What an order's status means
The states an order moves through, what each one commits you to, and exactly what at risk means and what we do about it.
An order carries one status at a time. This is the whole list.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| draft | You are still describing what you want. Private, free, and editable. Nothing is committed. |
| quoted | We have sent a quote: specification, quota, quality contract, price, expected delivery. Nothing is committed yet. |
| accepted | You accepted the quote. This is the commitment and the billing point. |
| in progress | We are building it. |
| at risk | Something has gone wrong or is about to. See below — this status always comes with an explanation. |
| blocked | We cannot continue without something from you: a decision, a clarification, an access credential. The order says what is needed. |
| delivered | The data is ready and downloadable, with the quality contract reported clause by clause. |
| closed | Delivered and settled. Your data stays downloadable. |
| cancelled | Stopped before delivery, by you or by us. |
At risk
At risk means we now believe this order will not land as agreed, and we are telling you before delivery rather than at it.
It is not a warning light with no follow-up. An order only enters this state together with a written notice saying which of three things has happened:
- Production has paused. Work on your order has stopped, we know about it, and we are on it. The notice says when it stopped and what we currently expect. It does not ask you to do anything.
- The quota is going to be short. We no longer expect to deliver the full quota by the expected date. The notice says what we now expect and by when — for example, we now expect 700 of 1,000 tasks by 12 March. You are not charged for tasks that are not delivered.
- A quality contract clause cannot be met. We have found that one of the written clauses cannot be kept at the level agreed. The notice names the clause. See the quality contract.
In every case the point of the status is the same: you find out while there is still time to decide something. What happens next is your call, and the options are the obvious ones — wait, take a reduced quota at a reduced price, change a clause, change the specification, or cancel.
An order can move back out of at risk into in progress if the problem is resolved. If it does, the notice stays on the order's history rather than disappearing, so the record of what happened does not quietly rewrite itself.
Why an order is never silently late
An order that is quietly stuck still reads as in progress, and that is a lie by omission. So a stall becomes at risk on its own, rather than when somebody remembers to update it.
Cancelling
You can cancel from the order page before production starts. Cancelling stops the request and cannot be undone. What is owed, if anything, depends on how far the order got, and is settled with your Andromede contact rather than automatically.