UI widgets in the Commerce Manager client can have one of three states:

• editable (the user can view and modify the value displayed in the widget)
• read-only (the user can only view the value)
• disabled (the widget is disabled and the user cannot view or modify the value)

The state of a widget at a given time depends on several factors. For example, if a text widget displays product data, only users who are assigned to a catalog that contains that product should be allowed to see that value and only users with the Manage Products and SKUs permission should be allowed to modify that value. Furthermore, if the Change Sets feature is enabled and that product is in a locked Change Set, only users who are assigned to that Change Set should be allowed to see that value.

Managing the states of different widgets can become very complex when you have many controls displaying data from different sources in the same dialog. State Policies provide a way to manage the state of UI widgets in the Commerce Manager client.