Defining Case Statuses Your Whole Team Agrees On

A status is a promise about a case. When a colleague sees "On hold", they should know, without opening it, that work is paused for a reason, who is waiting for what, and when it will be looked at again. Most teams do not have that. They have statuses that each person interprets differently, and a dashboard nobody trusts. The fix is not more statuses. It is fewer statuses with written definitions.

The test

Pick ten cases at random and ask two colleagues, separately, what status each should have. If they disagree on more than one or two, the definitions are the problem, not the people.

Keep the list short

A status describes the state of the whole case, not every step in it. Four or five usually cover it:

• In progress: someone on the team has work to do on this case now.
• On hold: nothing can happen until something outside the team happens, such as a client reply, a document or a hearing date.
• Completed: the work is done and the outcome recorded.
• Cancelled: the matter ended without being completed, and the reason is recorded.

If you need to know which stage of the process a case is at, such as intake, fieldwork or report drafted, that is a separate field, not more statuses. Mixing the two produces statuses like "Waiting for report", which is both a stage and a hold, and nobody knows which to pick.

Write entry and exit rules

For each status, write one or two lines answering:

1. When does a case enter this status? "On hold: when the next action belongs to someone outside the team."
2. What must be recorded when it does? "The reason and a review date."
3. When does it leave? "When the awaited thing arrives, or on the review date, whichever comes first."

"Completed" needs the strictest rule: what must be true before a case can be closed, such as outcome recorded, final documents filed, client informed and invoice raised. A closing checklist on the case is the easiest way to enforce it.

Make the status carry information

A status alone says little; the fields around it say the rest. "On hold" with a hold reason and a review date is a plan. "On hold" with nothing is a place cases go to be forgotten. Structured fields beat notes here for the same reasons we gave in the case for typed fields over free-text notes.

How it looks in Herarx

Herarx cases have four core statuses, In progress, Completed, On hold and Cancelled, which matches the list above. Stages go in a select field on the template, so each process can have its own. The Board view lets you drag cases between status columns, advanced filters can find every case that has been On hold past its review date, and a template automation can set a status or date when a condition is met. The timeline records every status change and who made it.

Review the definitions in the weekly meeting

The weekly case review is where status drift shows up: cases "In progress" that nobody has touched for a month, cases "On hold" with no reason. Fix the case, and if the same confusion keeps recurring, fix the definition. We described a format for that meeting in how to run a weekly case review in 30 minutes. Put the definitions somewhere everyone can see them, and give them to every new starter on day one.