States and types

States describe where a case stands. Types describe what kind of work it is. Both are yours to shape in Settings → Cases, so cases match the way your team already talks about its work. Only owners and admins can change them; everyone else can see how they're set up and use them on cases.

States

A state is a step a case moves through, such as In progress or Waiting on warehouse. States appear in the order you set, in the State menu on every case and in the Cases list.

The five default states

Every workspace starts with these:

You can rename, recolour, reorder or delete any of them, and add your own.

State groups

Each state belongs to one of four groups, shown as Means in settings. The group — not the name — tells OrbitBase what the state means:

• Open — still being worked on. Shows in the Open view.
• Waiting — paused on someone outside the team. Still counts as open work and shows in the Open view.
• Resolved — the customer's problem is solved. Counts towards resolved cases and sets the case's resolved date.
• Closed — finished and filed away. No longer in anyone's queue.

So a state called "Waiting on warehouse" in the Waiting group behaves exactly like "Waiting on customer". The dashboard's figures for open and resolved cases, and time to resolve, all follow the groups.

Add or edit a state

1. 1

   Open case settings

   Go to Settings → Cases and find States.

2. 2

   Add a state

   Click Add state, or choose Edit from an existing state's menu.

3. 3

   Name it and pick what it means

   Enter a Name the way your team talks about the work, choose what it Means (Open, Waiting, Resolved or Closed), and pick a Colour. The Preview shows how it will look.

4. 4

   Save

   Click Save state.

Renaming a state keeps every case in it. Their history keeps the name the state had at the time.

Reorder states and set the default

• Use the Move up and Move down buttons to change the order.
• Choose Make default on an open state to start new cases there. The default is marked Default in the table.

Delete a state

Choose Delete from a state's menu.

• If no cases are in the state, it's simply removed.
• If cases are in it, choose where they move under Move cases to before deleting. Each move is recorded in the case's history.

Rules

• Every workspace needs at least one Open state and one Closed state. You can't delete the last one of either.
• The default state must be in the Open group, and it can't be deleted. Make another open state the default first.
• Up to 20 states per workspace, with names of up to 40 characters. Each name can only be used once.

Case types

A case type groups cases by the kind of work they are — a refund request, a bug report, a warranty claim. Types are optional: no types are set up for you, and a case without a type carries just your base fields.

What a type adds

Each type can have fields of its own on top of the base fields every case carries. A Refund request could ask for the refund amount; a Bug report for the device and the steps to reproduce. On a case of that type, the type's fields appear in their own panel below the base fields.

A Create case action can be linked to a type, so every case it opens gets that type and the agent can fill in the type's fields from the conversation.

Add a case type

1. 1

   Open case settings

   Go to Settings → Cases and find Case types.

2. 2

   Add a type

   Click Add case type. Enter a Name, an optional Description to help teammates pick the right type, and a Colour.

3. 3

   Save it

   Click Save type.

4. 4

   Add its fields

   On the type's card, click Add field under Fields of this type and set up each field the way you would a base field.

Manage types

Each type is listed as a card showing its description, how many cases have it, and its own fields. From a type's menu you can Edit type, Move up, Move down or Delete type.

• Up to 20 types per workspace, with names of up to 40 characters and descriptions of up to 300.
• Each type can have up to 20 fields of its own. Two types can each have a field with the same name, such as Order number, but a type's field can't share a name with a base field.

Delete a type

When you delete a type:

• Cases of that type keep every base field but lose the type and its fields. The change is recorded in each case's history.
• Create case actions that opened this type start opening cases without a type.

Set a type on a case

Anyone on your team can set or change a case's type, from the Case type menu on the case page or in bulk from the Cases list. Changing the type swaps which type fields are shown; values on the old type's fields are kept and come back if the case is switched back. Filter the Cases list by Case type, including No type, to find cases nobody has classified yet.

Next steps