 2026

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Summary of Demand workflow

The demand workflow guides the progression of a demand through various stages—from initial intake to assessment, approval, and execution. It ensures demands are progressively refined, validated, and aligned with business and strategic objectives before resources are allocated.

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This workflow supports traditional demand management processes but can be customized by defining a custom playbook to tailor states and activities.

Key Features

Demand Creation: Demands can be submitted by business users via the Service Catalog or Idea Portal, or directly by demand managers or users through the Next Experience for Demand Management.
Detail Completion: Demand managers or users review and add essential details, moving the demand from draft to submitted state.
Refinement and Finalization: Demand managers complete comprehensive information such as size, impact, business case, timeline, resources, costs/benefits, stakeholder registry, and strategy alignment, and can assign tasks or request subject matter expert support.
Screening and Assessment: Demands are moved to screening where stakeholders submit assessments to score the demand. The demand can be set to qualified automatically or manually depending on assessment completion.
Review and Approval: Stakeholders review demands for approval or deferral. Demand managers then set demands as approved, deferred, or deferred accordingly.
Conversion to Execution Entities: Upon approval, demands are converted into strategic or operational entities such as projects, enhancements, or Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) entities based on demand category and type.
Completion of Demands: Demands can be completed automatically when their converted entities are finished or manually by demand managers at any workflow state.

Key Outcomes

Ensures all demands are systematically evaluated and aligned with organizational goals before resource assignment.
Provides clear roles and responsibilities at each stage, involving business users, demand managers, stakeholders, and approvers.
Facilitates decision-making through structured assessments and reviews, promoting transparency and accountability.
Supports integration with execution entities, enabling seamless transition from demand to delivery.
Offers flexibility through customization of workflow states and activities to match organizational processes.

The demand workflow defines the stages a demand moves through, from initial intake to assessment, approval, and execution. At each stage, you can evaluate the demand, align it with business objectives, and set up the right processes before resources are assigned.

Workflow overview

The following table lists the end-to-end life cycle for managing demands. This workflow provides a process for demands so they are progressively refined, validated, and aligned with business and strategic objectives.

Note:

This workflow describes the traditional demand management process. You can customize the states and activities by defining a custom playbook.

Table 1. Demand workflow overview
Task	Description	Demand states involved	Roles involved
Create a demand	Demands enter the system via Service Catalog or Idea Portal, or being submitted directly by demand managers: Business users can submit an idea via the Service Catalog or Idea Portal. The idea is then evaluated by demand managers after which they can promote it to a demand. Business users can bypass the ideation process and submit a demand directly from the Service Catalog. Demand managers or demand users can directly submit demands from the Next Experience for Demand Management.	Draft	Business user, demand manager, demand user
Complete demand details	The demand manager or demand user reviews and adds required details. The demand moves from the draft to the submitted state after the basic demand details are added.	Draft → Submitted	Demand manager, demand user
Refine and finalize demand	The demand manager completes all required information (size, impact, business case, timeline, resources, costs/benefits, stakeholder registry, strategy alignment). The demand manager can assign tasks or request SME (subject matter expert) support.	Submitted	Demand manager
Move demand to screening	The demand manager moves the demand to screening. Assessments are sent to the stakeholders to score the demand after it reaches the screening state.	Submitted → Screening	Demand manager
Complete assessments	Stakeholders complete and submit assessments for scoring.	Screening	Stakeholder
Move demand to qualified	The demand moves to the qualified state after the required assessments are submitted. Next Experience for Demand Management updates the state automatically. The demand manager manually sets the demand to qualified while it is in screening, for example, when assessments are delayed or not required.	Screening → Qualified	Demand manager, Next Experience for Demand Management
Review demand	Stakeholders review the demand for approval or deferral.	Qualified	Stakeholder
Approve or defer a demand	The demand manager sets the demand to approved (moves forward for execution) or deferred (moves to the Deferred state).	Qualified → Approved or Deferred	Demand manager, demand approver
Convert demand to strategic/operational entity	After the demand is approved, the demand manager creates the selected entity such as project, enhancement, or Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) entities. The created entity is based on the values in the Category and Type fields of the Demand record. Depending on the type of record created, the demand data is migrated to the created entity.	Approved	Demand manager
Complete demands	Based on the selection in the Close Demand field, a demand is completed automatically when the converted entity is completed, or manually by the demand manager at any state.	Approved → Completed	Demand manager, Next Experience for Demand Management