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The Product Lifecycle feature lets you define the stages your products move through, from raw data to published, sellable items. Each product shows its current stage at a glance, so your team always knows what is done and what still needs work.
The lifecycle is set up per project. Go to Settings > Product Lifecycle to configure your stages.

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Why use lifecycle stages

WISEPIM product lifecycle stages and status automation

See status at a glance

Know instantly which products are drafts, in review, approved, or published. No guessing.

Follow one process

Every product follows the same repeatable steps, so nothing gets published before it is ready.

Set quality gates

Add requirements and checklists per stage. Products cannot advance until they pass.

Drive your workflows

Stages connect to Workflows, so guided processes can move products forward.

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Enable the lifecycle

1

Open the settings

Go to Settings > Product Lifecycle. Make sure a project is selected in the project switcher.
2

Turn it on

Flip the Enable Product Lifecycle switch at the top of the page.
3

Configure stages

The stage editor appears. Here you add, edit, reorder, and remove stages.
WISEPIM starts you off with two default stages:
StageColorPurpose
Not ReviewedRedProducts not yet reviewed
ReviewedGreenProducts reviewed and approved
Customize these or replace them with your own. Click Reset to Default anytime to restore the originals.

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Build your stages

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Add a stage

Click Add Stage, at the top of the stage list or the bottom of the pipeline. A new stage appears with default settings you can edit right away.

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Edit a stage

Each stage card lets you set:
  • Name: a clear label, like “Draft”, “Content Review”, or “Ready to Publish”.
  • Color: one of eight options (blue, green, yellow, purple, red, orange, cyan, pink) to tell stages apart.
  • Icon: one of 28 icons, grouped into five categories: Content & Creation (7), Review & Approval (6), Product Data (4), Publishing & Sales (7), and Maintenance (3).
  • Description: an optional note on what happens in this stage.
Pick colors that show progress at a glance. Red for early stages that need work, yellow for in-progress, green for done.

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Reorder stages

The order of your stages is the order of your pipeline. Hover over a stage card and use the up and down arrows to move it.

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Delete a stage

Hover over a stage card and click the trash icon. Any products in that stage will need to be moved to another one.
Deleting a stage cannot be undone once you save. Check that no important products are assigned to it first.

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Set quality gates

Quality gates stop a product from advancing until it is ready. You build them from automatic requirements and manual checklists.

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Add requirements

Requirements are conditions a product must meet to enter or stay in a stage. Find the requirements section inside each stage card.
1

Add a condition

Click Add Condition in the stage’s requirements area.
2

Pick a field

Choose which product attribute to check. The list covers every attribute in your project: built-in fields like description, price, and EAN, plus any custom attributes from Settings > Product Attributes.
3

Choose an operator

Pick how to evaluate the field:
OperatorMeaning
equalsExact match
not_equalsDoes not match
containsField includes the value
not_containsField does not include the value
starts_withField begins with the value
ends_withField ends with the value
greater_thanNumeric comparison
less_thanNumeric comparison
greater_than_or_equalNumeric comparison
less_than_or_equalNumeric comparison
in_listValue is one of a set
is_emptyField has no value
is_not_emptyField has a value
is_trueBoolean check
is_falseBoolean check
4

Set a value

Enter the value to compare against. Operators like “is empty” need no value.
5

Set the logic

With more than one condition, choose whether all must pass (AND) or any one is enough (OR).
For example:
  • Ready to Publish requires: description is not empty AND quality score is greater than 75 AND main image exists.
  • Content Review requires: description is not empty OR short description is not empty.

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Add a checklist

Some checks need a human eye, like confirming photo quality or supplier pricing. Each stage can hold a manual checklist for these.
1

Add an item

Click Add Item in the stage’s checklist section.
2

Describe the task

Write a clear, actionable item, like “Verify all images are at least 1000x1000px”.
3

Add more as needed

Repeat for every manual check that belongs in this stage.
Pair automatic requirements with manual checklists for a thorough gate. Requirements catch data issues; checklists catch what only a person can judge.

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Advance products automatically

When a stage has requirements or checklist items, you can turn on auto-advance. Products that meet every requirement then move to the next stage on their own, with no manual step. To enable it:
  1. Make sure the stage has at least one requirement or checklist item.
  2. Flip the Auto-advance when complete switch at the bottom of the stage card.
Auto-advance only appears once a stage has a quality gate. This stops products from skipping ahead in stages with no checks.

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Example setups

Not sure how to structure your pipeline? Start from one of these.
Best for small teams that just need a basic review step.
  1. Not Reviewed (Red): awaiting initial review.
  2. Reviewed (Green): checked and approved.
For teams preparing products for online stores.
  1. Draft (Blue): raw data, just imported or created.
  2. Content Enrichment (Yellow): descriptions and attributes being written or AI-enriched.
  3. SEO Review (Orange): meta titles, descriptions, and keywords being optimized.
  4. Quality Check (Purple): final review against your quality standards.
  5. Ready to Publish (Green): approved and ready to export to your webshop.
  6. Published (Cyan): live on your sales channels.
For teams launching products across several markets.
  1. Data Collection (Blue): gathering specs and images.
  2. Content Creation (Yellow): writing descriptions in the primary language.
  3. Translation (Purple): translating to all target languages.
  4. Legal Review (Orange): compliance and regulatory checks.
  5. Approved (Green): ready for all markets.
  6. Archived (Red): discontinued or seasonal products.

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Save your changes

WISEPIM tracks every change you make: adding stages, editing names, reordering, deleting, and toggling the feature. A save bar appears at the bottom of the page whenever you have unsaved changes.
  • Click Save to store your whole configuration at once.
  • Click Undo to revert all changes since your last save, restoring the server’s exact state.
  • A loading indicator shows while the save runs.
Undo reverts everything at once. There is no partial undo. To keep some changes and drop others, save first, then make more edits.
Lifecycle changes affect every product in the project. Check with your team before reshaping the pipeline.

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Use stages on products

Once your stages are set up, they appear in the Products table. Each row shows a lifecycle stage selector with the product’s current stage, icon, and color. To change a product’s stage:
  1. Find the product in the table.
  2. Click its lifecycle stage indicator.
  3. Pick the new stage from the dropdown. Each option shows the name, icon, and color.
  4. The stage updates right away.
You can also filter by stage. Open Advanced Filters in the products table, and a review filter appears that narrows products by their current stage.
The lifecycle column adjusts its width to your stage names, so they stay readable without wasting space.

Workflows

Run guided processes that find, fix, and move products through your stages.

Product Attributes

Define the fields your stage requirements can check against.