Every project in RiffleCM moves through a clear lifecycle, from the moment an invitation arrives in your inbox to the day the final balance is paid. That lifecycle is organized into three phases, and each phase contains a set of statuses that tell you exactly where a project stands.
This article explains every phase and every status, what each one means, and how a project moves from one to the next. Use it as a reference whenever you want to understand what a status is telling you or what your options are at any point.
How phases and statuses work together
Think of a phase as the chapter of the story and a status as the page within that chapter.
Phase: The broad stage a project is in. There are three phases: Invite, Opportunity, and Work in Progress. A project always moves forward through these phases and never backward.
Status: The specific step within a phase. A project has exactly one status at a time, and you update it as the situation changes.
A few helpful things to know before we go through each one:
Some statuses are optional: When a status is optional, you can simply skip past it. Your company may have turned these statuses off so you will not see them.
Some status changes are automatic: In some cases, the system will automatically update the status for you. As an example, when you open a New project invite for the first time, Riffle will change the status to Undecided.
Some statuses are end statuses: These mark the natural finish line for a project in that phase. A project can still be updated after reaching an end status, but no further steps normally follow.
You can manually change a project status at any time: The easiest way is to select the correct status in the Project Information section of the Overview page. For projects in the Opportunity or Project WIP phases, you can also drag a project to its correct status on the Board view. Read the related articles to learn about even more ways to update a project status.
Updating status in the Overview Page
Updating status by dragging in Board View
Phase 1: Invite
The Invite phase is where every project begins. A project lands here when a new invitation to bid arrives, either pulled in automatically from your connected email or manually added by you. This phase is about deciding whether the opportunity is worth pursuing.
New: A fresh invitation that came in from your email and has not been viewed yet. This is the starting point for projects RiffleCM creates for you automatically.
Undecided: A project you have looked at but have not made a decision on yet. Projects you manually add also start here. A New project automatically becomes Undecided once you open it to view the details.
Declined: You reviewed the invitation and chose not to pursue it. No bid was submitted. This is an end status for the Invite phase.
Duplicate: The invitation was a repeat of another project you are already tracking. Marking it Duplicate keeps your list clean. This is an end status for the Invite phase.
When you decide an invitation is worth pursuing, you press Accept to move the project forward into the Opportunity phase.
Phase 2: Opportunity
The Opportunity phase is where active bidding happens. The project has been accepted, and now your team works through building the estimate, sending it to the company, and tracking the outcome.
Accepted: The opportunity has been accepted and is ready to work on, but the estimate has not been started yet.
Draft: You have started to build your estimate or you have updated the Estimate Grand Total.
Internal Review: The estimate is being reviewed by a teammate before it goes out. This status is optional, so your company can turn it off if your team does not use an internal review step.
Submitted: The estimate has been sent to the bidding companies.
Negotiating: The bidding company has responded with change requests before deciding. This status is optional and can be turned off if your team does not track a negotiation step.
Won: The bid was successful and the project was awarded to you. This is an end status for the Opportunity phase.
Lost: The bid was not successful and the project was awarded to someone else. This is an end status for the Opportunity phase.
You can update the status as the situation changes. For example, if a deal is won or lost early, you can mark it Won or Lost directly without stepping through every status in between.
When a project is Won, you will be prompted to press Begin project planning to move it forward into the Work in Progress phase. If you are not ready yet, you can leave the project in the Won status of the Opportunity phase and press Begin project planning at a later date.
Only a Won project can move into Work in Progress.
Phase 3: Work in Progress
The Work in Progress phase covers everything after you have won the bid: planning the project, doing the work, and getting paid.
Prep/Setup: Project planning and final approvals are in progress. This is the entry point for the Work in Progress phase, reached right after a project is Won.
In-progress: The actual project work has started.
Paused: Project work has been temporarily put on hold. This status is optional, so you can use it when work stops for a while and skip it when it does not apply.
Work Completed: The project work is finished and you are now waiting on the final balance. If you press Mark work completed, Riffle will automatically update the project to this status.
Balance Paid: The project is complete and fully paid. This is the end status that closes out a project successfully.
Balance Overdue: The project is complete but the final balance has not been paid on time. This status is optional and flags projects that need follow-up on payment.
How a project moves through phases
Projects always move forward through the phases in the same order, and they never move backward to an earlier phase.
From Invite to Opportunity: Press Accept on a New or Undecided project to accept the invitation. The project enters the Opportunity phase as Accepted.
From Opportunity to Work in Progress: Once a project is Won, press Begin project planning. The project enters the Work in Progress phase as Prep/Setup. This move is only available from a Won project.
Within a single phase, you have flexibility to update a project to whatever status matches reality, including jumping ahead when steps do not apply to a particular project.
A note on archiving
Archiving is separate from status. When you archive a project, you hide it from your active views to keep your workspace tidy, but the project and its full history stay intact. Archiving does not change a project's phase or status, and you can archive or unarchive a project at any point in its lifecycle. Your reporting and win rate figures still include archived projects, so archiving never erases a project from your numbers.
Quick reference
Invite phase: New, Undecided, Declined (end), Duplicate (end)
Opportunity phase: Accepted, Draft, Internal Review (optional), Submitted, Negotiating (optional), Won (end), Lost (end)
Work in Progress phase: Prep/Setup, In-progress, Paused (optional), Work Completed, Balance Paid (end), Balance Overdue (optional)