Lifecycle of a Work Order (Scheduling & Dispatch)
- Tracie Karsjens (Unlicensed)
- Joel Smolarek
The Scheduling & Dispatch area of MetaField® allows your schedulers to assign work orders to field technicians. A work order is comprised of one or many work items or tasks to be performed for a specified project in the field. The diagram below shows the process a work order can go through.
Scheduling
A scheduler creates a work order in the scheduling module. While a scheduler is working with the work order but is not ready to release to the technician(s), it can be created as a draft. Once the scheduler is ready to release the work order it is submitted and can be viewed by the technician(s). If the scheduler gets a call from the client informing them that work has been canceled, the scheduler can update the status of the work order to canceled. The scheduler is able to modify the other statuses if needed, but this is not the typical workflow.
Field
A field technician will see all their assigned orders and can choose to accept them which makes them accepted. In some cases, a technician may want to indicate they are not able to do the work order and in this case it is declined. Likewise, the technician can inform the scheduler that the work has been canceled onsite which will update the status to canceled. This can be done before or after it is accepted. The scheduler may also decline/cancel a work order on the behalf of the technician (Ex. scheduler knows a technician is out sick for the day/client calls the office informing the scheduler that the job is canceled for that day). By doing this, the work order remains on the schedule for tracking purposes in the declined/canceled status. Note that a declined/canceled work order is removed from the technicians list of assignments and will appear in the scheduling dashboard under the declined or canceled queue so the scheduler can review and take the appropriate action. This restarts the process for this work order.
When a technician is done with their assignment, they mark the work order as complete.
Work orders will appear as overdue in the scheduling dashboard and calendar when the end date and time has passed and the work order has not been marked as complete.