Work Orders

A Work Order (WO) is how myWork tracks a job from start to finish: a repair coming in for fix-and-return, a production run built from a bill of materials, an internal maintenance job, a multi-phase project. Every WO runs on the same engine, so once you understand one you understand them all.

This article explains what a work order is and how the engine works. For driving a single WO step by step, see Process a work order. For reusable blueprints and recurring jobs, see Work Order templates and schedules.

The two halves of a work order

Every WO has a header and a list of steps.

The header is the job's identity: its number (WO-000123, auto-assigned), its type (Repair, Production, Internal, Project), a subject, an optional customer, a target date, and a priority (Low / Normal / High / Show-stopper - visibility only, it does not change the order steps run in).
The steps (also called lines) are the actual units of work: receive the goods, route them, repair a unit, request stock, ship it out. Each step has a type, a priority slot (a number like 10, 20, 30), an assignee, a status, and its own step-specific data.

You build the steps while the WO is a DRAFT, then release it. From that moment the engine drives the steps for you.

How the engine works

myWork does not run steps top to bottom like a checklist. It runs them by priority slot.

How the work-order routing engine drives steps

The rule is simple:

Look at every step that is not yet finished (not COMPLETED, not CANCELLED).
Find the lowest priority number among them.
Activate every step at that number at once.

So steps that share a priority number run in parallel, and the WO only advances to the next number once all steps at the current number are COMPLETED or CANCELLED.

This is why a Repair Router (which splits an incoming receipt into four repair tasks) can put all four tasks at the same priority - they all become active together, four technicians work in parallel, and shipping only starts once every one of them is done.

A paused or errored step holds its slot. If one step at priority 30 is PAUSED (waiting for a part, say), the WO will not advance to priority 40 until that step resumes or completes. This is the number-one reason a WO looks "stuck" - one blocked step at the current priority is holding the whole job. See Step statuses field definitions for how to read and clear that.

Some steps finish themselves. A few step types "auto-complete": their whole job is to call something (send a tracking email, create a sales order) and then get out of the way, so the engine completes them the instant they succeed - no operator click. Others (a repair task, an assembly task) are worked by a person and only complete when that person says so.

The work order lifecycle

A WO moves through these states:

DRAFT - you are still building the routing. Not yet active. You can add, edit and delete steps.
TEMPLATE - a reusable blueprint. It is never executed itself; it spawns DRAFT work orders. See Work Order templates and schedules.
IN_PROGRESS - released and running on the floor. (You will briefly see RELEASED as the engine activates the first steps, then it flips to IN_PROGRESS.) You can still add steps, but only at a priority higher than the group currently running.
COMPLETED - every step is physically done.
CLOSED - financials finalised and reconciled with Unleashed. End of life.
CANCELLED - aborted. Reachable from DRAFT, TEMPLATE or IN_PROGRESS. Every non-finished step is cancelled with it.

Only DRAFT and TEMPLATE work orders can be deleted; anything that has gone live must be cancelled instead, which preserves the audit trail. Full detail: Work order types and statuses field definitions.

The Work Orders page

Open Work Orders from the left menu (clipboard icon). It has two tabs.

Work Orders tab

A scrollable grid of cards - one per work order - with a filter strip across the top:

Search - matches WO number, subject, description and customer (updates as you type).
Status filter - multi-select; every status is selectable. New lists default to showing DRAFT, RELEASED and IN_PROGRESS.
Priority filter - multi-select (Low / Normal / High / Show-stopper).
Sort - newest first, oldest first, by target date, recently updated, subject A-Z.
My WOs only - toggle to see only work orders you created or are assigned to.
All Users dropdown - admins only - filter by who created them.

Small status-count chips across the top show how many WOs are in each status for the current filter.

Each card shows the WO number (click to open its processing page), a status chip, a type pill, the target date (colour-coded when overdue), the subject, a clamped description, the customer, and who created it. A priority badge shows on the card for anything above Normal; Show-stopper additionally draws a red border. The corner icons are: info (a summary panel), a star (toggle email + chat notifications for this WO), and - on DRAFT and TEMPLATE cards only - a trash icon to delete.

Creating a work order

Click New Work Order. A dialog opens with a Create Mode toggle:

From Template (default) - pick a saved TEMPLATE; the new WO inherits its steps and assignees. You can filter the template list by type.
Blank (restricted to users with the right permission) - start from nothing and build the steps yourself.

You then set the Type of Work (Production / Repair / Internal / Project - for blank mode), a Subject (e.g. "Inverter Diagnostic and Repair"), an optional Customer, a Target Date (defaults to 7 days out), a Priority, and a Description / scope. Click Create and the new WO opens as a DRAFT on its processing page, ready for you to add steps (or already carrying the template's steps) and release.

Schedules tab

The Schedules tab (visible only to users with the schedule-manage permission) is for recurring work orders the system spawns automatically - a monthly maintenance check, a weekly inspection. See Work Order templates and schedules for the full mechanism.

Types of work order

Repair - fixing a specific customer-owned item; tracks serials, repair tasks and shipments. See Repair Orders.
Production - manufacturing a product to stock from an assembly task and its BOM. See My Assembly Tasks.
Internal - maintenance on the company's own machines or fleet.
Project - a long-running, multi-phase job that does not fit the others (custom builds, installations).
Leave - auto-generated by the leave / overtime module; you do not build these by hand.

Tips

A WO number is generated the moment the WO is first saved as a DRAFT - you cannot choose it.
The list is loaded from the server, so searching and filtering re-query rather than just hiding cards.
The star on a card drives email + system-chat alerts for that WO - handy when you have handed work off but still want to know when it lands.
Priority is about urgency in lists, not execution order. What decides the order steps run in is each step's own priority slot - never the header priority.