setting custom order status in woocommerce

I have followed this tutorial and to add a custom order status "Awaiting Shipment":

My problem is I'm trying to update the status via a php function, but it stays sets on pending payment! So it is executing and changing the correct order but not with this new status.

My code:

$order = new WC_Order($order_id);
$order->update_status('Awaiting shipment', 'order_note');

I can set 'Awaiting Shipment' in the WordPress dashboard ok...

What am I doing wrong?

Solution

You need to set it using the slug awaiting-shipment instead, so your code will be:

$order = new WC_Order( $order_id );
$order->update_status('awaiting-shipment', 'order_note');

This time it will work…

Also 'order_note' is optional and should be replaced with a real explicit text as an order note should be.

To finish you also can use $order = wc_get_order( $order_id );

Reference: WC_Order update_status() method