The State property is an editable property for communicating the status of a document. This is particularly helpful when collaborating with other authors in a development team. Authors can assign a state to documents from the master list defined by the administrator. The default list of States includes (blank), Not Started, Draft, In Review, and Final. Administrators can customize the list by adding, deleting or renaming the values. 


A State value must be assigned; it can not be inherited from a parent document. You can assign a State to a single document or multiple documents at the same time, but only one State can be applied to a document. You can also view the State for a document in the Details View in the Library and the Outline Editor, but you can not assign State values directly from this view, unless you display the Properties toolpane.


Note: To assign or change the state of a document, you must be online. You can change the state of a document regardless of its check-in/out status.


The State property is a workflow property. Unlike other document properties, workflow properties are external properties that are saved to the server and do not travel with the document. State values are not included when you import or export content. The State field is set to blank for new documents imported into the Library. Since State values are not embedded with a document, they are not part of a document's version and do not roll back when you roll a document back to a previous version. However, since State values are saved to the server, when an author restores a deleted document to the Library, the value for the state is also restored.


Warning! Be careful when changing a property for multiple documents that already contain values for the same property. The new values you enter for the property overwrite any existing values for all selected documents.


To assign a State value to a document:

  1. Make sure you are working online.
     
  2. Display the Properties toolpane.
     
  3. Select the document(s) to which you want to assign a state.
     
    You can select multiple documents using the standard Windows selection keys (CTRL+click and SHIFT+click).
     
  4. In the Workflow category, click Drop Down in the State cell.
     
  5. Select a value from the list.

Note: To remove a value, choose the blank value from the list (first value).


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