Design Manager Professional allows the user to manually and automatically indicate the current stage, progress, or status of the Specifications in the software. The Item Status Types are defined on the Item Status tab of the Company Information Window. The Status of an Item can be manually set by the user on the Specifications or Item windows. Status Types, however, can be set to automatically update the Status of Item as certain processes, such as creating a Purchase Order or receiving a deposit from the client, occur.
Predefined Types: Specifying, Awaiting Client Approval, Need to Order, Ordered, Needs to be Invoiced, Needs to Order - Client Invoiced, Ordered - Client Invoiced, Completed, Completed - Locked, Critical Requires Attention, and Inactive, are already defined when the software is installed, based upon the most common criteria in the design process. The predefined Status Types can be edited or deleted as necessary by clicking the Edit or Delete buttons, respectively.
The user can also define custom Status Types. For instance, there may be a requirement to track when an Item has been received. As this criteria is not covered in the predefined Status Types, a new Status Type would need to be created. To do so, click the Add button on the Item Status tab of the Company Information Window which displays the Item Status Type Window.
Status Name: The Status Name describes the current state or phase of the Item. In the example above, "Received" would be the Status Name.
Priority: The Priority is a number from 1 to 999 which determines the precedence of the Status Type. In other words, the Priority determines which Status Type will be used if a Specification can satisfy the criteria of multiple Status Types. The higher the Priority, the greater the precedence of the Status Type. The status is evaluated from lowest to highest priority number and the highest priority to qualify is what the item will be set for (provided that it is not set to a locked status). For example, the new "Received" Status Type should "override" Specifying, Awaiting Client Approval, Needs to be Ordered, and Ordered but should not supersede any other Status Type. Therefore, the Priority of "Received" should be greater than Ordered, but less than Needs to be Invoiced. It may be necessary to change the Priority of multiple Status Types when adding a new Status Type.
Color: Clicking the Set Color button displays the Color Window from which a color can be selected and new colors can be defined. Select the desired color to represent the Status Type. Doing so will change the background color in the Sample Text field to the desired color. The Set Text button switches the text of the Status Name from white to black in order for greater readability depending on the selected color. Again, clicking the Set Text button will change the text in the Sample Text field for review. The Set Normal button will return the background and text colors to the original state (i.e,. black and white or the Windows default text color and Windows default background color).
Items with this status should be considered: This setting determines whether or not to automatically indicate an Item as Inactive, Completed, or Active (not Inactive and not Complete) upon being set to the Status Type. Inactive Items will not appear on the vast majority of windows or reports. By default, Completed Items will not appear on the Specifications, Proposal, Purchase Order, Client Invoice, and Delivery Ticket windows along with select reports including the Client Status and Prebilling. Active Items appear universally throughout Design Manager.
Set When: Each Status Type can be configured to be automatically applied to Items based upon up to two different criteria. The criteria are selected from the two drop-down menus which contain a large number of the most common phases in the design process. In the on-going "Received" Status Type example, the "Item Fully Received" option would be selected on the first Status drop-down menu. Doing so will automatically set the Status Type of an Item to "Received" once the Item has been received in full. When using two criteria, the And option specifies that both criteria must be fulfilled for the Status Type to be set while the Or option states that the Status Type will be set if either of the criteria are satisfied. The default value of the Set When options is <Manual, Not Automatically Set> meaning that the Status Type will never automatically be applied. The user must set this Status Type for each desired Item. When the second When criteria is set to <Manual, Not Automatically Set> then the And/Or function is ignored. Set When has the following possible values:
| • | New Item is Created: This status is a “catch all” that is usually set as lowest priority or first status on the list. It is set when no other Status Types qualify, such as when the Item is first created. |
| • | New Item from Inventory: This status is usually set as the second lowest priority or second status on the list. It is set when no other Status Types qualify, such as when the Item is first created and the Item is coming from your Inventory Stock. |
| • | Proposal Issued / No Proposal Issued: This is set when the Items are included on a Proposal or when the Item is not on any Proposal, respectively. |
| • | Deposit Received from Client / No Deposit Received from Client: This Status Type becomes set when a Deposit is recorded against the Item on a Proposal and the amount of the Deposit is not zero. The Item must also have a non-zero amount in the Deposit Requested field on the Item Window - Item Tab. The No Deposit Received from Client option will become set when there is no money received on the Item or the Item has a zero value in the Requested Deposit field. |
| • | PO Issued / No PO Issued: Becomes set when all purchasable Components have been included on a Purchase Order or when not all Components are included on Purchase Orders. A purchasable Component is any non-Time Component than is not set as PO N/A on the Company Advanced Options, PO Tab. |
| • | Vendor Deposit Sent / No Vendor Deposit Sent: This becomes set when all components that have a non-zero vendor deposit percentage has an actual (non-zero) vendor deposit for the PO recorded in the accounting system. This applies to only purchasable components. In the case of No Vendor Deposit Sent, this applies when the PO does not have a vendor deposit recorded. |
| • | PO Acknowledged / PO Not Acknowledged: Once an acknowledgment date is entered into the PO, this status would become set. When the condition of Not Acknowledged is chosen, the opposite would be true, the acknowledgment date would need to be null. |
| • | Item Expected to Ship / Item Not Expected to Ship:Once an Expected Ship date is entered into the Item-Component, this status would become set. When the condition of Not Expected to Ship is chosen, the opposite would be true, the expected ship date would need to be null. |
| • | User Date 1 / Not-User Date 1: This becomes set when all components have or do not have, respectively, the User Date 1 field recorded. |
| • | User Date 2 / Not-User Date 2: This becomes set when all components have or do not have, respectively, the User Date 2 field recorded. |
| • | Vendor Invoice Posted / No Vendor Invoice Posted: This becomes set when all components that have a non-zero quantity have a quantity paid for equal to the quantity ordered. In the case of components with a zero or blank quantity they must have a vendor invoice recorded in the accounting system. This applies to only purchasable components. No Vendor Invoice Posted is when the opposite condition is true. |
| • | Item Fully Received / Item Not Fully Received: This becomes set when all components that have a non-zero quantity have a quantity received equal to the quantity ordered. This applies to only purchasable components. Item Not Fully Received is when the opposite condition is true. |
| • | Item Delivered / Item Not Delivered: This becomes set when the item is on a delivery ticket (has a delivered date filled in). Item Not Delivered is when the opposite condition is true. |
| • | Item Fully Invoiced to the Client / Item Not Fully Invoiced to the Client: This becomes set when an item that has a non-zero quantity has a quantity invoiced equal to the item quantity. In the case of items with a zero or blank quantity, the item must have a client invoice recorded in the accounting system. This applies to only purchasable components. Item Not Fully Invoiced to the Client is when the opposite condition is true. |
| • | Item Fully Paid by Client / Item Not Fully Paid by Client: When the paid amount equals the invoiced amount for an Item, this status will be set. The opposite would be true if Not fully paid were to be the selected condition. |
Locked: When a Status Type is set to "Locked", no processes within Design Manager will automatically change the Item to a different Status Type. Rather, a user must manually set the Item to a new Status Type at the appropriate time. Returning to the "Received" example, it would not be desirable to set the "Received" Status Type to Locked. As an Item gets delivered or invoiced to a client, it would be advantageous for the Status Type to be updated accordingly. An example when it would be desirable for a Status Type to be Locked might be "On Hold". The Item would remain On Hold until a user decides that the Item can be set to a different Status Type at a later date.
Password Protect: The Password Protect option prevents users from manually changing an Item to or from the Status Type to any other Type, unless they have the Projects -View/Access - Specifications - View/Access - Allow Locked Status Change attribute unlocked. Using the Password Protect option prevents unauthorized users from inadvertently changing a Status Type and narrows the control of changing Types to only a subdivision of desired users.
Lock Purchasing: The Lock Purchasing option will prevent any new Purchase Orders to be created for the Item upon being set to the Status Type. For Example, this setting can be used in combination with the Password Protect option to require a manager’s approval before items can be purchased. A status condition could be added to the report entitled “Needs Manager Approval.” This can be set to Locked, Password Protect, and Lock Purchasing. A manager who has the right to change a password protected status must now review each line item and set it to “Need to Order” before users can create purchase orders.
Lock Edits: Selecting this option will prevent a user from being able to Edit an Item or its components in any way. A user, who has rights to edit when locked, must now make any necessary changes to the Item set to the Status using the Locked for Editing. See Security and the Company Information Users & Security Tab. The setting can be found under Project - View/Access - Specifications - View/Access - Allow Locked Edits.
Manually setting the Status of an Item
The Status of an Item can be set by right-clicking the Status column on the Specifications Window and selecting the desired Status or by using the Status selection on the Item Window - Status Tab.