Statuses & the Dates Panel
This page is the single reference for how an order's status moves through the pipeline and how the dates get set. If you've ever wondered "why didn't my date save?" or "which statuses are real?", start here.
The status pipeline
Every order follows the same progression:
Quote → Ordered → In Production → Completed → Shipped → Delivered
↘
Canceled
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Quote | A request awaiting your pricing and the customer's acceptance |
| Ordered | Confirmed job; production can begin |
| In Production | The job is being built (can show a station — see below) |
| Completed | Manufacturing finished; ready to pack and ship |
| Shipped | The order left your shop |
| Delivered | The customer received it |
| Canceled | The job was called off |
Note: Inspection and Ready to Ship are retired. Inspection is no longer a selectable status — quality control now happens by marking each line item "inspected" (see Quality Control). Ready to Ship was folded into Completed. A very old order might still display one of these, but they aren't part of the current flow, and you can't move a new order into them.
The inline status pill
The fastest way to change status is the status pill — it appears on each row in the Orders list and on the order detail page. Click it, pick the new status, and it saves automatically and stamps the matching date.
A few things the pill does for you:
- Quote Pending & expiry — While an order is a Quote that hasn't been accepted, the pill reads Quote Pending and shows the quote's expiry date (or "Expired"). That makes it easy to spot quotes that need a follow-up.
- Stations under In Production — If you use Stations, the "In Production" option expands so you can set the order's current station. When an order is in production at a station, the pill shows that station's name instead of "In Production."
The Dates panel
Open an order, go to the sidebar, and click Dates (then Edit) to see seven date pickers you can set by hand:
| Picker | What it records |
|---|---|
| Date Entered | When the order was first created |
| Date Ordered | When the quote became an order |
| Date In Production | When the build started |
| Due Date | When the order is due |
| Date Completed | When production finished |
| Invoice Date | The date on the invoice |
| Date Shipped | When the order shipped |
Note: There are no "Date Delivered" or "Date Canceled" pickers in this panel. Delivery is recorded when you mark the order Delivered (or when tracking confirms it); cancellation is recorded when you cancel.
How saving actually works — the part everyone asks about
The Dates panel is smart about not clobbering good data:
- Only the pickers you actually change are saved. If you edit an order and touch only, say, the Due Date, that's the only date sent. Fields you didn't touch are left exactly as they are. (The Due Date is always sent, so it's the one field that saves even when you didn't change it.)
- Status transitions stamp dates for you automatically, server-side. Moving an order to In Production stamps Date In Production; Completed stamps Date Completed; Shipped stamps Date Shipped; and so on.
Put those together and the reason a field sometimes "doesn't seem to save" makes sense: an untouched picker will never overwrite a fresher, automatically-stamped date. If you want a specific date to stick, change that picker and save — a value you deliberately set is kept.
Setting a Due Date can promote a Quote
There's one date that does more than record a fact. When you set (or change) the Due Date on a Quote, TimberCloud takes it as a sign the job is now real and asks "Mark this order as Ordered?" If you confirm, the quote is promoted to Ordered and the full transition fires: the Date Ordered is stamped, the acknowledgement document is generated, inventory is deducted, notifications go out, and the order locks. Dismiss the prompt and the Due Date simply saves without promoting.
This only works one way:
- Only Quotes promote this way.
- Correcting the Date Ordered on an order that has already moved past Ordered will not send it backward.
See Editing an order after it's placed for more on how status and editing interact.
Due dates and lead times
If you've enabled lead times in Order Settings, the Due Date can be calculated for you from your products' lead times when an order is placed, counting business days (weekends excluded). You can always override it by setting the Due Date picker yourself.