What are the definitions of the order statuses? OR: Where should I integrate my order state?

Question

I want to define some order states like "credit card payment received", the question is to which statuses they belong. Is there a definition for each of the built-in statuses?

Edit: Seems like I mixed up "status" and "state", I hope it gets clear from the context anyways. I blame the German Magento translation (State => Status, Status => Zustand)

Answer 1

According to "The Definitive Guide to Magento" ^[1], the order statuses are defined as follows:

• Pending: Pending orders are brand new orders that have not been processed. Typically, these orders need to be invoiced and shipped.
• Pending PayPal: Pending PayPal orders are brand new orders that have not been cleared by PayPal. [...]
• Processing: Processing means that orders have either been invoiced or shipped, but not both.
• Complete: Orders marked as complete have been invoiced and have shipped.
• Cancelled: Cancelled orders should be used if orders are cancelled or if the orders have not been paid for.
• Closed: Closed orders are orders that have had a credit memo assigned to it and the customer has been refunded for their order.
• On Hold: Orders placed on hold must be taken off hold before continuing any further actions.

Therefore a state "credit card payment received" would belong to processing, providing that the order has not been shipped yet.

---

Aligent Consulting^[2] created a flow chart for order states:

---

Sources:

1. Adam McCombs and Robert Banh: "The Definitive Guide to Magento", Apress, 2009 (ISBN 1430272287, 9781430272281)
2. https://twitter.com/aligent/status/509487359172177921/photo/1

Answer 2

The different order states are defined in Mage_Sales_Model_Order:

const STATE_NEW             = 'new';
const STATE_PENDING_PAYMENT = 'pending_payment';
const STATE_PROCESSING      = 'processing';
const STATE_COMPLETE        = 'complete';
const STATE_CLOSED          = 'closed';
const STATE_CANCELED        = 'canceled';
const STATE_HOLDED          = 'holded';
const STATE_PAYMENT_REVIEW  = 'payment_review';

Answer 3

Actually since 1.5 order statuses can be defined in Admin section and xml is not preferred way of adding/changing states or statuses. Please make a difference between state and status. State is 'processing' status is 'credit card payment received'

Update: Order statuses can be created and modified in admin/sales_order_status/, no need to do anything in XML You can assign a status only if order is in appropriate state. By default order goes into Processing state when it is invoiced or shipped.

Answer 4

You can connect your new state to existing order statuses, or you create completely new. Simply modify the configuration file of the sales module as follows (app \ code \ core \ Mage \ Sales \ etc \ config.xml) with your new state:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
  <!-- ... -->
  <global>
    <sales>
      <order>
        <statuses>
          <new_status>
            <label>New Status</label>
            <description>Your Description here</description>
          </new_status>
        </statuses>
        <states>
          <new>
            <label>New</label>
            <statuses>
              <new_status/>
            </statuses>
            <visible_on_front/>
          </new>
        </states>
      </order>
    </sales>
  </global>
</config>

Refresh the cache, done.