Stages & progress gates
Every product moves through a fixed pipeline. Each stage has a checklist (a "gate") that must be complete before the product can advance. The dashboard rolls this up across your whole setlist.
Where: the setlist dashboard (home), each product's detail page, and the Products list
The pipeline
Products move left to right through four editable stages. Launched then appears as a read-only, derived lifecycle stage, while Archived stays off to the side:
Plan → Design → Review → Ready for launch → Launched · Archived
| Stage | Color | What happens here |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | grey | Capture the idea: working name, category, owner, schedule. |
| Design | blue | Design work — variants, bill of materials, costs, SKUs — then a "design approved" sign-off. |
| Review | amber | Finalize the official (Shopify-ready) name, pricing, and forecast; confirm all materials exist in Fulfil. |
| Ready for launch | green | Stage the product in Shopify, complete the listing, and publish selected sales channels from setlist or directly in Shopify. |
| Launched | green | Derived from Shopify: Active qualifies; imported or merchant-reconciled Unlisted products qualify immediately; setlist-owned Unlisted products qualify at Ready for launch; Draft qualifies once the active Shopify sales snapshot has at least one unit sold. It is not editable. |
| Archived | grey | No longer active. Terminal, off to the side; this explicit decision takes precedence over Shopify launch evidence. |
"Ready for launch" is the final editable stage. Launched is never a dropdown choice or stored workflow value: it occupies the same Stage position throughout the UI only while Shopify status or sales evidence proves launch. The underlying workflow stage is preserved.
Variants, bill of materials, costs and SKUs, then a design sign-off.
Progress gates: how advancing works
Each stage has a gate — a checklist on the product's detail page (the "Progress gate" panel). Items are one of two kinds:
- Auto — setlist ticks it from your data (e.g. "Official name set").
- Manual — you confirm it with a click (e.g. "Listing photos complete (in Shopify)") because setlist can't see it.
When every item in the current stage's gate is done, the Advance to {next stage} button activates. Until then it's disabled ("Complete the checklist first"). The server re-checks the gate when you click, so the button can't be bypassed. At Ready for launch there is no next editable stage, so the panel shows an End of pipeline badge instead of a button — the checklist still tracks what's left.
A product whose lifecycle derives to Launched has no gate at all: the panel reads Launch recognized from Shopify, names the evidence (the Shopify status, or the sold unit behind a Draft), and notes that the stored workflow stage is preserved with no stage action.
What each gate requires
| Stage | Gate item | Auto / Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Temp name set | Auto |
| Category set | Auto | |
| Owner assigned | Auto | |
| Launch date / product line set (both a launch date and a product line) | Auto | |
| Design | Variants defined | Auto |
| BOM ready enough for costing (every variant has ≥1 material) | Auto | |
| Design approved | Manual (the "Mark design approved" stamp) | |
| Review | Final COGS / pricing reviewed (every variant has a price and a cost) | Auto |
| Official (Shopify-ready) name set | Auto | |
| Inventory / forecast reviewed (forecast total > 0) | Auto | |
| All materials in Fulfil (no "new/pending" materials left) | Auto | |
| Ready for launch | Shopify draft created (the product exists in Shopify in any state) | Auto |
| Listing photos complete (in Shopify) | Manual | |
| Description complete (synced from Shopify) | Auto |
For a freshly Shopify-imported or merchant-reconciled product that already derives to Launched, the Design approval item is replaced by a system-satisfied Design recognized from launched Shopify product row (the Design card itself reads Design recognized). setlist does not create a fake manual approval or approver history, and the other Design requirements remain independent. Draft products without sales do not meet the launch conditions, so they keep the normal editable pipeline and manual approval behavior.
The "All materials in Fulfil" gate blocks Review → Ready for launch if any material in a product's bill of materials was added in setlist but isn't in Fulfil yet. Add it to Fulfil and sync, or mark it reconciled. See Materials.
Advance vs. jump
- The Advance button (gated) is the normal way forward — one stage at a time.
- On the detail page you can also jump directly to any editable stage via the Stage dropdown. This bypasses the gate — use it to correct a mis-staged product, not as the everyday path. Launched is never offered in this dropdown. On a product that derives to Launched there is no dropdown at all: the Stage row shows the Launched badge and an Archive button.
- Archived is never advanced into automatically and never advances out. Set it via the Stage dropdown, or use the explicit Archive action beside a derived Launched badge.
The separate Shopify status badge is read-only in setlist. Push/publish results, verified product webhooks, and catalog refreshes update it; a merchant cannot set Active or Unlisted locally to manufacture Launched evidence. A setlist-origin product pushed to Shopify as Unlisted before Ready for launch keeps its stored workflow stage visible so Design and Review can still be completed.
Confirming a Shopify catalog match or merge makes Shopify authoritative for the linked catalog identity, title, options, SKUs, status, and live prices. setlist continues to own internal workflow and planning fields. Merely pushing a setlist-created product to Shopify does not transfer that catalog authority.
The dashboard (setlist home)
The home page rolls everything up.
Setup guide (new shops)
Above the metrics, Get your first product launch-ready walks one product through the pipeline — create the card, design it, review name/price/forecast, push to Shopify. Steps tick themselves off from real product progress, and each Continue deep-links to the furthest-along product. Dismiss it with the × and it stays hidden.
Overview — four stat tiles
| Tile | What it counts |
|---|---|
| In pipeline | Total product cards ("Products being prepared") |
| Open blockers | The total number of blockers across all products ("Tests and prices to resolve"). Shows "Action needed" or "All clear." |
| In review | Products currently at the Review stage |
| Avg readiness | The average readiness across all products |
Open blockers counts blockers, not products — one product with 3 blockers adds 3. Blocker reasons: Needs price, No supplies, No channels, and (if tests are required) No tests or N open tests.
Pipeline
The same tree-table presentation as the Products list, but grouped Stage → Category — one lane per lifecycle stage in pipeline order (Plan → Design → Review → Ready for launch → Launched → Archived), with empty lanes kept visible so the pipeline keeps its shape. The Product column stays pinned while the rest scroll:
Product · Product line · Ready · Launch · Due · COGS · Price / margin
Launch condenses the assigned launch and the product's launch date into one cell ("Spring Drop · Nov 1, 2026" — either half can stand alone). Price / margin combines both in one cell.
Stage rows are the headline: unlike the Products tree they carry rollups even while expanded — average Ready and Margin plus the lane's COGS/price spans — so a lane answers "how ready and how priced is this stage" at a glance. Stages default open and Categories closed; click a Category row for its products.
There is no per-row Advance shortcut here — advancing happens on the product's detail page, through the gate.
Needs attention
Lists every product that has at least one blocker or is past its due date. Each row shows the product's stage and a red badge per blocker (and an Overdue badge if applicable). When all clear: "Nothing blocking — every product is ready to advance."
The two "readiness" numbers (don't be confused)
setlist shows readiness in two different ways:
- Fixed readiness — the Ready column (on the home Pipeline and the products cards layout) and the dashboard Avg readiness. A stage-agnostic 6-point checklist: named · SKU · final price · supplies · channels · tests.
- Stage-gate readiness — the product's Progress gate panel. Completion of the current stage's gate only.
They measure different things, so the same product can show different percentages. Fixed readiness answers "how complete is this product overall?"; stage-gate readiness answers "how close is it to advancing?"
See also
- Products · The Product Workspace
- Materials — the "All materials in Fulfil" gate
- Tests — required tests affect fixed readiness and dashboard blockers, not stage gates