Set Submission Status

Help Video

A Status is just a label that tells you what stage a submission is at. It helps you understand where a submission stands in your process. For example, a submission can be in a stage like Submitted, Under Review, Approved, Rejected, or Resolved.

Statuses are set by you according to how your process works.

Each submission always has one status at a time and is set to “SUBMITTED” by default unless you set statuses and change it. As the submission moves through your process, the status can be changed to reflect the next step. This makes it easier for the team to see which submissions are new, which ones still need action, and which ones are already completed.

Example of How Statuses Are Used

Let’s take a simple feedback or support app as an example:

1. A user submits a form.
2. The submission appears with the status SUBMITTED.
3. A team member reviews it and changes the status to In Review.
4. Once the issue is handled, the status is updated to Resolved.

At each stage, the status clearly shows what is happening with the submission. This makes it easy for teams to manage work, follow up on pending items, and close completed ones.

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Steps to Add Statuses to Apps

• Go to the Design App tab and first create your app structure.
• In the same Design App tab > Configurations Panel > Status. On the right panel, you can add different statuses or review options like Cancelled, Pending and Completed.

• Click on Add status, and type in the different statuses.

Important: Make sure to save the statuses once done, by clicking the ‘tick mark’ icon above.

• You can also select the colour you would like to give for each status. Click on the edit icon to change it.

• Once the options/status are saved for review, when you go to see any submissions in the Submissions tab, click on the submission you need to review. In the right hand panel you will get your status options by clicking the “SUBMITTED” button at the top.

Here you can review the status of the submissions, change the status and also add comments. You can select any option you have given and that status will be saved for that submission.

Additionally, you can also add a comment when changing the status. The comments have their own column in the Submissions.

Note: You will also be able to change statuses automatically through workflows. Use the Edit Submission node to change the status at any point according to the requirements of the app.

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What Happens If No Status Is Added?

If no statuses are saved for the app, and a form is submitted, the submission is automatically given the SUBMITTED status.

This means every new submission will always start with SUBMITTED, even if the user does not set a status. This is by default.

Later, if added, the status can be changed either manually by a user or automatically using workflows, depending on how your app is set up.

Set Default Status

Normally when a submission is made, it will have the default status “SUBMITTED” which can be changed manually through Submissions tab or automatically through workflows.

Instead, you can set a default status for new submissions directly from the Status settings, without needing to use any workflow to update the status after a submission is created.

On the right panel you will see a Default Status dropdown at the bottom. This dropdown lists all the statuses you have created for the app (such as Submitted, Resolved, Priority 1, Priority 2, etc.).

The status selected here will automatically be applied to every new submission as soon as it is created. This removes the need to create a separate workflow only to set the initial status of a submission.

For example:

• If SUBMITTED is selected as the default status, every new form submission will automatically appear with the status SUBMITTED.
  
• If you change the default to Priority 1, all new submissions will start directly with Priority 1 as their status.
  

This setting only affects new submissions created after the change. It does not alter the status of existing submissions.

Note: You will not be able to set a status as default if it has conditions applied to it.

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Set Conditions for Statuses

You can define conditions for statuses. This allows you to control when a particular status is available for a submission. If the submission does not meet the condition, that status will appear greyed out in the Submissions tab until the submission qualifies.

Why use status conditions

Status conditions are useful when certain statuses should only be applied once specific requirements are met.
For example:

• An “Approved” status should only be available if a reviewer has entered a score of 80 or above.
• A “Ready for Dispatch” status should only be selectable if the payment status is marked as Completed.

Without conditions, users may accidentally assign statuses too early, which can lead to errors in reporting and tracking. Conditions ensure that each submission only moves to the right status at the right time.

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Steps to set conditions on statuses

Open your app and go to Design App >Configurations > Status. On the right panel, create a new status or select an existing one to edit. Click on the edit icon.

In the status settings, add a condition formula. This formula can reference fields from your app, and you can use logical expressions such as =, >, <, AND, or OR. To reference fields, you can use their variables. Type @ to pull a list of the fields to select.

Save the status. Go to the Submissions tab and open any submission.

You will notice that:

• If the submission meets the condition, the status is available and can be applied.
• If the submission does not meet the condition, the status is shown as greyed out and cannot be selected.
• If the submission is later edited and updated to meet the condition, the status becomes available automatically.

Key points to remember

• Statuses with no condition will always be available for submissions.
• A condition only affects availability. It does not automatically assign a status, the user still needs to select it or through workflows.
• Conditions are evaluated in real time based on the current field values in a submission.
• Greyed-out statuses will immediately become available once the submission fulfills the condition.
• Deleting or editing a condition later on does not affect historical submission’s status.

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Status Condition Error Message

When you apply a status condition, you can also set a custom error message that appears if the condition is not met.

The Custom error message is the message that will be shown to the user when they hover over a greyed out status (condition is evaluated false) or try to change that status through swimlanes. This allows you to clearly explain why the status change is not allowed to the user.

For example:

• If a status like Approved has a condition such as:
  {type} = "Monthly"
• You can enter a custom error message like:
  “Only activities with type set to Monthly can be marked as Approved.”

If the condition is not satisfied and someone attempts to apply that status, this exact message will be displayed.

Swimlane view:

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Reordering Statuses for Better Visibility

If you have multiple statuses, you can rearrange them so that the most important ones appear first:

In Design App > Configuration > Status, hover over the dotted icon next to each status. Drag and drop them into the desired order.

This ordering is especially useful if you later choose to switch from the default data table view to swimlane view, where submissions are visually grouped under different statuses. Click here to learn more about Swimlanes.

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Using Status in App Logic, Display Conditions, and Workflows

Once you add statuses to your app, they are not limited to just being used for tracking submissions in the Submissions tab. Status values can also be used across your app and workflows for display control, field logic, and calculations.

Using Status in Display Conditions and Field Logic

You can use the submission status in:

• Section/Field display conditions
• Calculations & Logic blocks

For example:

• You may want to show an “Approver Details” section only when the status of a submission is Pending.
• In this case, you can apply a display condition to that section such as:
  {status} = "Pending"
• This ensures that while a new submission is being made, the Approver Details section will not be visible. Once the submission is made and status is changed to Pending, that section will be visible.

To pull status values, type @ followed by status and select it. This will come up only in areas where logic can be applied.

Similarly, the status can be used inside a Calculation & Logic block to apply different logic based on whether a submission is Approved, Rejected, or In Review.

This allows you to control what users see and how fields behave based on the current stage of the submission.

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Using Status in Workflows

Status values can also be used in workflow conditions.

For example: Let’s say if a submission has been approved, an email needs to be sent to the right team.

• Use an IF node to check the status condition.
  {status} = "Approved"
• If the condition is evaluated to be true, it sends the email, else it will not.

Use Status in Approval Workflow Node

Statuses also play an important role in the Approval Workflow Node. The Approval node works only when statuses are already set up in the app. The approval node is used to send notifications to reviewers who can change the status of a submission.

Click here to know more about how approvals work.