How to create custom order statuses for made-to-order products

Shopify does not know what “in design,” “waiting on photo,” or “proof sent” means for your shop. Those words are yours. If you do not define them, the team invents them in tags and chat.

A status list is not decoration. It is the board everyone stands around, including the customer if you show them a public name.

What to name

Use the language production already uses. If the shop says “on press,” do not call it Processing because a template said so.

Give customers a public name when the internal name would confuse them. “Waiting on customer” is clear. A joke internal name is not.

Keep the list short enough to scan. Ten statuses can be right. Thirty statuses usually means two workflows were mashed together.

Sequence matters

Customers understand progress as a path: we received it, we are working on it, it is next, it shipped. If your statuses are not in that order, a progress bar will lie.

Put waiting-on-customer steps where they actually happen. A “proof sent” step should sit before “in production” if you do not produce unapproved work.

Email is optional, not automatic wisdom

Some steps should notify the customer (proof sent, shipped, we need a photo). Some should not (you moved it from “print queue” to “quality check”). If every status sends mail, people ignore it.

Common mistakes

• Cloning someone else’s four-status list that does not match your shop
• Using the same word for an internal queue and a customer-facing promise
• Changing names every week so saved views and muscle memory break
• Wiring a customer action (proof, information request) to the wrong step

Using Orstrax Orderflow

Statuses are the steps of your workflow. You set the internal name, an optional customer-facing name, colors, and order. Lookup progress follows that sequence. The label the customer sees is the public name when you set one.

You can turn on customer email for a status when the order should tell them it moved. Edit that copy in Message Templates.

Status Actions attach to a status: Proof Review, Request Information, or Collect Info. A status without an action still records where the order is.

If you enable proof review, Orderflow can add statuses such as Proof Sent, Proof Approved, and Changes Requested and connect them to those actions.

Existing users: Creating and ordering statuses.