This field records the name of the previous FSM state that the inventory/identity record for an embedded management controller (a server's CIMC, a chassis's CMC, or an IOM controller) was in before its current one. Keeping the prior state alongside the current one lets an admin (or a support engineer reading a TAC case) reconstruct the exact sequence of steps a Controller's workflow passed through, which is often the fastest way to see where a failing backup/export actually went wrong. For a job that is now connecting to the remote server, this field would show the name of whatever step ran immediately before that, such as the local data-collection step.