Secondary Statuses

Overview

You can use statuses to indicate the position of an object in the object’ s life cycle. Statuses are specific to objects. Object Data Management is supplied with several predefined statuses. These statuses are referred to as system statuses, and are integral to the operation of Object Data Management.

For example, the operations that you can perform on an entity, such as a document revision, usually depend on the entity’ s current system status.

Because of the actions the user performs, the system assigns system statuses to objects. For example, if a user rejects a document revision, the revision is assigned the Rejected status, and if a user requests to redesign a rejected document revision, the revision is assigned the In Design status.

Individual organizations have their own working practices, and can assign their own statuses to entities. To assign statuses, Object Data Management enables users to define their own statuses. These statuses are referred to as Secondary Statuses, or user defined statuses. Secondary statuses have no effect on the operation of the system, and are purely descriptive. Each secondary status is based on a specific system status. The ODM administrator can define one or more secondary statuses for each system status.

Most entity overview sessions contain a Secondary Status option, which enables you to assign secondary statuses to entities.

If the secondary statuses are not defined for the current system status of an entity, the Secondary Status option will be unavailable. The user chooses the secondary status from a list of all the secondary statuses that are based on the current system status of the entity. After you select the secondary status, the status appears, in addition to the system status, and does not replace the system status.

Status sequence number

If you define a new secondary status, the system assigns the secondary status a sequence number. This sequence number determines the order in which the statuses are listed in the status session, as well as the order in which the available secondary statuses are listed for the user. After you change the sequence number, you can change the sequence number of a secondary status.

Note

You can only change the sequence number for user-defined statuses.

To maintain secondary statuses

To maintain secondary statuses, on the Object Data Management menu, double-click ODM Configuration > Object Types > Object Statuses by Object.

The Object Statuses by Object (dmsys0520m000) session shows, which includes a list of all statuses that are defined for the object type that appears in the Object field:
[...]

To create a new status for the object in the Object field, refer to To create a new secondary status for an object.

To list and create statuses for a different object type, click Next Group and Previous Group, or click Find, to locate the required object type.

To create a new secondary status for an object
  1. Make sure that the details of the required object type appear at the top of the list are the same as the one detailed previously in the Object Statuses by Object (dmsys0520m000) session.
  2. Click the system status on which the new status must be based, or click one of the user-defined statuses listed between this system status and the next system status.

  3. On the appropriate menu, click Insert After.

    The Objects Statuses (dmsys0120s000) details session appears:
    [...]

    The Sequence Number field is automatically filled in with value obtained by incrementing the sequence number of the selected status by one. The Based on Status field displays the status code of the system status on which the secondary status is based.

  4. Enter the values for the following:
Status Code

A unique status code to be used internally.

Note that the permanent status code is formed by prefixing the value you type here with the object type, unless you include the object type in the value you enter. For example, for folder statuses, if you enter the lock1 or FLDRlock1, the permanent status code is FLDRlock1.

Description

The status value, as the status must appear to the user.

This value does not have to be unique. In other words, you can use the same status description value for statuses of various object types.

 

Note

The new status is inserted after the selected status. If the sequence number of the new status already exists, the sequence numbers of all subsequent statuses are incremented by one.

To change the sequence number for a secondary status

To change the sequence number for a secondary status, take the following steps:

  1. In the Object Statuses by Object (dmsys0520m000) session, click the required user-defined status.
  2. On the appropriate menu, click Renumber. The Objects Statuses (dmsys0120s000) details session appears.
  3. Enter the required sequence number and click OK.
Note

The position of the record in the list changes, if required, to reflect the new sequence number.