We are encountering a few users that both set the current asset status and future asset status at the same time, which has for effect of setting the current asset status and causes problems. Then I have to send them screenshots like those to explain:
Could someone add this as a feature request, to have something like a select radio button to choose to either change status now or change status at a later date. Just for edit plus users (rookies), not the backend.
I think users should still be able to do both at the same time, we couldn’t change that behaviour now as some might actually rely on it as well.
What we can do though is improve the UI perhaps to make it clear that they are 2 separate actions. Maybe we could make Future Statuses actually be able to be added within the box itself, without having to save the screen perhaps.
Making things clear would certainly be an improvement and reduce support requests and potential drama (imagine gov info that should only be shown after a specific date/time). There are lots of ways to resolve that problem but the fastest and simplest would be to put a bit of text there that says something along the lines of “If you only want to change the status in the future, leave the Change? field blank”.
Or even logically speaking, one should not be allowed to set an asset “Live” and then set a future asset “Live”, that is obviously redundant. So business logic in code should be “If future status change == current status change then show alert”.
I still think the best solution would be to have this as either/or actions. These interfaces are for non tech people, things that are potentially ambiguous should be taken out of the equation if we can. Same for “Next Run”, that means nothing to a user. Much better is to label that "Next scheduled status change will be applied at <date / time>".
