Lead Statuses

What it is

A lead status is the stage a job is in — for example Created, Appointment, In Progress, or Done. Every lead has exactly one status at a time.

You manage the full list from Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses. What you set there controls the tabs across the top of the Leads page, the columns on the Pipeline board, the choices in every status dropdown, and the stages you can build automations around.

Most accounts start with a standard set: Created, Sent, In Progress, Appointment, Estimate, Deposit, Follow Up, Done, and Canceled. Your list may already look different — open the page to see what you actually have.

When to use it

• Your team says a stage is “missing” — jobs are sitting in the wrong bucket.
• You want the Pipeline board to read left to right the way your business actually works.
• You need a reason attached to a stage (why a job is on hold, why it was lost) — that is what sub-statuses are for.
• You want an automation to fire when a job reaches a specific stage.
• Your reports lump everything together because two statuses mean the same thing.

Before you start

• You need Settings access. If Settings is switched off for your role in Settings›People›Team Roles, the Lead Statuses page will not open.
• Know your real stages first. Write them on paper in order before you start typing. Reordering later is easy, but renaming a status your team already uses causes confusion.
• Four names behave differently. Done, Canceled, Cancelled, and Closed are treated as finished work in several screens. Read Names that behave differently before you use them.
• Some statuses are locked. Statuses tagged System cannot be renamed, recolored, or deleted. You can still drag them into a new position.

Step-by-step

Go to Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses. (Admins have a shortcut: on the Leads page, click Manage statuses at the end of the status tab strip.)

The page at a glance

Rows tagged System show a small grey label next to the name. On those rows the pencil and trash icons are greyed out, and hovering them explains why.

Add a new status

1. Go to Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses.
2. Click New Status in the top right.
3. Type the Status Name exactly as you want your team to read it (for example Qualified). This field is required.
4. Pick a Badge Color. Click the color square to use the picker, or type a hex code such as #3b82f6 into the box beside it.
5. Leave Set as default status for new leads off unless this is the very first stage of your process. Turning it on removes the star from whichever status had it before.
6. Add sub-statuses now if you need them (see below), then click Create.

New statuses are added to the bottom of the list. Drag it into position straight away so the Pipeline board stays in the right order.

Add sub-statuses under a status

A sub-status is a second, more specific label that lives under one status — for example Waiting for Parts under In Progress, or Price too high under Canceled.

1. Open the status (pencil icon) or start a new one.
2. Under Sub-Statuses (optional), click Add Sub-Status.
3. Type the label, for example Waiting for Parts.
4. Repeat for each one. Use the X beside a row to remove it.
5. Click Create or Update.

Blank sub-status rows are dropped when you save, so an empty box left behind by mistake does no harm.

Reorder your statuses

1. Grab the handle in the Order column.
2. Drag the row up or down and release.
3. The new order saves on its own — there is no Save button for ordering.

That order is used for the status tabs on the Leads page, the left-to-right order of Pipeline columns, and every status dropdown in Joby. If a drag fails, the list snaps back to how it was and an error message appears.

Edit a status

1. Click the pencil icon on the row.
2. Change the name, color, default setting, or sub-statuses.
3. Click Update.

Renaming a status does not move the jobs already sitting in it. Rename only when the list is small, and tell your team the same day.

Delete a status

1. Click the trash icon on the row.
2. Confirm the “Are you sure” prompt.

Joby refuses the delete in two cases:

• System statuses — the buttons are greyed out and the message reads “System status cannot be deleted”.
• The default status — you will see “Cannot delete the default status”. Give the star to another status first, then delete.

How to check it worked

1. Stay on Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses. Your new status should be in the list, in the position you dragged it to, with the right color in the Preview column.
2. Open Leads. The new status should appear as a tab across the top, with a count beside it (a brand-new stage will read 0).
3. Switch to the Pipeline view using the view buttons above the list. The status should be its own column, with your color as the dot beside the column name.
4. Open any lead and look at the Status dropdown. Your new status should be listed, with its color dot. If you added sub-statuses, pick the status and confirm the Sub-Status field appears below it.
5. Move one test lead into the new status and back out again, so you know the whole round trip works before you tell the team.

Common mistakes

“I made a status called Done and it has no tab”

Statuses named Done, Canceled, Cancelled, or Closed are deliberately left out of the Leads tab strip and the Pipeline columns, because those screens are for open work. This is by design, not a bug. See Names that behave differently.

“Two statuses mean the same thing and my reports are useless”

Follow Up, Call Back, Pending, and Waiting all end up being used interchangeably. Pick one name per real business stage, and put the nuance in sub-statuses instead. Reports then add up the way you expect.

“I picked a status on the New Lead form but the lead landed somewhere else”

Newly created leads start on your account’s starting stage — normally Created — no matter how they arrive: the New Lead form, an incoming call, the public booking form, or an import. If you want new work to land elsewhere, build an automation on the Lead Created trigger with a Change Status action, or set the status on the booking form itself under Settings›Pipeline›Booking Form.

“The status badge dropdown in the Leads list doesn’t offer Done”

That quick dropdown only offers open stages. To close a job out, open the lead and use its Status field, or tick the leads and use the Change Status box in the bulk actions bar — both offer the full list.

“Nobody fills in the sub-status”

They have to — Joby blocks the status change until one is picked. If your team complains about the extra step, that usually means the sub-statuses are on the wrong stage. Keep them on low-volume stages such as Canceled or Follow Up, not on the stage every job passes through.

“I deleted a status and now some jobs are hard to find”

Deleting a status does not move the jobs that were in it. They keep the old label and stop showing under any tab except All. Before you delete, filter the Leads page to that status, select the rows, and bulk-change them to the stage you are keeping.

“I renamed a status and my automations stopped firing”

Automations that watch for a specific stage are matched by the status name. After any rename, open Settings›Pipeline›Automations and re-pick the status in every affected trigger.