Maintaining status management flows

Status Management  •  Article  •  5/21/2025  • 

Often, workflows that exist around introducing master data or managing purchase- or sales transactions may change over time. In general, Status Management Flows are created initially, but altered frequently afterward to cater for specific business needs:

Target groups for specific flows may change:

  • Additional steps or statuses may be introduced within a specific Status Management Flow.
  • Mandatory fields for a specific status may change.
  • Status Management Flows may be phased out or replaced by others.

In all these cases, you want the old Status Management Flow to be replaced by the new SMF with as little disturbance of business as possible. This means that whenever a new record is created, the new Status Management Flows are picked up, and the existing records are reassigned to the new Status Management Flows.

Suppose that in the initial setup, one simple status management Flow existed for all customers. A Filter Group CUST-ALL was set up and linked to the Status Management Flow. All customers would pass the same set of statuses:

As time progressed, it was decided that for domestic customers and foreign customers a different set of Statuses and accompanying mandatory fields should be implemented:

  • For new domestic customers, an additional step Request Insurance needs to be in place.
  • For new foreign customers, an additional step Request Export Documentation needs to be in place.

Step 1: Define new filter groups

Besides the existing filter group CUST-ALL, two additional Filter Groups are needed representing domestic and foreign customers:

  • CUST-DOM for domestic customers, with filters Country code = US
  • CUST FOR for foreign customers, with filters Country code <> US

Step 2: Setup new status management flows using copy lines function

Two new Status Management Flows are created using Filter Groups CUST-DOM and CUST-FOR.

The status management flow with Filter Group CUST-DOM is given priority 1 and status management flow with Filter Group CUST-FOR is given priority 2. The priority of the already existing CUST-ALL status management flow is set to 3. In case a customer record has fields that match multiple filter groups, the status management flow with the filter group that has the highest priority is assigned to the record.

After creating the status management flow header, the Copy Lines function is used to quickly create Status Management Status Codes for the new Status Management Flows based on the existing CUST-ALL flow.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the action bar, select Actions > Copy Lines.
  2. In the From Filter Group filter, select the required option from the AssistEdit button .

    The From Filter Group field specifies from which status management flow (table-filter group combination) the lines should be copied.
    The To Filter Group field specifies to which status management flow (table-filter group combination) the lines should be copied.
  3. Select OK

The Status Codes, including Mandatory and Locked Fields, Permission ID, and Mandatory steps are copied.

For the newly created Status Management Flow CUST-DOM an additional Status Management Status Request Insurance is added with its own Permission Role ID, and Notify by email.

For the newly created Status Management Flow CUST-FOR an additional Status Management Status Request Export docs is added with its own Permission Role ID, and Notify by email.

After the changes are complete, the Flow Status of both Status Management flows is set to Certified. This indicates that they can be used for new customers. Now, whenever a customer is created with Country set to US, the system will automatically apply the CUST-DOM Status Management Flow.

Step 3: Apply the new status management flows to existing records using reassign flows function

Besides implementing the Status Management Flow for new customers, it is also a good practice to apply the new Flows to existing records. In our example, all customer cards are currently still equipped with Status Management Flow CUST-ALL. For customers still in their approval process, it is necessary to reassign the Status Management Flow to either CUST-DOM or CUST-FOR.

As we will no longer be using the status management flow CUST-ALL, it’s Flow Status is set to Closed.

Next, the function Reassign Flows are executed from the overview of Status Management Flows and the record type Customer is chosen.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the action bar, select Actions > Reassign Flows.
  2. Select OK.

Each individual customer record is now evaluated based on the new filter groups or flows that have a Flow Status set to Certified.

For records that previously had a filter group different from the new filter group, the initial status New Customer is applied. For records that keep their Status Management Flow, the Status code is kept if it still exists.


In many cases, the initial status New Customer will cause the Customer Card to be blocked in transactions. To prevent disturbance of business, the function should not be executed during working hours and all steps in this user guide should always be implemented.

Step 4: Update existing records with the correct (possibly new) status using batch update function

In this case, all customer records were changed from Status Management Flow CUST-ALL to either CUST-DOM or CUST-FOR with status New Customer.

Multiple records belonging to the same filter group can be updated simultaneously using the Batch Update function. When executing the function from Status Management Flow CUST-DOM a request page opens with the following options:

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the action bar, click Actions > Batch Update Status.

    When the Set Auto Status toggle is turned on, all records that are linked to the status management flow are re-evaluated and are each assigned the status that is applicable according to the setup on the page Auto-Set Status Setup.

    Because no Auto set status has been set up, the function is run with the toggle off. We select Status Management code 'Being Edited' as we want this code to be assigned to all customers with Status Management Flow CUST-DOM.

    The Status Management Code specifies what should be the new status management status for all records that are linked to the status management flow.

  2. In the Status Management Status Code field, select the related option from the drop-down menu.

  3. SelectOK.

  4. The Status Management Description specifies the description of the selected status management status.

  5. The Filter Group Code specifies the filter group that is linked to the status management flow.
  6. The Filter specifies which field filters should be applied when executing this function. Setting filters enables to update only the specific records that meet these criteria.

The toggle Create Status Management Alerts specifies if status management alerts should be created for each record of which the status will be changed after executing this action. When the functionality is set up to alert users when a record has changed to a specific status, this might result in a large number of alerts for users.

An additional filter is placed on Status Management Status Code = empty to ensure that only customers that are currently assigned this status are changed to new status RELEASED. In this case, you could prevent customers that were set to BLOCKED, for instance, to be wrongly changed to RELEASED in Batch.

  1. Select OK.
    A dialog box opens displaying the following message: Status management statuses successfully updated.
  2. Select OK.


When the Batch Update Status function is executed, there are no checks on mandatory steps that may lay between the old and the new Status Management Status. If this is required, the Change Status Mgmt Status function from the Customer Card page should be executed per record.

The function Batch Update Status is repeated for Status management Flow CUST-FOR, thereby updating all customer records with a new status.

Update multiple existing records with status using change management status function

From the list pages that exist for the supported tables Customer, Item, Production BOM, Production BOM versions, Purchase Orders, Production Orders and Sales Orders it is possible to execute the function Change Mgmt Status action for multiple records simultaneously. This can be helpful when a large set of records must be updated.

When using this function, some rules apply:

  • The selected records must all belong to the same Status Management Flow (have the same Filter Group).
  • When changing from one Status Management Status to another, the mandatory Statuses in between may not be skipped. If the mandatory steps are skipped for one of the records within the selected set, the routine will stop updating at this specific record.
  • All mandatory fields in between the old Status Management Status and the new must be filled. If mandatory fields are still empty for one of the records within the selected set, the routine will stop updating at this specific record.
  • All the mandatory field values that are configured on theStatus Management Flow page cannot be modified when changing from one status to another.

  • Restrictions on Permission set ID are similar to that when the function is executed from the card page. Only users that have the Permission Set ID assigned in their user profile are allowed to change to the Status Management Status.

  • On the Customer Card page, on the action bar, select Actions > Functions > Change Status Mgmt Status.

  • Select the required option.
  • Select OK.
    > [!NOTE]
    > Upon executing this action, the system does not allow to change the status from Simulated to Planned as per the standard flow on the Simulated Production Order page. You must follow the standard flow order.