# Package stages

Every transfer package moves through a fixed lifecycle of named **stages**. The stage is shown as a badge at the top right of the package page and as a column on the Home page's kanban board.

This page is a quick reference for each stage. For the lifecycle in narrative form — what triggers each transition and which tab you work in — see [How a package flows](/working-with-packages/how-a-package-flows.md).

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## The five stages

### Not Started

The package exists but no work has happened on it yet. Created manually, but no courses have been added to **Course Equivalencies**. Add courses to move forward.

### Transcript Research

Mapademics is fetching one or more institution catalogs in the background, in preparation for matching the transcript against them. You'll see a *Researching X%* progress bar on the package card on the kanban board and in the **Stage** column of the package list. Fully automated — wait for it to finish, or pick up other work. The package moves itself forward when the research is done.

A package lands here at creation, when an institution confirmed at import doesn't yet have its catalog in Mapademics's library. Once the catalog is in, the package advances to the next stage automatically.

### Transcript Review

The transcript has been extracted and Mapademics has identified a real course in the sending institution's catalog for each line. Awaiting your confirmation on the **Transcript Review** tab.

*Only applies to packages started from a transcript.* Manual packages skip this stage entirely.

### Course Matching

Source courses are confirmed. Mapademics has scored candidate equivalents from your home-institution catalog. Time to review candidates and **pin** the right one on the **Course Equivalencies** tab.

### Completed

Every course has a pinned equivalent. The report is ready to download from the **Report** tab.

Completion is a status, not a lock — you can still edit a completed package, re-pin courses, or regenerate the summary.

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## How stages relate to tabs

| Stage                   | Where you work                           | What's happening                                                          |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Not Started**         | Course Equivalencies → **+ Add Courses** | Add courses to begin (manual packages only).                              |
| **Transcript Research** | Nowhere — wait                           | Mapademics is fetching the catalog. Shown on cards as **Researching X%**. |
| **Transcript Review**   | Transcript Review tab                    | Confirm extracted transcript lines.                                       |
| **Course Matching**     | Course Equivalencies tab                 | Pin home-institution equivalents.                                         |
| **Completed**           | Report tab                               | Write the summary, download the PDF.                                      |

The package page reinforces this with a **numbered tab strip** at the top — each tab shows the step number (1, 2, 3) until that step is complete, then flips to a green checkmark. The tab you're currently on is highlighted in purple regardless of state. See [How a package flows](/working-with-packages/how-a-package-flows.md).

***

## Next steps

* [How a package flows](/working-with-packages/how-a-package-flows.md)
* [Match signals](/reference/match-signals.md)
* [Glossary](/reference/glossary.md)


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