CDE states (WIP / Shared / Published / Archived)
The controlled statuses a container moves through inside the CDE, each with its own purpose and review gate.
Inside a common data environment, every information container has a state that says how far it has progressed and who may rely on it. ISO 19650 describes four: Work in Progress, Shared, Published and Archived. The point of the states is to make the status of information explicit, so no one builds on a drawing that was never approved.
Work in Progress (WIP) is information still being developed inside a single task team — not yet visible to others. Shared means it has passed an internal check and is released to the wider team for coordination and reference, but is not yet authorised for construction. Published is information that has been reviewed and authorised for a specific use — the version others may act on. Archived is the historical record: every superseded version retained so the project's decisions can be audited later.
A container only moves from one state to the next through a defined review and approval gate, and each transition is logged. That controlled progression — not the storage itself — is what makes a CDE trustworthy.
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