Person statuses
A status is where somebody has got to in your process on one portal: inducted, verified, cleared, on hold. It records the answer requests alone cannot give you, because "they sent the certificate" and "I have signed them off" are different facts.
Statuses versus requests
Requests track what the person did. A status tracks what you decided. Submitting or approving never moves anybody along by itself. A status changes only when you set it, or when an automation you built has a Set their status action.
It is also per portal, not per person. The same contractor can be Cleared on one portal and Inducted on another, which is what you want when each job has its own sign-off.
Building the list
Open Person statuses in the sidebar, under Contacts (open it). The row is always visible, whether or not you are inside the Contacts section.
The sidebar row and the page title use your own word for people, so if you have renamed them they read "Contractor statuses" or "Staff statuses" instead.
One list, shared by every portal. To add a status, give it:
- A status name, up to 100 characters. Keep it short, since it shows as a badge beside the person's name.
- A status update email body, up to 3,000 characters, optional. This is what the person reads when you move them to this status. The portal name is added for you, so write only the part specific to the status: "Your site induction is confirmed. Bring photo ID and hi-vis on the day."
Leave the body blank and the email still sends, carrying the status and the portal name. Put anything time-sensitive in the body yourself, because the email adds no date.
Drag the rows to reorder them. That order is the order of the picker, so arrange them in the sequence people actually move through.
Editing and archiving
Rename a status or rewrite its email at any time. Changes apply from then on. History keeps the wording as it was at the time, so a rename does not rewrite what somebody was told before.
Archive takes a status out of the picker without destroying anything. People already holding it keep it, and their picker shows it marked "(archived)" so you can move them off it. Archive a step you have retired rather than losing the record.
Setting somebody's status
On a portal, open the person's row and find the status panel. Pick a status from the Set dropdown, decide whether to email, and click the button.
Nothing happens until that click. Choosing from the dropdown does not save and does not email.
The button tells you what it is about to do: "Save and email the person" when Send new status update email is ticked, "Save, do not email the person" when it is not. The box starts ticked whenever an email can be sent. (The button uses your word for people too.)
The badge then appears beside their name on the portal, so the list reads at a glance. Setting somebody back to (no status) clears the badge and never sends an email.
The email
The email goes to the person with a copy to you, so both sides hold the same record. The subject is "Status update for" plus the portal name, and the body carries the new status and then your message.
If the portal has Include their private link turned on (in the portal's Options tab, under Status emails), the email also carries their portal link as an Open button. That makes a status change double as the invite: move somebody to Accepted and the email that tells them so is also the one that lets them in. New portals have it on.
The panel tells you which way it is set. Under Send new status update email it reads either "Includes their private link." or "Does not include their private link. Turn that on in Options." If somebody says they were accepted but never got in, check that setting first.
About the link itself:
- It reuses their existing link rather than issuing a second one, so anything you already sent keeps working. Somebody who never had a link gets one made.
- A revoked link stays revoked. The email goes out with no button. To give access back, issue a fresh link from resending and revoking a link.
A status email that carried the link counts as an invite, so the "Waiting N days" chip on the Requests screen and the invite reminders date from it. One without a link starts none of those.
The email cannot go when:
- Your account email is not verified. The checkbox is disabled and says "Verify your email to enable sending." See verifying your email address.
- The person has no email address on their contact record. The panel says so under the checkbox.
- You have used your email allowance. Each send counts toward your monthly email allowance, and there is a daily limit as well. A notice tells you the email was skipped.
In every case the status change itself still saves.
History
Under the panel are the last ten changes for that person on that portal: what they moved from, what they moved to, when, and where an email went (including the copy to you).
It is written whether or not you emailed, and changes made by an automation appear there too. The labels are fixed at the time of the change, so renaming or archiving a status later does not disturb it.
Seeing statuses across a portal
The People report shows a portal's list with each person's status and when it was set. Set Group by to Status and you get a group for each status plus "(No status set)", which is usually the list you want to work through. See reports.
Getting help
Email [email protected].