Follow a job from Intake to Shipped, understand the Prepress approval gate, and distinguish job stages from production-line completion and Archive.
A job is the production record that carries the customer work, files,
production lines, billing, and history. Its stage shows where the job is in
the production lifecycle.
A customer order is an incoming request. When it is converted, Flexoworks
creates one or more jobs in Intake. Read Orders and jobs: from intake to
production for the complete relationship.
Every active job follows the same route:Intake → Prepress → Imaging → Washout → QC → Shipped
1. Intake
Confirm the customer request, files, job details, and production lines.
2. Prepress
Prepare the artwork and complete the manager-review handoff.
3. Imaging
Expose the approved plate work and record plate-line completion separately.
4. Washout
Continue the physical plate-production process after exposure.
5. QC
Perform the final quality checks before dispatch.
6. Shipped
Finish the production lifecycle and make eligible billing available for
invoicing.
On the Jobs page, the Stage column shows the current production stage.
Open its checkbox filter to combine stages or to distinguish the three Prepress
workflow states. The default active view includes every workflow status except
Shipped; select Shipped when you need to include dispatched work.
The Stage filter follows lifecycle order and keeps the three Prepress workflow states distinct.
Stage transitions are forward-only. An ordinary transition moves a job just
one stage ahead; it cannot skip a stage or move backward. Check the job
before confirming each transition.
1
Advance from Intake to Prepress
Use Intake to verify the request and prepare the job for design work.
This is also one of the two stages where production lines can be added,
edited, or removed.When the job is ready, select Advance to Prepress → in its header and
confirm. This is a standard next-stage transition.
An Intake job offers only the next valid transition: Advance to Prepress.
2
Complete the Prepress work
In Prepress, prepare the artwork and verify the production details.
Production lines are still editable here. Unlike the other stages, Prepress
does not have an ordinary Advance to Imaging action.Prepress has three workflow states without adding extra production stages:
Prepress · In progress — design or preparation work is active.
Prepress · Manager review — a submitted snapshot is waiting for a manager decision.
Prepress · Changes requested — manager feedback must be addressed before resubmission.
The Prepress handoff starts in progress and becomes ready when the work can be submitted.
3
Get manager approval for Imaging
Select Mark ready for review to submit the Prepress snapshot. A manager
can Request changes, which keeps the job in Prepress, or Approve and
send to Imaging.Manager approval is the only transition from Prepress to
Imaging. There is no regular stage-advance button for this transition.
A pending Prepress review gives the manager the decision actions that control the transition.
After approval, the job is in Imaging and the normal forward action is
available again. Select Advance to Washout → and confirm when exposure
work is ready for the next stage.
Manager approval places the job in Imaging and restores the standard next-stage action.
5
Advance from Washout to QC
Complete the washout work, then select Advance to QC → and confirm. The
job moves one stage ahead to QC.
6
Advance from QC to Shipped
After the final quality checks, select Advance to Shipped → and confirm.
Shipped is the final production stage, so the job has no further
stage-advance action.
A Shipped job has reached the end of the production lifecycle and can feed the invoicing workflow.
Job stage and production-line completion are different
The job stage describes the progress of the whole job. Completion belongs
to an individual plate production line and records that line’s entire
quantity together with its operator details.
Completing a plate production line does not advance the job. Advancing the
job does not mark its plate production lines complete. Treat the stage and
line-completion status as two independent production signals.
Production lines can be edited only in Intake and Prepress, but plate
completion remains an operator action in the later production stages. Learn how
the work rows, quantities, materials, and completion records fit together in
Production lines.
Shipped is final: it means production has completed its route through the
stage sequence. A non-archived Shipped job appears in Ready for invoice
only when it has billing lines, a Billing company and Billing contact,
and is not reserved by a Draft or Issued invoice. A Void invoice
does not reserve the job. A job in any earlier stage is not invoice-eligible.Shipping does not archive the job. The record remains available as completed
production history and in the Shipped Stage filter.
Archive is a record state that can be applied independently of the production
stage. An archived job keeps the stage it had, is removed from active work,
and becomes read-only. Do not use Archive to mean Shipped.
Because an archived job is read-only, its details, files, production lines,
billing, comments, and stage cannot be changed. Use the Active / Archived
filter separately from the Stage filter when locating historical records.
