How to group statuses without automation (i.e. sync an attribute to status) - custom formula?

[Bryce York]

We're in need of a grouping mechanism to act as an abstraction of Status since we've implemented a large number of statuses so that stakeholders can know at a glance what the status of the Idea is.

We have 4 "stages" that logically group our ~25 statuses. 

To prevent data entry errors and allow users to only have to worry about keeping status up-to-date, we need the Stage to be automatically sync'd with the Status.

This is of course possible with automations, but it's impractical with the 1000 runs per month limit. 

I'm really hoping we can use a custom formula or something else instead... Any ideas?

Here's an extract of our workflow chart for reference (the black boxes are Stages and the gray are to-do Statuses):

[Amina Bouabdallah]

Hi there! To auto-populate the Stage field according to the Status field, the only available solution today is automation. It's the only place where you can run IF-like operations to create field values in JPD!

[Bryce York]

Thanks for clarifying. That's pretty disappointing given the extremely low limits applied. It's honestly outrageous to have such low limits.