Stage Management: Multiple Stage Models

Setting up multiple stage models can be done from the WorkPoint Administration, which can be accessed in the following way.

1. On the WorkPoint solution, click the "Home" button in the top left of the page to open the left side menu.

2. In the bottom of the left side menu, click the cog to access the WorkPoint Administration.

3. Click the header of the business module for which you wish to configure stage settings.
4. In the drop down menu, click "Stage Settings".

This opens the stage settings page:

The following section describes how to set up multiple stage models for the "Projects" business module on a Project Management solution.

The section presupposes that Staging has been enabled for the module in the Stage Settings page, and has the following settings configured:

5. The default stage change wizard is set to the "Change stage and edit entity"-wizard.
6. The stage rendering mode is set to "Full". For more information about this setting, please visit this article.
7. The "Mapping Field" is set to a field on the business module list called "Project Type". In this example that field is a managed metadata field which refers to the following term set on the tenant of the solution:

8. "Allow Stage Model Transition" is set to "Yes". Setting this to "No" will disallow switching stage models for an entity when changing stage. Setting this to "Yes" allows this process to be carried out. A case where this could be useful is if a small project evolves into a large project, and therefore requires a different stage model. Instead of creating a new project, you could simply switch and use a stage model appropriate for large projects.

Further, in this section, the following stages have been set up beforehand:

We have also set up a stage model for the "Implementation" project type:

Next, we will set up a stage model for the "Maintenance" project type:

9. In the "Stage Models" section of the page, click "Add Stage Model".

10. We grant the new stage model the name "Maintenance Stage Model". When naming your stage models, it is a good idea to name them in a way which makes the intended usage of the stage model clear.
11. We keep the "Is Default" checker off, as we already have a default stage model.
12. For the Mapping Field Value, we click the term set icon to select a term to use as project type.

13. In the "Select: Project Type" window, double-click the term you wish to use. In this case, we double-click "Maintenance" as this stage model is going to relate to this project type.
14. Click the "OK" button to confirm the selection.

15. When all setting are set, click the "Save" button to save the stage model.

We can now start adding stages, transitions, and constraints to the stage model:

16. In the "Edit Stage Model" page, we can add stages defined in the "Stage Settings" page to the stage model. To do this, click "Set Existing Stages".

17. In the "Existing Stages" window, we can check the existing stages to set which ones we want to be usable in the stage model we are configuring. In this case, we select the four shown stages. This means that for this stage model (the Maintenance stage model), only these four stages will be usable.
18. To save the stage selection, click the "Save" button. The stages are now saved and shows up in the "Edit Stage Model" page:

We can now set up transitions between the stages in the stage model. In this example, we will create a simple progression from the Analysis stage through Active, Closed, and eventually ending in the Archived stage:

19. In the "Transitions" section of the Edit Stage Model page, click "Add transition".

20. For the first transition, we will select the "Analysis" stage as "From stage".
21. As "To stage", we will select the "Active" stage.
22. To save the transition, click the "Save" button.

We will repeat this process, adding the other transitions until we have the following transitions:

We can now also set up a constraint. In this example, we will add a constraint which throws a warning to the user if they attempts to transition into the Active stage if there is no document in the Project's Documents library called "Analysis":

23. In the "Edit Stage Model" page, in the "Constraints" section, click "Add constraint" if you want to add a constraint. For detailed information on how to create constraints, please visit this article.

The model is now shown in the Stage Settings page:

35. Click the "Edit" button to edit the stage model.
36. Click the "Delete" button to delete the stage model. Note that you cannot delete the default stage model unless another stage model exists. You would need to create a new stage model, set that one to default, and then delete the previous default model. In the case from the image above, if the "Implementation Stage Model" is deleted, the "Maintenance Stage Model" would become the new default stage model, and the "Implementation Stage Model" would be deleted.