Table of Contents

Description

State flows are a no-code or low-code activity. They create UI actions and Business Rules as a result of the state flow definition. The scripts created call script includes that reference the definition records. All additional maintenance is done on the state flow records, not the resulting business rules/UI actions.

Plugins

State flows require the plugin "State Flows (com.snc.state_flows)" to be activated.

Details

State flows can be used to control the following:

• Manual transitions: Initiate manual transitions by a UI action that the system creates when you provide a condition or a script.
• Automatic transitions: Initiate automatic transitions from a business rule that the system creates when you provide a condition and a script.
• Custom transitions: Customize the order in which states can change for records in any table that extends the Task [task] table.
• Field controls: Control the behavior and visibility of specific fields when a task changes states or reaches a specified end state.
• State choice list: Limit the values offered in a task record's State field to valid states for that transition. This is the same client script that the system creates to manage field controls for state transitions.
• Events: Trigger events when a state transition occurs or when a record reaches a specific end state.

State Flows are configured under State Flows> State Flows.

Starting State/Ending State Values

The key to remember about start/end state values on the form is that they define a "transition" between states (when both values are populated.) In some cases it is useful to have null values.

Starting State	Ending State	Notes
Value	Value	Processing occurs during the transition between states.Use case: Business rules and onChange client scripts.
Null	Value	To perform some processing when a task record reaches a particular end state, you only need to define the end state.Use case: UI action and onLoad client script
Value	Null	Use case: Some type of cleanup after a task is canceled.
Null	Null	A state flow might have no starting or ending state if the processing in the record applies to more than one state transition (use with conditions on UI action or BR)(Does not apply to field controls)

Example of Manual Transition. This creates a UI action called Close Complete on the form that is available in the Starting State when the conditions are met. When the button is clicked, the state changes to the value in the Ending State and the script is run to set the work_end date.

If no starting and ending state are used, the UI action is available for all states and the condition field and condition builder are still evaluated.

Example Automatic transition: This definition produces a business rule called Cancel Cleanup (same as the state flow definition name) that runs when the state changes to cancelled (7) and automated state flow is true.

Special note

You may find it helpful to add the following attribute to update the dictionary entry sf_state_flow.automatic_condition to reduce scripting I the condition string field.

extended_operators=VALCHANGES;CHANGESFROM;CHANGESTO

Reference:

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=State%5FFlows#gsc.tab=0

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Using%5FState%5FFlows#gsc.tab=0