Work order life cycle and statuses
Work order system statuses, work order substatuses, and booking statuses all work together to help stakeholders stay up to date with work orders from creation to closing. Updating one of these statuses can update the others automatically.
Work Order System Statuses are noted on the work order entity, marking the current point of a work order in its life cycle. Work order system statuses are:
- Unscheduled
- Scheduled
- In Progress
- Completed
- Posted
- Canceled
As of the 2021 Wave 2 release, the Work Order System Status labels were updated. For example, the former status label "Open - Unscheduled" was updated to "Unscheduled".
Note
Do not add, remove, or edit the option set values for Work Order System Status; changing the option set values can cause errors and is not supported. Instead, administrators can edit the option set labels like "Unscheduled".
Work Order Substatuses are noted on the work order entity and relate to and provide more detail for work order system statuses. Work order substatuses are created custom for each organization.
Booking Statuses are noted on the bookable resource booking entity and are updated by field technicians on the Field Service Mobile app to track their progress for a specific work order requirement. Additionally, booking statuses are visualized on the schedule board with a distinct color and icon, and a few booking statuses are part of the product by default, though more custom ones can be added. Out of the box, the booking statuses are:
- Scheduled
- Traveling
- In Progress
- On Break
- Completed
- Canceled
In this article, we explore work order and booking statuses with the following scenarios:
Work order life cycle: A field service organization wants to understand how the out-of-the-box statuses are designed for the work order process without any customizations, based on their specific business needs.
Estimate work order: A field service organization wants to use work orders for estimating potential products, services, and prices for their clients, and wants to mark such work orders with a custom "Estimate" work order substatus.
Delayed schedules: Field technicians want to make dispatchers aware if they are running more than 15 minutes behind schedule due to traffic by changing the status of their bookings to "Delayed".
Follow up work orders: Field service organizations often schedule a follow-up inspection after an initial installation or repair work order. If a follow-up is required, field technicians should note it with a custom "Follow Up Required" work order substatus to ensure back-office workers create a follow-up before closing the work order.
For more information, see this video: Work Orders: Record log total estimated duration, first arrived on, completed on
Prerequisites
- Any version of Field Service
- Fields and processes related to First Arrived On, Completed On, and Total Estimated Duration are available with Field Service 8.8+
- You must be logged in as a user with Field Service - Dispatcher, Field Service - Administrator, or System Administrator security roles to edit work order substatuses and booking statuses
Note
Work order system statuses should never be edited because system jobs and plug-ins rely on these statuses. Instead, administrators should create custom work order substatuses that relate to work order system statuses.
Statuses and the work order life cycle
A field service organization wants to understand how the out-of-the-box statuses are designed for the work order process without any customizations, based on their specific business needs.
Field Service ships with standard work order system statuses and booking statuses that should be considered during all field service implementations; many processes are triggered based on those statuses, which makes the Field Service app more valuable for an organization by:
- automatically calculating and populating data.
- automating the next step in the work order process.
For example, when the Booking Status is changed to In Progress to indicate the field technician has arrived on site, the Actual Arrival Time field populates accordingly on the bookable resource booking. For another example, when the Work Order System Status is changed to Open-Completed, applicable work order products are converted to customer assets in order to begin building service history.
Let's walk through the standard work order and booking statuses at each stage of the work order life cycle.
When a work order is created, it has a status of Open-Unscheduled by default.
Once the work order is scheduled, the booking created for it has a booking status of Scheduled by default.
The creation of a booking automatically changes the work order system status to Open-Scheduled.
After the work order is scheduled to a field technician resource, you can see it on the Field Service Mobile app. Then the field technician can note that they are traveling to the work order location by changing the booking status to Traveling.
Each booking status has a color and icon and appears on the schedule board.
Changing the booking status to Traveling automatically changes the work order system status to Open - In Progress.
Note
If there are multiple bookings for a single work order, if at least one booking is traveling or in progress, the related work order will have a status of Open - In Progress.
When the field technician arrives on site and is ready to begin the work, they change the booking status to In Progress. The work order status remains as Open - In Progress.
On the related work order, the First Arrived On field is updated with the Actual Arrival Time of the booking.
During work, the field technician may want to record times they are on break by changing the booking status to On Break.
For both In Progress and On Break booking statuses, the work order system status remains as Open - In Progress.
When the work is complete, the field technician will change the booking status to Completed.
In the previous screenshot, the color and icon reflect a completed status. The duration is updated to the actual duration of the booking, and the end time is updated to reflect the time the status was changed to completed.
The related work order system status will become Open-Completed.
Note
If there are multiple bookings for a single work order, once all related booking have statuses of Completed (including ones that are Canceled), the related work order will have a status of Open - Completed.
Finally, a back-office worker will review the completed work order to make sure data was entered correctly, communicate with the customer, review survey results, and more depending on the organization's specific business needs. The last step is to change the work order system status to Closed-Posted.
Changing the work order system status to Closed-Posted is only performed by office workers in the web interface. In fact, the out-of-the-box resource security roles prohibit field technicians from editing the work order system status field on the Field Service Mobile app.
Here is a table summarizing the out-of-the-box relationship between work order system statuses and booking statuses.
| Work Order System Status | Booking Status | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Open-Unscheduled | -- | Not applicable, as booking does not exist yet |
| Open-Scheduled | Scheduled | |
| Open-In Progress | Traveling | |
| Open-In Progress | In Progress | |
| Open-In Progress | On Break | |
| Open-Completed | Completed | |
| Closed-Posted | -- | No booking status can change the work order system status to Closed-Posted. If there are any bookings with an incomplete or non-canceled status, changing the system status to Closed-Posted will update those bookings to a canceled state. |
| Closed-Canceled | Canceled | If the work order system status is changed to Closed-Canceled, all bookings with a status of Scheduled will change to Canceled. You can't cancel a work order if in progress bookings exist. Completed bookings will remain as completed. |
| Open-Unscheduled | Canceled | If the booking status is Canceled, and is the only booking, the work order system status will revert to Open-Unscheduled. If one of multiple bookings is canceled, the work order system status will revert to Open-Scheduled, Open-In Progress, or Open-Completed based on the other remaining uncanceled bookings. |
Status-related processes
Beyond work order system statuses updating booking statuses and vice versa, many processes and data updates are also triggered. Here are the most common.
Work order system status processes
Open – Completed
- Used work order products are converted to new customer assets if applicable. This conversion is accomplished by setting the Convert to Customer Asset field on the published product record to Yes.
Here is the customer asset that results from the used work order product. Notice the customer asset record references the specific work order product.
- Travel charge item is added to work order products, if applicable. For more information, see this article.
Closed – Posted
- Invoice is generated for used work order products and services billing account
- Actuals records are created for time and materials costs related to work orders and bookings. Sales actuals for billed products and services are created once the generated invoice is confirmed.
- Closed By field is updated.
- Closed On field is updated.
Booking status processes
Scheduled
- Miles Traveled is updated, calculated as the driving distance from the previous location to the booking location (typically the work order location).
- Booking Timestamp created. Booking timestamps track the date and time of all booking status changes.
Traveling
- Start time of bookable resource booking ("Booking") is updated to current time.
- Booking Timestamp is created.
In Progress
- Actual Arrival Time field is updated with the date and time when booking status is changed from the mobile app or schedule board, but not from the form.
- First Arrived On (Work Order) field on the related work order is updated with the Actual Arrival Time of the booking. If Actual Arrival Time is edited, manually or otherwise, First Arrived On will be updated. If there are multiple bookings, this field is updated with the actual arrival time of the first booking. The First Arrived On value will respect offline scenarios and calculate correctly once the technician syncs their mobile data.
- Actual Travel Duration field is updated, calculated as the total time the booking status is Traveling.
- Booking Timestamp is created.
On Break
- Booking Timestamp is created.
Completed
- End Time is updated.
- Total Duration in Progress is updated, calculated as the total time the booking status is In progress.
- Total Break Duration is updated, calculated as the total time the booking status is On Break.
- Total Cost is updated, defined as the internal cost of the resource for the booking, calculated as the sum total of actual travel duration, total duration in progress, and total break duration, multiplied by the resource's hourly rate.
- Total Billable Duration is updated, calculated as the sum total of total duration in progress and total break duration.
- Booking Journals created. Booking journals use booking timestamps to calculate the working duration, travel time, and break time for a specific booking. Booking journals also calculate internal resource costs for bookings based on resource's hourly rate as defined on the bookable resource record.
- Booking Timestamp is created.
- Completed On (Work Order) field on the related work order is updated with the end time of the booking. If the booking end time is edited, manually or otherwise, Completed On will be updated. If there are multiple bookings, this field is updated with the end time of the last booking, meaning the most recently completed booking related to the work order. The Completed On value will respect offline scenarios and calculate correctly once the technician syncs their mobile data.
By the end of the work order life cycle, you will have timestamps of all booking status changes from both the field technicians and dispatchers.
Example 1: Estimate work order substatus
In our next scenario, a field service organization wants to utilize work orders for estimating potential products, services, and prices for their clients and want to mark such work orders with a custom "Estimate" work order substatus.
Note
For this scenario, substatuses must be used. Work order system statuses should never be edited because system jobs and plug-ins rely on these statuses. Instead, administrators should create custom work order substatuses that relate to work order system statuses.
First, create a new work order substatus by going to Field Service > Settings > Work Order Substatuses > then select +New.
Enter for the following fields:
Name: Estimate.
System Status: Open-Unscheduled. When the field service organization is building an estimated work order, it's usually before it should be scheduled to a resource. The substatus will relate to the Open-Unscheduled system status.
Default Substatus: choose if you want this substatus populated by default when a work order has a system status of Open-Unscheduled. Because work orders are given a system status of Open-Unscheduled when created, this substatus would populate on all newly created work orders, but can be manually updated. If all or most work orders first originate as an estimate, then this field should be set to Yes, giving the work order creator one less field to manually populate. If only a few work orders are estimates, then set to No. In this example, we will choose Yes.
The next time a work order is created, this substatus will populate automatically or be available in the substatus lookup. The substatus lets dispatchers and other stakeholders know that this work order is a "work in progress" and not agreed upon yet with the customer.
Next, it's important to note that dispatchers do not schedule estimate work orders, as they are not ready yet. One way to notify them is to remove estimate work orders from the Unscheduled Work Orders view on the schedule board.
Go to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System > Entities > Resource Requirements > Views.
Next, edit the Unscheduled Work Order Requirements view to filter out requirements related to work orders where the substatus equals estimate.
Editing this view will remove estimate work orders from the lower pane in the schedule board, among other places.
Example 2: Delayed Booking Status
Field technicians want to make dispatchers aware if they are running more than 15 minutes behind schedule by changing the status of their bookings to "Delayed". This status change will help dispatchers manage the remaining bookings for that resource for the rest of the day by running Single Resource Optimization or triggering automated messages to the next customer.
First, go to Resource Scheduling > Settings > Booking Statuses > +New.
For the following fields:
Name: Enter "Delayed."
Status: Select Committed.
- Status Color: Choose a color. This color will appear on the schedule board when the booking has this status. Because the out-of-the-box Traveling status has a red color, one option is to make this delayed travel status a darker red that is distinguishable.
- Image URL: Select the web resource URL that references an image icon to appear on the schedule board. New images can be uploaded by going to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System > Web Resources.
- Field Service Status: select Traveling. The new Delayed status applies to the travel portion of the field service booking process. If for example, we wanted a status to indicate when actual work was taking longer than expected, we could choose In Progress for the Field Service Status.
Note
Field Service Status is required when creating booking statuses for Field Service use cases. This allows the booking status to fit into the above work order processes. By default, only booking statuses with field service statuses are available for work order bookings, but this is editable in Booking Setup Metadata.
Save and Close.
Now the new Delayed Booking Status will appear as an option on the Field Service Mobile for field technicians, and on the schedule board.
Follow-up work order substatus
Field service organizations often schedule a follow-up inspection after an initial installation or repair work order. If a follow-up is required, field technicians should note it with a custom "Follow-Up Required" work order substatus to ensure back-office workers create a follow-up before closing the work order.
Similar to the example before, go to Field Service > Settings > Work Order Substatuses > then select +New.
For the following fields:
Name: enter "Follow-Up Required."
System Status: enter Open-Completed, which implies the follow-up required substatus can only be entered on Open-Completed work orders and the organization's follow-up process should only be carried out on these work orders.
Default Substatus: set to Yes if all Open-Completed work orders should be given a substatus of Follow-Up Required by default. For our example, we will choose No because not all completed work orders require a follow-up so it's left to the discretion of the field technician.
Select Save and Close.
The substatuses will appear based on the work order system status. In the example above, Follow-Up Required only appears when the work order system status is Open-Completed because we related the two.
Configuration considerations
If your organization is using Resource Scheduling Optimization, then an additional field called Scheduling Method will appear on the book status entity.
Options include:
- Optimize
- Do Not Move
- Ignore
If you create a new custom Booking Status, then you should pick a scheduling method that relates to the field service booking status. For example, the out-of-the-box booking status Traveling has an Resource Scheduling Optimization scheduling method set to Do Not Move because Resource Scheduling Optimization should not move bookings that a field technician is traveling to. Therefore, using our previous example, our new Delayed booking status is related to the Traveling Field Service status, so its scheduling method should be set to Do Not Move as well.
For more information, see the article on Resource Scheduling Optimization configuration.
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