Server Administration > Item Fields > Creating Fields > Phase Fields
  
Phase Fields
Phases are useful for organizing an item type’s workflow if it contains a large number of states and provide users with a broad overview of an item’s status independent of the workflow. For example, a Feature type could have the following phases (states are in parentheses):
Requirements (Draft 1, First Draft Signoff, ...)
Design (Update Data Model, ...)
Development (In Development, Unit Testing, ...)
Testing (White Box Testing, Black Box Testing, Regression Testing, ...)
Implementation (Planning, Implementation, ...)
Post-Implementation Maintenance (Patch 1 In Progress, ...)
You can create any number of phases for a phase field. States not grouped into a phase are referred to as out of phase states. When an item is in an out of phase state, the phase field displays Out of Phase.