Home > Production > Production Maintenance > Production StatusesProduction Statuses
A production order is used to order prints from the lab or other products from your vendors. Where an invoice is used to record your client's order with you, production orders are used to record the orders you place with your labs/vendors to fulfill your client's order. A single invoice may contain several production orders according to the number of vendors needed to fulfill the client's order.
Spectra/myStratus Desktop make it easy for you to create one or more production orders from an invoice. Production statuses help you keep track of your production orders. You can even create a unique set of production statuses for each of your production order types. See Production Order Types for more about setting up your list of production order types.
Follow these steps to set up your production statuses:
Click New to add a new line and complete the following:
Description - Enter a description for the status.
Association - Though not required, you can choose to associate your production statuses with a specific stage of the software's digital workflow. Each production order with this status will appear at the associated stage on the Workflow hub. See also: Workflow Hub and Setting up Digital Workflow
Default Department - Choose the department responsible for the status.
Default User - Choose a specific user responsible for the status.
Default Duration - Enter the number of days a production order should remain at this status without being considered overdue. The software uses the default duration to automatically calculate the due date.
Initial/Final Status - Your production status cycle must have one step chosen as the Initial Status and one step as the Final Status. Select these statuses by checking the appropriate boxes.
Non-Standard - Use for statuses that are not part of your regular workflow, such as "On Hold," "Cancelled," or "Waiting on Client." These statuses will be available to use when needed but will not be added into the production cycle.
The following editing options are also available, either on the ribbon or directly from the grid:
Delete a Status - Highlight the status and click Delete on the ribbon.
Change the Order - Highlight a status and use the Move Up and Move Down tools on the ribbon.
Make a Status Inactive - Check the Inactive box to hide a status you are no longer using (but may not want to delete).
You may also want to:
Hide Inactive Statuses - Click Hide Inactive on the ribbon to hide (or reveal) any inactive statuses.
Print the List - Click Print on the ribbon to generate a printed report of your production statuses.
Export to PDF/Excel - Click one of the export buttons to export your list of production statuses.
Close the window when finished.
Once the production order status cycle has been defined, you can track the status of each production order as shown below:
Follow these steps to change the status of a production order:
Open the PO and click Advance Status on the ribbon (or click the "..." button to the right of the status line). The following screen appears:
You can also update the status of one or more production orders right on the Production hub! Just select the production order(s) and click Advance Status on the ribbon. The Status Change window will indicate how many records will be modified. Note: The production orders must all be the same type to update them together.
Accept the software's default information or modify these fields as needed.
Current Status - The current status of the production order.
Date Completed - Defaults to the current date. Click the down arrow to modify the date.
If the current status is NOT complete, check Current Status Not Complete at the bottom of the window. This will allow you to advance the status to "Waiting on Client" or "On Hold" without actually setting the current status as completed. See also: Production Statuses
Change To Status - Click the down arrow and select the new status from the drop-down list.
Due Date - The software will calculate the due date of the new status based on the typical duration of this status as defined in Production Order Status Maintenance. Note: This will be done either by counting forward from the order date (default method) or by counting backward from the approximate delivery date of the invoice. You can change this setting in Maintenance > Preferences > Company (Studio) Preferences > Production. Click the down arrow to modify the date, if desired. See also: Automating Production Orders
Status Updated By - If someone other than the user who is currently logged into the software is completing this step, click the down arrow and select the correct user.
New Status Assigned to Dept - Select the department responsible for completing the next status.
New Status Assigned to User - Select the user responsible for completing the next status.
Current Status Not Complete - Check this option if the current status is not complete but you want to change the status to something like "On Hold." See Flash above.
Click OK when finished.
A history of all status changes is kept on the Status Notes tab of the production order.
You may also want to set up triggers for one or more of your production statuses. Triggers can automatically create tasks or initiate a variety of communications when a production status is changed. Set up your production status triggers in Maintenance > General > Triggers. For more information on using triggers throughout the software, please see the Triggers topic.