8. Production workflow stages

Insight, then Workflow stages. These are the columns on your production board and the states an order moves through. One list drives the production board, the floor board, the operator stations, the barcode scanner and every stage-triggered automation.

The default five

Code	Label	What it means in the shop
artwork	Artwork	Design being prepared, proofed or waiting on customer approval
print_queue	Print queue	Approved and scheduled, not yet on a press
in_production	In production	On the press or the machine now
qc_pack	QC + Pack	Printed, being checked and packed
dispatched	Dispatched	Gone. This is the stage that closes the job

Each row has a code and a label. The code is the stable identifier used internally; the label is what staff see. Change labels freely. Change codes only when you must, because history and automations reference them.

The first stage in the list is the entry point: a quote that is accepted becomes an order in that stage.

What to change, and what not to

Most shops should change nothing here on day one. The default five map onto how nearly every decoration shop actually works, and every other part of the product is tuned around them.

Reasonable changes:

• Renaming labels to your shop's language. "Print queue" becoming "Scheduled", "QC + Pack" becoming "Check and bag".
• Adding a stage you genuinely manage separately. Common additions: pretreat before production for a DTG-heavy shop, finishing for embroidery trimming, awaiting_stock for jobs blocked on a delivery.
• Removing a stage you never use. A shop that never packs separately from QC can drop one.

Changes to be careful with:

Dispatched must remain your final stage

Reaching Dispatched is what closes an order, issues the invoice and stops it counting against your plan's open-order limit. If you add stages after it, jobs will sit in them permanently while looking closed to the rest of the system. Add new stages before Dispatched.

Other cautions:

• Do not remove a stage that orders are currently sitting in. Move those orders on first, or they end up in a column that no longer exists.
• Every stage you add is a column on the production board and a card someone has to drag. Five columns fit a laptop and a wall TV comfortably; nine do not.
• The operator stations map to fixed roles (printer, packer, QC) against stages. Adding a stage does not automatically create an operator station for it.

How to change stages

1. Edit the label in place, or press + Add stage for a new row.
2. New rows arrive as new_stage_N. Give the code a short lowercase identifier with underscores, for example pretreat.
3. Use Remove to drop a row.
4. Press Save. The board, floor board and stations pick the change up immediately.

After changing stages

Two follow-ups people forget:

• Check your email and SMS templates: a template that fires on a stage you renamed still fires, but one that fired on a stage you deleted no longer does.
• Check any webhook subscribers: the order.stage_changed payload carries the stage code, so a receiving system matching on the old code needs updating.

Next

9. Customers and contacts