Custom step statuses let you track where someone really is on a sequence step, using your own words. A background check step that would otherwise sit on Pending for two weeks can read Initiated, then Awaiting references, then Cleared. You create the statuses, you decide which steps they apply to, and Vome keeps a history of every change.

Plan required: Custom step statuses are available on the Pro, Enterprise and Ultimate plans. On the Free plan you still get Vome's built-in step statuses on every step.

1. What is a custom step status?

It is a label your organization creates, and that an administrator applies to one person's record of one step. It sits on top of the statuses Vome already provides, which vary by step type:

• Pending, before the person has done anything.
• Uploaded, Submitted, Watched or Signed, depending on what the step asks for.
• Complete, once the step is finished.
• Expired, worked out from the step's expiry date.
• Exempt, when the person was excused from the step.

Those cover what Vome can observe. A custom status covers what only your team knows. Common examples:

• A background check that has been sent off but has not come back.
• A document that was uploaded but is the wrong version.
• An interview that has been booked but not yet held.
• A file waiting on a second person to review it.

2. Who can see a custom status?

Administrators. Only an administrator can set one, and by default only administrators see it: the person the record is about continues to see the standard status on their own view of the sequence.

Each status carries a Show this status to the user switch, off by default, which marks that status as safe to share rather than internal. Leave it off for anything you would not want the person reading, such as Chase again or Waiting on a reference.

Default: a new custom status is internal. This is deliberate, so you can write plainly for your own team without worrying about who else reads it.

3. How do I create a status?

There are two routes, and they create the same thing.

From the step entry. Open the step entry wherever you set it up: in the sequence builder, or in an opportunity's requirements when you attach a required document, a form to sign or another step to it. In the Custom statuses section, click Create a status and fill in:

• Status name. For example, Background check initiated.
• Colour. Vome suggests one you are not already using, and you can pick any other.
• Where this status can be used. See the next question.

New statuses are created when you save the entry, so nothing is written until you save. This works while you are building a brand new entry as well as when you edit an existing one.

From the person's step. Open someone's step, open the status dropdown, type a name in the box at the bottom and press Enter. The status is created and applied in one motion, scoped to that entry. This is the quick route for the moment you realise you need a label.

4. Where can a status be used?

You decide, when you create it:

• Only this entry. The status appears on this one step entry.
• Every entry of this step type. For example, every File Upload step in your organization.
• Every entry of the step types I choose. The same idea, narrowed to the step types you tick.
• Every step entry. Anywhere a step status can be set.

To reuse a status you already have on one more entry, open that entry and use Also use on this entry. A status that reaches an entry from an organization-wide setting cannot be removed from that one entry, because it is not defined there. Change it where it was defined.

5. How do I set a status on someone's step?

Open the person's sequence, open the step, and pick from the status dropdown at the top of the panel. That dropdown is the only status control on the step, so what you see in it is the whole picture.

• Picking Complete completes the step.
• Picking another built-in status, such as Pending, reopens a step you had completed.
• Picking a custom status changes the label and leaves completion alone. A custom status describes where things stand, it does not move the person on.

6. Where does a custom status show up?

Everywhere an administrator looks at that step, drawn in the colour you gave it:

• On the person's card in the sequence board, as a marker beside the step number.
• In the list view, and in the step matrix.
• In the list of steps on a person's sequence.
• On the step itself, in the status dropdown.

Your own statuses also join the Step status filter down the left of the sequence, beside the built-in ones and with the same counts. The filter matches what the board shows: picking Pending returns the people actually sitting at Pending, not the ones who now carry a status of your own.

7. Can I rename, hide or reorder statuses?

Yes, all three. Open the status dropdown and choose Manage all statuses, or open the same Step statuses screen from the sequence page.

• Reorder. Drag any status, built-in or your own, into the order you want. That order is what every status dropdown uses. Complete sits last by default, because a status list reads as a progression.
• Rename. Any status, including the built-in ones. If your team says Lapsed rather than Expired, say Lapsed.
• Hide. Built-in statuses you never use, such as Watched at an organization with no video steps, can be taken out of the dropdown.

Where you open this screen from matters. Opened from a step, it shows only the statuses that step can actually use, and hiding or renaming a built-in there applies to that step type rather than everywhere. Opened from the sequence page, it shows your whole organization.

Two statuses cannot be hidden: Complete, because it is how a step gets finished, and Expired, because it is worked out from the expiry date and hiding it would conceal a real state. You can rename either one.

8. What happens to a status I no longer use?

Archive it. An archived status stops being offered in dropdowns, and every record that already carries it keeps showing it, so nothing you recorded about a real person is rewritten. You can restore an archived status at any time from the same screen.

9. Can Vome tell the person when I set a status?

Yes, and it is set per status. Turn on Notify the user when this status is set and write the message they will receive. They get it each time that status is applied to their step, and the wording is yours.

That message is the whole of what the person receives, so write it so it stands on its own rather than assuming they can see the status name.

10. Can a status be set automatically?

Yes, through step automations. Two pieces were added:

• A trigger, When a custom status is set on this step. Choose one status or any custom status, then choose what should follow, such as sending a message or assigning a profile tag.
• An action, Set this step's custom status. Any step automation can now apply a status. It only affects people who have already started the step, and only if that status is available on the entry.

11. Where do I see what happened on someone's step?

At the bottom of the step panel there is a History section. Open it and you see that person's record of that step: who set or changed the status and what they changed it from and to, when a file was uploaded or a form submitted, and when the step was completed, each with a date and time.

The first time a status is set counts too, so there is always a line naming who chose it. If there is nothing to show, the section does not appear at all.

12. Can I stop some administrators from changing statuses?

Yes. In the admin role editor, under Sequences, there is a Custom step statuses group with two switches:

• Set a custom status on someone's step. Turn it off and that role can see statuses but not change them.
• Create, rename and archive the status list. Turn it off and that role can use your statuses but not redefine them.

Both are on for every role that already exists, so nothing changes for your team until you deliberately turn one off.

Summary

• Custom step statuses are your own labels, on top of Vome's built-in step statuses.
• Create them from the Custom statuses section of a step entry, or by typing a name straight into the status dropdown on someone's step.
• Scope each status to one entry, to a step type, or to every step entry.
• A status is internal until you turn on Show this status to the user.
• Statuses show in their own colour on the board, the list, the matrix and the step, and you can filter the sequence by them.
• Rename, hide and reorder statuses, including the built-in ones. Complete and Expired can be renamed but never hidden.
• Archiving retires a status without touching the records that carry it.
• A status can notify the person, trigger an automation, or be set by one.
• The History section on each step shows who changed what, and when.