Creating Unplanned Work Orders - Web App Extended
Introduction
In order to add some context with regards to the creation of work orders within Fracttal CMMS, we need to look at the process
Typical Maintenance Options
All maintenance activities can be classified as either Planned or Unplanned. The diagram below shows the relation between planned and unplanned maintenance and standard industry maintenance option classifications.
While the above maintenance options provide a basic structure for categorizing maintenance work, most organizations, require more specific categories to effectively plan and track their maintenance activities.
For the purposes of this article we will be looking at the Unplanned Maintenance leg of the diagram above
Processes and Procedures
Depending on your operating environment and internal processes, you might choose to completely skip the process of first raising a work request, reviewing it and then turning it into a Work Order. Although this is not wrong, this article will cover the complete process from the raising of a Work Request, Turning it into a Work Order and Closing the Work Order.
Let's look at a simple (generic) work/ service request process that we will then demonstrate step-by-step in Fracttal.
Create Work Request
This can be done from both the Web Application as well as the Mobile Application. We will start by looking at how this is done on the Web Application then do the same but from the Mobile Application.
From Web Application - Technician Perspective
Done from a technician/ equipment operator's perspective
Navigation
1. From the menu bar on the left, open up Work Requests and click on My Work Requests
2. This will open Your Work Requests Window which will only contain requests that you have logged. Let's go over some of the basics:
2.1 Group: Depending on how your system is set up, you can use Groups to group different types of requests together making it easier for users to apply filters to a list of requests. Selecting a group from this drop-down will filter your list of requests according to their assigned grouping.
2.2 Keywords: Same as the Group function, Keywords also allows you to apply filters and design workflows in the Fracttal system based on the Keyword applied to the request upon creation.
2.3 Create new Work Request: The name of this button says it, clicking here will open up a window for creating a new Work Request
2.4 The Work Requests grid list, houses a list of all the requests raised by you and shows some of the basic details of each request such as day create, the request's reference number as well as the work order reference number if a work order was created from your request.
2.5 Clicking the eye icon will open up your request and show you the details as well as any additional comments made by whoever reviewed your request.
Create Request
1. Let's create a WR. Top right of the My Work Requests page, click on the + Create new Work Request button:
2. This will open up a new WR window. Next let's assume you know the asset that this request needs to be raised against. Click on the tick box next to "Do you know the Asset?"
3. An asset lookup/ drop-down bar will appear. Next click on the asset look-up drop-down bar
4. This will bring up the asset look-up window. Here you have a number of ways to look up and search for the asset/ location you want to associate with this WR.
Note: Depending on the location/ assets you have been assigned to, only those will display in this list. You will not be able to see assets/ locations that your user does not have access to
4.1 The advanced filters button will open up a number of additional filters you will be able to apply to the list for a more granular look-up
4.2 This search bar is a text search, allowing you to simply type in the asset name or code to look up the asset/ location
4.3 Hovering your mouse over a column header will display a drop-down that gives you additional filtering/ sorting options specific to that column.
5. Once you find the asset you where looking for, simply double click on it to select it
6. With your asset now selected, next provide some details about the requested work in the description and comments fields:
7. Next specify the date and time of the incident:
Note: Cannot be a date or time in the future
8. Clicking on the urgency button, you can toggle between urgent/ not so urgent
9. Advanced Option
9.1 Opening up the Advanced Options/ Information, allows you to add additional information to the WR. Let's do a quick overview
9.2 Requested By: This will always default to the user logging the request. This cannot be edited
9.3 Reference: This text field can be used to supply any additional reference that should be associated with this WR
9.4 Location: You can either manually fill in a location/ address details or by clicking on the GEO icon, you can pull in your device's GEO location (mostly used by mobile app users)
9.5 Group: This is where you select the group that this WR should be associated with as mentioned earlier in this article
9.6 Group 1 & 2: This is a further/ additional grouping mechanism in the system and you can select from the list of pre-defined groups set up in your system. These additional groupings is quite useful for reporting purposes.
9.7 Keywords: As mentioned earlier in this article, you can associate a keyword with the WR by selecting one or multiple keywords from the drop-down list.
10. Finally, click on the Attach Images button at the bottom of the window if you want to attach images or pdf files to this WR
11. When you're done, hit the Save button at the top of the screen
12. This will add the request to your list as well as send you and the person/ user responsible for reviewing the request a notification (Depends on how your workflow is set up in the system)
13. While the request has not been turned into a Work Order/ Cancelled by the Supervisor, clicking on the eye icon next to the request will open the request and allow you to further interact with it
13.1 With your request open again, you can choose to cancel the request by clicking on the Cancel button top right of the window
13.2 The General tab, shows all the details and information that you filled in when you created the WR
13.3 The Work Request Status tab, will show you the status of your request as well as any comments made about your request, changes in status and will also allow you to interact with your supervisor about this request using the built-in chat function under comments on this tab
13.4 The Attachments tab, will list all the images/ attachments associated with your WR. Here you can also add additional attachments to the WR by clicking on the + New File button top right of the tab window
Great job, you're done!
From Mobile Application - Technician Perspective
Done from a Technician/ Equipment Operator's perspective
Because we have already stepped through the details in the section above, this section will only cover the basics. However the same details as shown in the web app can be applied in the mobile app depending on a user's access rights.
Create Request
1. From the menu bar on the left, navigate to Work Requests, then My Work Requests
2. In the My Work Requests list, click on the +Add icon bottom of the window to start
3. This will open up the new WR window. Let's go over the basic information of the WR
3.1 Click on the camera icon to attach a photo to your WR. You have the option to open up your device's camera and take a photo or upload a photo from your device's photo gallary
3.2 Click on the drop-down to open up your asset register. Search for the asset associated with this WR. When you find the asset you want to associate with this WR, simply select it to pull it into the WR
3.2.1 Use the advanced filter icon top right to apply more advanced filters to your list
3.2.2 You can type in the name/ code of the asset you are looking for in the text search bar
3.2.3 If you make use of QR codes on your equipment, use this option to simply scan the QR code of the asset
3.3 Once you have selected your asset, next provide a description of the issue as well as any additional comments or information relevant to the WR
3.4 You can use switch to toggle between and urgent/ not so urgent WR
3.5 Provide the date and time of the incident you are reporting/ that requires maintenance intervention
You can stop here and submit your WR by hitting save top of the screen.
4. If you want to add additional information to the WR, scroll down until you see the Advanced Information section:
5. Same as on the Web Application. But let's step through the basics
5.1 Reference: This text field can be used to supply any additional reference that should be associated with this WR
5.2 GEO Location: Clicking here will allow you to pull in your device's GEO location
Note: In order for this to work you must allow the app access to your device location
5.3 Group: This is where you select the group that this WR should be associated with as mentioned earlier in this article
5.4 Group 1 & 2: This is a further/ additional grouping mechanism in the system and you can select from the list of pre-defined groups set up in your system. These additional groupings is quite useful for reporting purposes.
5.5 Keywords: As mentioned earlier in this article, you can associate a keyword with the WR by selecting one or multiple keywords from the drop-down list.
6. When you're done filling out all the necessary details, hit the Save button top right of the screen to submit your WR
Great, your'e done!
Review Work Request and Raise Work Order
As mentioned earlier in the article, the assumption is that Requests are logged by technicians/ equipment operators, then reviewed by a Supervisor, approved and turned into a Work Order. This section briefly covers reviewing the WR, rejecting it or approving it and turning it into a Work Order.
From Web Application - Supervisor Perspective
Navigation
1. From the main menu on the left, navigate to Work Requests, then click on the Manage Request sub-menu
2. This will open up the Work Request Manager window. Depending on your user access rights, in this window you can manage all the Work Requests that are associated with your department, facility/ location and/ users that are part of your team. If your user is limited to a certain site, facility/ location, you will only see the requests associated with assets under the site, facility/ location you have been assigned to.
Let's look at some of the basics of this window:
2.1 Location filter: If you oversee multiple sites, facilities/ locations, you can use the Location filter to only show requests associated with a certain site, facility/ location
2.2 Group filter: As mentioned earlier in this article, you can use this filter to only show requests associated with a certain grouping that have been selected on those requests
2.3 Keywords filter: Again, use this filter to only have requests show that are associated with specific Keywords
2.4 Change Status button: By selecting one or multiple requests, you can use the Change Status button to batch update the status of requests
2.5 Options button: Clicking here, will open up a number of additional Options that can be applied to the Work Requests like editing Group names, Keywords etc (Dependant on your user's access rights)
2.6 Request tick boxes: You can select one or multiple requests by ticking the box next to each
2.7 Eye icon: clicking on this icon will open up the WR so that you can view/ edit the WR
2.8 This is a "Quick Action" icon, by clicking on this icon, you can turn the WR into a Work Order
2.9 If there is a Work Order associated with the request, clicking on this calendar icon will show you the details of the associated Work Order
3. Let's jump into a single WR and look at some of the details. To do this you can click on the eye icon or simply double click on the WR you want to view.
4. With the WR open, you can edit certain things. Let's look at the basics:
4.1 Change/ Update the status of the WR by clicking on the Change Status button, selecting the appropriate status from the drop-down and provide a reason/ notes on the status change
4.2 If the person who raised the WR has selected the incorrect asset, you can click on the drop-down to open up the asset register and select the correct asset from your asset register. This also applies if the requester did not select an asset at all when the WR was created
4.3 Work Request Status tab: clicking here will open up the status tab of the WR. In this window you can see the status history of the WR as well as see any comments made by users against this request. You can also "chat" to the user that created the request by using the comments feature in this tab/ window.
4.4 Attachments tab: here you can see any images/ files associated/ submitted with this request. Depending on your user rights, you can also add additional files/ attachments to the WR.
Turn Request into Work Order
1. In the Manage Requests window, click on the "Quick Action" icon next to the WR you want to turn into a Work Order
2. A window will pop up with the very basic details of the WR, click Next > to continue
3. A detailed window will come up. Here you need to specify more details and info related to the work order you are raising. By default some of the request's details will already pull in here.
3.1 You can update the task/ work order description
3.2 Here you can add additional notes/ comments for whoever is going to execute the work
3.3 Click on the task type drop-down to select the Maintenance Type associated with the job that will be carried out i.e. Mechanical, Electrical, Corrective Maintenance, Inspection etc
3.4 Group 1 and 2 allows you to further delineate this work oder. For example, let's say as my main Maintenance Type I have selected Electrical, I can then use group 1 to specify that this work order is related to Safety or a specific Regulation, I can then use group 2 to also associate the work order with a specific supervisor/ department. Very useful for reporting and filtering purposes. All these are user definable and depends on how your system is set up.
3.5 Assign a priority to the work order you are raising
3.6 Provide an estimated duration that it will take technicians to execute this job
You can stop here and select Next > to continue, or if this is something that you are back dating, you can select the Yes radio button under "This task has already been done" capture information on a job that has already been completed. For now we will just continue.
4. Hitting Next will bring up a sub-tasks window. Here you will specify the actual work that needs to be executed on this job
Note: You always need to have at least one Text sub-task
5. You can edit the default procedure task by clicking on the pencil icon next to the task, or add new tasks to the work order by clicking on the + Add SubTask button
6. When adding a new sub task to the work order, you can choose between different task types
7. For now we will just add an additional Yes/No subtask and fill out some additional info on the sub task
7.1 You can apply an additional task grouping to this sub task by selecting one of the predefined groupings in the drop-down
7.2 Here you can ask a question, give an instruction etc depending on the type of task you are adding
7.3 Any sub task you add to a work order can be made mandatory. This forces whoever provides feedback on the work order to complete the sub task
8. When done hit Save top right corner to add the sub task
9. Once you've added/ edited all the sub tasks, hit the Next > button to continue
10. You will be presented with two options.
10.1 Send the work order to your work queue so that your planner can review the work order, plan for when it needs to be executed and then schedule it. Choosing this option, you will need to specify the date you prefer this work to be done
10.2 Sending the work order to your work order queue will push the work order directly to your Open Work Orders list. Choosing this option, you will need to assign this work order to either someone on your team or you can assign this work order to a service provider. The list of personnel that you can choose from, again depends on your user rights and which site, facility or location you are assigned to. Select the responsible person from your in-house personnel list to assign this work order to that person.
11. When done, hit Next > to continue
12. A dialog box will come up telling you that the work order has been created and provide you with the work order number
13. You will note in the Manage Requests window that the request has been updated and shows that a work order was created from it with the work order reference number
Related Article
Once the steps above are done, please review:
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