Managing states

A state is one of the statuses an entity can be in — for example Open, In progress or Done on an order. The States tab of a machine’s detail view lists them all and is where you manage them.

The states list

Each state shows its Technical name, its Name and an Initial column. The starting state carries an Initial badge. A search field filters the list by name.

Add a state

1. Open the machine and go to the States tab.
2. Click Add state.
3. Fill in:
   • Technical name — the internal identifier. It must start with a lowercase letter and contain only lowercase letters, numbers and underscores.
   • Name — the readable display name.
4. Optionally turn on Set as initial state to make this the machine’s starting state.
5. Click Save.

If a state with the same technical name already exists, an inline error appears and the state is not saved.

Edit a state

Open a state’s context menu and choose Edit. The same form opens with the current values. Change the Name or Technical name and click Save.

The initial state

Every machine has exactly one initial state — the status an entity gets when it first enters the machine. You can set it in three places:

• The Set as initial state switch in the add/edit form.
• The Set as initial state entry in a state’s context menu.
• The Initial state field on the General tab.

Choosing a new initial state moves the Initial badge to it.

Delete a state

Open a state’s context menu and choose Delete, then confirm.

A state cannot be deleted while anything still depends on it. Before removing it, the module checks for:

• Transitions that start or end at the state.
• Entities — real records such as orders, transactions and deliveries — currently in that state.

If any are found, the deletion is blocked and the dialog lists the dependencies, for example Transitions: 2 and Entities: 5. Remove or re-point those first, then delete the state.

Next steps

• Managing transitions
• The visual editor