If you need to create a wizard, with forward and back buttons for several different steps, a great way to do it is to use the acts_as_state_machine plugin.

But for just two or three steps, loading a whole plugin seems like overkill. Instead of loading a whole plugin, you can simulate the same functionality by dropping next! and previous! methods into your model like so:

  # State Machine 
  # Guilt-free stateful modeling! 
  # These two simple methods simulate all the goodness of 
  #   acts_as_state_machine without the added fat of an included plugin. 
  def next!
    next_step = case self.state
    when "step1" 
      "step2" 
    when "step2" 
      "step3" 
    when "step3" 
      "step3" 
    end
    self.update_attribute(:state, next_step)
  end

  def previous!
    previous_step = case self.state
    when "step1" 
      "step1" 
    when "step2" 
      "step1" 
    when "step3" 
      "step2" 
    end
    self.update_attribute(:state, previous_step)
  end

  def current_step
    @current_step ||= self.state
  end