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 forward stages, plus Archived off to the side:
Plan → Design → Review → Ready for launch · Archived
| Stage | Color | What happens here |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | grey | Capture the idea: working name, type, 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 (unlisted draft) and sync to Fulfil. The merchant then lists it live in Shopify. |
| Archived | grey | No longer active. Terminal, off to the side. |
"Ready for launch" is the terminal forward stage — setlist only gets a product staged and ready. You list it live in Shopify yourself.
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.
What each gate requires
| Stage | Gate item | Auto / Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Temp name set | Auto |
| Product type set | Auto | |
| Owner assigned | Auto | |
| Launch date / product line set | 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 | Auto |
| Listing photos complete (in Shopify) | Manual | |
| Description complete (in Shopify) | Manual |
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 stage via the Stage dropdown. This bypasses the gate — use it to correct a mis-staged product, not as the everyday path.
- Archived is never advanced into automatically and never advances out. Set it via the Stage dropdown.
The dashboard (setlist home)
The home page rolls everything up.
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 board
One section per stage (Plan → Design → Review → Ready for launch → Archived), each with a count and its product cards. Each card shows the product, its SKU and launch date, a progress bar for the current stage's gate, and — when the gate is 100% complete — an Advance button.
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 Products list Ready column and the dashboard Avg readiness. A stage-agnostic 6-point checklist: named · SKU · final price · supplies · channels · tests.
- Stage-gate readiness — the pipeline board progress bar and 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 — open tests show up as blockers