Understand event statuses
When to use this
Use this guide when you are deciding how to classify an event, cleaning up the pipeline, or teaching teammates what each stage means.
The five statuses
Every event has one of five statuses:
| Status | Use it when | What it signals to the team |
|---|---|---|
| Lead | The opportunity is still early. | The job is real enough to track, but scope and commitment are still moving. |
| Proposal | You are preparing or sharing pricing. | The event is in active proposal work or client review. |
| Booked | The client has accepted and the event is confirmed. | Operational planning should move forward with confidence. |
| Completed | The job has been delivered. | The event stays available for reporting and history. |
| Cancelled | The work is no longer moving ahead. | The record remains for history, but it should not drive active planning. |
How the pipeline board shows them
The Events board shows six columns, because booked events appear in two places depending on how close the event is:
- Lead and Proposal match the statuses above.
- Accepted holds booked events. Once a client signs, the event arrives here.
- Week-of also holds booked events, and fills automatically in the week of delivery. You do not drag events into it.
- Completed holds reconciled events.
- Cancelled is hidden by default so it does not crowd the board. Show it when you need to recover an old trail.
Drag an event card between columns to change its status, or set the status directly when editing the event.
Order cards inside a column
Cards in each column follow the order you drag them into. To sort a column differently, open the menu on its header (the three dots) and pick a sort:
- Custom order keeps your manual arrangement. This is the default.
- Event date puts the soonest event first. Events without a date go last.
- Client name sorts by client, A to Z.
- Value puts the largest agreed total or budget first.
Pick the same sort again to reverse its direction. The arrow next to the active sort shows which way the column is running.
Each column keeps its own sort, and sorting only changes what you see. Your manual arrangement is kept, and returning to Custom order (or reloading the page) restores it. While a column is sorted you can still drag cards into or out of it to change status, but reordering inside that column waits until you return to Custom order.
How to choose the right status
- Start with Lead if the event exists mainly to hold early details.
- Move to Proposal when pricing or customer-facing documents are in motion.
- Move to Booked only when the client has genuinely confirmed. Accepting a proposal does this for you.
- Close the loop with Completed after delivery.
- Use Cancelled instead of deleting the record when you need the history to remain visible.
What to watch closely
- Keep the event date accurate while the event is still active in the pipeline. The Week-of column relies on it.
- Update status when the commercial reality changes, not just when someone asks for a quick internal label.
- Review status before sending proposals or invoices so downstream work matches the true state of the job.
Status is a team communication tool, not just a field to fill in. If it is stale, proposals, planning, and reporting all become less reliable.