This page explains how Norce Commerce manages the product life cycle using product statuses. It covers built-in statuses, status transitions, automation rules, and configuration options. The goal is to help you understand how product visibility and availability are controlled throughout their life cycle.
Product status in Norce Commerce represents the life cycle stage of a product. All products move through stages from creation to end-of-life. Statuses guide commerce front ends on which products are available for sale, searchable, or hidden.
Many ERP systems have similar status concepts. If your ERP uses different statuses, you must map them to Norce statuses.
Norce Commerce also provides automatic status changes in specific scenarios.
All Norce Commerce Services calls that fetch products allow filtering by one or more status IDs. This lets you control whether to include only active products or also inactive/hidden ones in searches.
The
statusSeedparameter is used in Norce Commerce Services to specify which product statuses to include in results.
Norce Commerce defines the following product statuses:
| Id | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Active | Products currently available for sale. |
| 2 | Coming | Products not yet available for sale but expected soon. |
| 3 | Expiring | Products available for sale but will be closed when out of stock. |
| 4 | Hidden | Products available for sale in special cases, but not shown in listings or search results. Used for temporarily not sellable products. |
| 5 | Inactive | Products closed and not available for sale. |
| 6 | Not activated | Supplier products not yet created or assigned a part number. |
Usage Note:
In product listings, it is common to include only Active and Expiring products (IDs 1 and 3). Coming products (2) are usually excluded until ready for sale. Hidden products (4) may be included in special searches.
Products move through statuses based on manual changes, integration updates, or automated rules. Each transition is described below with context and triggers.
Products can be created in Norce Commerce in three ways:
- Manually in the Admin UI (any status can be set).
- Integration/import via Norce Commerce Connect (any status can be set).
- Creation rules (status is set by rule configuration).
A common practice is to set status to Coming if enrichment is needed before sale, or to Hidden/Active if ready.
Products in the Coming status can be activated by:
- Start date: Automatically changes to
Activeon activation day. - Manual change: Set to
Activein Admin UI. - Integration/import: Update via Norce Commerce Connect or Excel import.
- Optional rule: Automatically activate when in stock (see In-stock based rules).
Any status except Coming can revert to Active:
- Manual change: In Admin UI or via integration/import.
- Automatic:
ExpiringorInactiveproducts revert toActiveif they get active suppliers (if set to expiring by rule). - Optional rules: Hidden products can become
Activeif back in stock or if a main image is added (see In-stock based rules).
Products in Active status can be set to Hidden:
- Manual change: In Admin UI or via integration/import.
- Optional rules: Automatically set to
Hiddenwhen out of stock or missing a main image (see In-stock based rules).
Products in Active status can become Expiring:
- Manual change: In Admin UI or via integration/import.
- End date: Automatically changes to
Expiringafter end date. - No suppliers: Automatically changes to
Expiringif all suppliers are inactive. - Optional rules: Hidden products become
Expiringif all suppliers are inactive (see In-stock based rules).
Products in Expiring status can become Inactive:
- Manual change: In Admin UI or via integration/import.
- Out of stock: Automatically changes to
Inactiveif out of stock (unless optional rule is set). - Optional rule: Only set to
Inactiveif out of stock at both suppliers and local stock (see In-stock based rules).
A lock symbol in the Admin UI allows you to "lock" the product status. When locked, no rules, imports, or integrations can change the status. Unlock to allow changes.
An optional rule, “Manual sku status changes”, disables all automation for product statuses. Use this if you want to manage statuses only manually or from a source system (e.g., ERP).
For rules based on inventory, Norce Commerce checks all warehouses of type Warehouse. Store or Other types are ignored. For supplier stock, only warehouses with “included in stock calculations” set to true are checked.
An optional setting allows you to change which warehouse types are checked.
For products marked as IsDropShipOnly (or if their primary category is set to it), in-stock checks only consider supplier stock, not local stock.
Products or categories marked as
IsDropShipOnlyare always handled as dropshipping, even if local stock exists.
- Product lifecycle TODO