Service contract life cycle

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Service Contract Life Cycle

    The service contract life cycle encompasses various states that a service contract can undergo, allowing specific actions at each stage. Understanding these states helps manage service contracts effectively within ServiceNow's Customer Service Management module.

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    Key Features

    • Draft: Modify start and end dates, add or remove contract lines and entitlements, and adjust covered products.
    • Active: Manual and integrated modifications are allowed; start date remains fixed while the end date can be extended.
    • Expired: No actions can be taken; the service contract is inactive.
    • Cancelled: No actions can be taken; the service contract is voided.
    • Suspended: Related service contract lines pause, allowing limited editing and record creation; resumes based on date validations.

    Key Outcomes

    When a service contract transitions to the Expired state, all related contract lines and entitlements also expire. Child entities inherit the state of their parent entity, but the reverse is not true. Additionally, any service contract line must be created within the parent contract's valid date range, ensuring compliance with operational timelines.

    A service contract goes through the various states in each phase of its life cycle.

    In each state, a service contract is enabled to perform certain actions as mentioned in the following table.
    Table 1. Service contract life cycle, related states, and actions that it can perform
    Life-cycle State Action
    A service contract is generated. Draft
    • The start and end dates of the service contract can be modified such that the child records' dates are within the date range.
    • The related contract lines and entitlements can be added, removed, or modified.
    • The sold product/install base item covered can be added or removed.
    Service contract gets activated on the date of activation. Active
    • Modifications to the service contract can be done manually, via integration and via Sales and Order Management workflow.
    • The start date can't be modified.
    • The end date can be extended and should be greater than the current date.
    • Service contract line items can be added.
    • The sold product/install base item covered can be modified.
    Service contract is deactivated on the date of expiration. Expired No action.
    Service contract is canceled. Canceled No action.

    The service contract line items and entitlements also perform similar actions in the respective states.

    When a parent entity moves to the Expired state, the child entities inherit the same state. For example, when a service contract expires, the related contract lines and entitlements also expire.

    However, the state change of a child entity doesn't affect it parent entity.

    The sold product or install base item referenced either in the contract line or an entitlement must be in the same state as the entity where it's referenced.

    Suspended state

    When a sold product is suspended, the related service contract lines and entitlements, in the Draft or Active states, move to the Suspended state as well.

    A suspended service contract line or entitlement is paused for any activity, except the following:
    • Editing the field values.
    • Creating records in the corresponding related lists.

    On resuming the sold product, the related service contract line item or entitlement acquires the state depending on its start and end dates. For example, a resumed entitlement that has its start date in the past and its end date in the future, acquires the Active state.

    Exceptionally, when a contract line or entitlement in the Suspended state has reached its end date, it moves to the Expired state automatically.

    Date validations

    A service contract line associated with a service contract must be created within the service contract's start and end dates. Any modification to the dates of service contract lines must comply with the date range of the parent service contract.