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What do the commitment statuses mean?

Written by Zach Koerber

A commitment (the subcontract or purchase order you send to a vendor) moves through a fixed lifecycle, and its status tells you where it sits in that lifecycle, from the first draft to a fully signed, Executed contract. The same lifecycle shows up on three screens, and each screen labels the stages a little differently, so the exact word you see depends on where you are looking.

If you have noticed a commitment reads "Approved" on the commitment itself and "Ready to Send" on the project's commitment list, that is expected, because they are the same stage described on different screens.

Read the status on each screen

  1. Open the Dashboard and click Pipeline to see every commitment across all your projects, grouped into columns by stage. The column a commitment sits in is its stage:

    • Draft: someone is still building the commitment. The card names who, for example "Lori Marsh is drafting."

    • In Review: the commitment has been sent for internal approval and is waiting on an approver. The card reads "Waiting for [name] to review."

    • Ready to Send: the commitment is approved and waiting to be issued to the vendor. The card reads "[name] to issue."

    • Out for Signature: the commitment is with the vendor for signature. The card reads "Waiting for vendor to sign" or "Waiting for [vendor] to countersign."

    • Negotiations: the commitment is in active back-and-forth with the vendor. When nothing is being negotiated, this column reads "No active negotiations."

  1. Open a project and click its Commitments tab. Across the top sit six clickable tiles. They are filters, not lifecycle stages: click a tile to filter the list below it, and click the same tile again to clear it. The Dashboard's In Review stage is not split in two here, and work waiting on you personally counts under Awaiting my approval. The six tiles are:

  • Awaiting my approval: commitments waiting specifically on you to approve.

  • Out for signature: commitments sitting with the vendor for signature.

  • Non-compliant: commitments where required compliance documents are missing.

  • Pending change orders: commitments with change orders still open.

  • Overdue: commitments that are past due.

  • Drafts: commitments that are still being built.

  1. Read the status badge on any single commitment row to see that one commitment's current state. The badges you will see, with the colors the live product uses:

  • Draft (grey): still being built. A commitment created from an intake form also shows as Draft.

  • In Review (blue): out for internal approval.

  • Changes Requested (amber): an approver sent it back for edits, and the coordinator can reopen the form.

  • Ready to Send (amber): internal approval is done and the commitment is ready to issue to the vendor.

  • Out for Signature (amber): with the vendor, waiting for their signature.

  • Executed (green): all parties have signed. This is the final status, and the label is "Executed," not "Fully Executed."

  • Closed (grey): the commitment has been archived.

  1. Open any commitment and read the status badge beside the commitment name in the toolbar. This badge uses the commitment's own wording: Draft, In Review, Changes Requested, Approved, Sent, or Executed, plus Intake and Archived at the ends of the lifecycle. It is the same stage as the row badge, worded for the open commitment, so Approved here is Ready to Send on the list, and Sent here is Out for Signature on the list.

What happens next

Statuses update on their own as the commitment moves through its lifecycle, so you never set them by hand. When you or an approver acts, the stage advances and every screen catches up at once: the Pipeline card moves to the next column, the project tile counts shift, and the row badge changes. Because one lifecycle sits behind all three screens, a commitment counted under "Awaiting my approval" on its project page is the same one sitting in the Dashboard's "In Review" column.

If this doesn't work

If the status word on the Dashboard Pipeline does not match the word on a project's Commitments page → that is expected. The Pipeline groups commitments into stage columns (Draft, In Review, Ready to Send, Out for Signature, Negotiations), while the project's Commitments tab is a filterable list with six tiles across the top. None of those tiles is a stage split: commitments waiting on you personally count under Awaiting my approval, and unfinished ones under Drafts.

If you see a green Complete badge in a commitment's quick view → that badge reports the document package, not the commitment's status. It means every document in the package is approved and on file. Check the row badge or the Pipeline column for the commitment's actual lifecycle status.

If a badge is amber when you expected blue → that is correct. On live commitment rows, Draft is grey, In Review is blue, Changes Requested, Ready to Send and Out for Signature are amber, and Executed is green. Amber means someone still has to act.

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