Future State Repository

The Future State Repository is where Command holds the parts of your landscape that do not exist yet. A planned application, a new interface, a future organizational unit: you can model it as a real, named object and plan around it, without adding placeholder records to your live data.

ServiceNow describes the present. The Future State Repository adds the future, so you can plan where the landscape is going and still keep a clean record of what is.

What you can do

• Model planned elements. Create a future application, interface, or other element with a name, attributes, and relationships, before it is built. It is reusable across plans and diagrams.
• Keep current and future together. Read an element as it is today, as it is planned to be, or both. Planning never overwrites the live record.
• Work in scenarios. A scenario is a variant future. Author changes inside a scenario (add an element, change an attribute, redraw a relationship) and they stay separate from the baseline plan until you decide to commit them.
• Compare options. Hold several scenarios side by side and compare each against the baseline and against each other.
• Make it real. When a planned element is built, promote it to a real record. Its plan and history carry across, so the planned thing and the real thing are the same continuous object.

Working with a scenario

A scenario captures one possible future and the case for choosing it. Alongside a name and description, it records what you expect it to benefit, cost, and risk, an overall rating, and the case for and against. As you weigh options, each scenario carries a decision status so a proposal can move from pending toward a verdict, and a scenario score so options can be compared on the same basis.

Why it matters

The Future State Repository is the foundation for planning in Command. Roadmaps, scenario planning, Measures, and Lifecycle all build on it to answer "what could this look like, and what changes if we choose this path" before anyone commits.

Screenshots and guides for authoring future state and working with scenarios will follow in this section.