The life cycle assigned to a document or folder determines its available status transitions and grants selected Project Portal users the access rights to run status transitions. Each life cycle has an initial status that is set when a document or a folder is created.
For example, an approval life cycle can consist of five statuses as shown in the following figure.
When created, a document starts with the status New. The status can be changed by any user to In work to indicate that work on the document has started. Once the work is finished, the owner of the document can change it to For Approval to indicate that management can evaluate the document's file contents. When approved, the status is changed to Released. When a document becomes outdated, its status can be changed to Obsolete and a new version can be created.
Status colors are used for quick on-screen identification. Status colors are shown in the color swatches in the workspace and document lists.
Documents or folders that are in a Frozen status cannot be edited, unlinked, or deleted. Files cannot be added to a frozen document. Documents cannot be created in frozen folders. Only privileged workspace users can perform these operations with frozen items. Frozen documents are indicated with a snowflake icon 
at the top of their property page. Frozen folders are indicated with a snowflake icon 
in the navigation pane.
Life cycle and status definitions can be specific to each workspace. For more information about the life cycles and statuses used in your organization, contact your workspace administrator.