Customizing Your Company's Status Flow

Introduction

Sistrack ships with a standard status flow for shipments: Order received → Picked up → Out for delivery → Delivered, with automatic retry (if delivery fails, the order goes back to “Out for delivery”) and closing statuses for “Returned” and “Cancelled.” If your operation needs extra steps — an intermediate distribution center, an “In transit” step between cities, extra verification before delivery — you can add them and customize which stage an order moves to when the courier confirms the next action from the app.

💡 If your operation is different from day one (ecommerce with a distribution center, international shipments, locker deliveries, cold chain), first check the step templates by industry — there might already be a full list ready to apply with one click, instead of building yours step by step.

This guide explains how to configure each status’s “Default next stage.” If you’re looking for how to create, edit, order, or delete statuses in general, see the full Shipment Statuses guide.

When do I need to customize the flow?

The default configuration covers the traditional logistics flow: stages advance in the visual order they appear in the list. You don’t need to touch anything if your company follows that pattern.

Customize when any of these cases apply:

• Delivery retry: this already comes configured in the standard flow (from “Not delivered” back to “Out for delivery”), but if you added your own retry steps, you’ll need to configure it too.
• Skipping stages: you added an intermediate step (for example, “In transit” for shipments between cities) but some of your local deliveries don’t need to go through it.
• Extra verification: you added an intermediate stage (for example, “Quality check”) and want it to happen between “Picked up” and “Out for delivery.”
• Industry-specific flows: pharmaceutical, food, or high-security companies that require specific checkpoints before delivery.

How to configure the next stage

Accessing the settings

1. From the side menu, go to System → Shipment Statuses.
2. You’ll see the list of all your configured stages.
3. Click Edit on the stage you want to configure.

Finding the field

Inside the edit form, scroll down to the Special Configuration section. You’ll see three related fields:

• Canonical type — what the stage represents in the system’s universal language. To pick it, the system guides you with a couple of simple questions (“what happens to the shipment?”, “at what point in the journey?”) instead of asking you to pick directly from a long list of technical terms.
• Custom event on reaching this step — what gets logged when an order enters this stage.
• Default next stage — the field this guide explains.

The menu options

When the field is disabled

If the stage you’re editing is terminal (closed), the field appears disabled with this message:

Terminal stages (delivered, cancelled, returned, etc.) don’t have a next stage because they close out the order’s cycle.

This is expected: a delivered order doesn’t move to another stage.

Practical examples

Example 1: Delivery retry (the most common case)

Case: when an order ends up “Not delivered,” your team retries the next day. You don’t want it to automatically advance to “Returned.”

Configuration:

1. Edit the Not delivered stage.
2. Under “Default next stage” choose Out for delivery.
3. Save.

Result: when the courier opens an order marked “Not delivered,” the app will offer the action to put it back “Out for delivery” instead of returning it.

Example 2: Skipping an intermediate step for certain shipments

Case: your flow includes an “In transit” step (because you handle shipments between cities), but you also do quick same-city deliveries where the courier picks up and delivers in the same shift, without going through transit.

Configuration:

1. Edit the Picked up stage.
2. Under “Default next stage” choose Out for delivery (skipping “In transit”).
3. Save.

Result: the courier moves from “Picked up” straight to “Out for delivery” from the app. Keep in mind this changes the behavior for all orders that go through “Picked up” — if you need some to go through transit and others not, it’s better to manually move those specific orders from the panel instead of changing the general configuration.

Example 3: Quality check between pickup and delivery

Case: you added a new stage called “Quality check” because you handle delicate products.

Configuration:

1. Create the new “Quality check” stage in the appropriate position.
2. Edit the Picked up stage and choose “Quality check” under “Default next stage.”
3. Edit the Quality check stage and choose “Out for delivery” under its “Default next stage.”
4. Save both.

Result: the order goes through the check mandatorily before heading out for delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if I leave the field on “Automatic”?

The system uses your stages’ visual order as they appear in the “Shipment Statuses” list. An order in one stage will advance to the next one below it in the list, skipping terminal stages if there are any in between. For most companies this is enough.

Can I set up branches (multiple possible paths)?

The “Default next stage” field defines the main path (the one offered by the big button in the app). Alternative paths like “Couldn’t deliver,” “Report damage,” “Customer wasn’t there” remain available from the “More actions” secondary menu in the courier app — you don’t need to configure them.

Can I point to a terminal stage?

The menu doesn’t show terminal stages as a destination to avoid confusing configurations. If you explicitly need it (for example, a stage that automatically closes the order), contact support.

If I delete a stage, what happens to the ones that pointed to it?

The system automatically resets them to “Automatic (next stage in the list)” to prevent errors. You’ll see the change reflected when editing the affected stages.

Does this affect orders that are already in progress?

Yes. The change applies immediately to all orders in any status. If an order is in “Not delivered” and you change the next stage, the next time the courier opens that order they’ll see the updated button.

Can I create loops (a stage pointing back to an earlier one)?

Yes, that’s the basis of the retry case: “Not delivered” can point to “Out for delivery” to retry. It’s perfectly valid.

What happens if I misconfigure the flow?

You can always go back and edit and choose “Automatic (next stage in the list)” to return to the default behavior. Orders don’t break — only which button the courier sees changes.

Recommendations

• Start simple: leave most stages on “Automatic” and only configure the ones that actually diverge from the visual order.
• Document your changes: when you set up a non-standard flow, write down somewhere why you did it, so new team members understand it.
• Test with a real order: after changing the flow, open a test order in the courier app and confirm the button is the one you expect.
• Think about your courier: the “Default next stage” is the big button they see. Make it match the action they most frequently need to take.

Permissions

Only users with the Admin or Super-admin role can modify the Shipment Statuses configuration. Couriers don’t see this option and can’t alter the flow from the app.