Understanding Service Request and Work Order Close

This section discusses:

  • Service request close.

  • Work order task close.

  • Work order close.

Employees and non-employees can create service requests using a self-service page, or an agent can create a service request for a requester based on the agent's knowledge of an existing problem. Once either a requester or the agent creates a service request:

  • The agent can send a technician to resolve an easy problem without a work order, such as adding toner to a printer or moving one piece of furniture in an office, or the agent can resolve a problem, such as changing a user's ID.

    Once the agent or technician resolves this type of service request, the agent adds a note about the work performed, changes the status to complete, and saves the page, which automatically sends an email informing the requester that the service request is complete and that the request will be closed in N days. The number of days until the service request is closed (N days) is set up in the service request business unit Definition page. The requester can:

    • Click the link in the email to access the self-service service request update page and reopen the service request.

    • Manually change the status of the service request to closed.

    • Allow N days to pass and the system closes the service request automatically.

      Note: All service requests with a status of complete are closed automatically whenever the Work Order Close batch process is run on the date the number of close days expires for the service request (the process must be run with the Transaction Type field set to All or Service Request). Typically, the Work Order Close process is run once or twice a day depending on volume.

  • If the agent cannot easily resolve the problem, the agent can create a work order to resolve it.

    When either the technician or the agent changes the status of the work order to complete:

    • A notification is sent to the requester providing a summary of work performed and the number of days before the service request automatically closes.

    • If the requester reopens the service request within the allowable number of days before the close, the agent can close the service request and create a new service request and a new work order.

For example, the value in the Days to Close field is 20 for service request business unit SRBU1 and the following service requests are marked complete on the dates in the following table:

Service Request

Completion Date

Service Request automatically closes on:

SR001

01/01/2005

21st January 2005

Note: The requester or agent can manually close this service request on or before this date.

SR002

01/10/2005

30th January 2005

Note: The requester or agent can manually close this service request on or before this date.

SR003

12/31/2004

19th January 2005

Note: The requester or agent can manually close this service request on or before this date.

Once a service request is canceled or closed, the fields in the service request are display only.

Once a user changes the status of a work order task to complete, then the user can close the task. To close a work order task:

  • An authorized user can manually change the status of the task from Complete to Closed, based on the established Maintenance Management page in User Preferences.

    This status marks the task for closure so that when you run the Work Order Close process (WM_CLOSE), the system ignores the Close Days (grace period) in the work order business unit or work order type and closes the task. If chargebacks are associated with the task, the system runs an edit to ensure that a project activity owning organization is specified.

    Note: This setup in User Preferences - Maintenance Management only determines whether a specific user can set the work order task to complete or close. It does not prevent a user from running the batch Work Order Close process. You must set up PeopleTools Security if you want to prevent a user from running the batch Work Order Close process.

  • When you run the Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) batch process, the system automatically closes a task with a status of Complete after the expiration of the close days (grace period) specified in the work order business unit or the work order type. If no activity occurs against the work order task based on the defined close days, then the task is subject to closing.

    For example, if the close days interval is 10 and the completion date of the task is July 1, 2005, then the Work Order Close batch process automatically closes the task after 10 days when you run Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) process. If other tasks are open for the work order, the process only closes the one task and leaves the others open. When all the tasks are closed, then the work order is closed when you run the Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) batch process.

  • The user runs the Work Order Close batch process (WM_CLOSE) for the work order, which closes all tasks associated with the work order as long as they have a status of complete and the number of close days (grace period) has expired.

When you manually change the status of a work order task to Close, you can no longer add any costs to the work order task in feeder systems such as PeopleSoft Purchasing, PeopleSoft Expenses and PeopleSoft Inventory.

For example, you can no longer create a purchase order from the work order task or create a purchase order directly from PeopleSoft Purchasing and associate it with a work order task once the work order task is closed. However, if you created existing purchase orders or requisitions before changing the status of the task to Complete and PeopleSoft Purchasing has not processed them, then these purchase orders and requisitions can continue to process the costs. This condition remains true for any work order task transactions that reside in any of the subsystems associated with PeopleSoft Maintenance Management.

Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) Batch Processing

When you run the Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) batch process:

  • The process triggers the Cost Summarization process, which summarizes the actual costs for labor, materials, and tools for the work order and each work order task based on the work order task and displays them in the Cost page of the work order.

    See Understanding Work Order Task Completion.

    See Understanding Cost Summarization.

  • The process updates the asset maintenance costs and the total asset downtime hours, which is a total of all the downtime entered in the work order task in PeopleSoft Asset Management Maintenance History.

  • The process applies project activity asset integration rules for work order managed projects; these rules include:

    • Evaluating the capitalization limit specified for each work order task to determine if the dollar amount is subject to capitalization.

    • Updating the asset integration rules and retirement rules in PeopleSoft Project Costing, including filters, for asset capitalization and retirement.

  • The process applies chargeback rules for tasks associated with work order managed projects; these rules include:

    • Validating the project activity owning organization information is entered in the work order task if the work order tasks are marked for chargeback.

    • Updating the distribution status for the work order task rows in PeopleSoft Project Costing to enable these rules to be available for chargeback accounting generation if applicable.

      You must close a work order task to generate chargeback accounting entries.

Note: If an asset is not associated with a work order task, then the process does not update PeopleSoft Asset Management.

You can only close a work order if the status of each of the work order tasks associated with the work order is closed or canceled. If any work order tasks are incomplete, the process does not close the work order. If technicians with pending time sheets are assigned to a work order task, the process does not close the work order task. Work order tasks that are associated with an asset require a defined maintenance type.

Note: Standing work orders are an exception to this rule. You select a check box in the Miscellaneous page of the work order to identify that the work order is a standing work order.

See Using the Work Order Miscellaneous Page.

Capitalization Processing for Work Order Tasks

If a work order task is associated with a work order managed project, the Work Order Close process (WM_CLOSE) verifies that an asset is associated with the work order task and that the task is set up for asset capitalization in the PeopleSoft Maintenance Management Task Accounting page. If the currency specified for the asset in PeopleSoft Asset Management is different that the currency specified in the work order business unit, the Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) converts the cost from the currency specified in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management to the cost for currency specified in the Asset Management business unit. The process checks the capitalization limit on the work order task. Based on the capitalization limit, if the task is eligible for capitalization, the process selects (activates) the Capitalization Switch for the PeopleSoft Project Costing project activity that is associated with in the work order task and also updates the Filter ID with the capitalization filter selected for the work order task in the PeopleSoft Maintenance Management Task Accounting page. However, the Work Order Close process (WM_CLOSE) does not run the Capitalization process. The Capitalization process is run separately in PeopleSoft Project Costing, Assets, Express Capitalization Process. Once this process is run, you must run the Cost Summarization process to view the capitalization costs in the PeopleSoft Maintenance Management, Inquiries and Reports, Capitalization inquiry.

Important! PeopleSoft Project Costing only capitalizes financial assets.

See Understanding Asset Capitalization Processes.

Chargeback Processing for Work Order Tasks (WO Managed Only)

During the execution of a work order task that is associated with a work order managed project, each of the subsystems and the tools transactions in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management sends the labor, inventory, payables, and tools transaction costs to the PROJ_RESOURCE table. When the Project Costing Pricing engine prices a work order task transaction, the Pricing engine updates the GL_DISTRIB_STATUS in the PROJ_RESOURCE table to hold, which prevents the Project Costing Project Accounting engine from selecting these rows. When the Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) process runs for a work order task, the process updates the GL_DISTRIB_STATUS to costed. The accounting engine can then pick up the costed rows to generate chargeback accounting entries to post in the PeopleSoft General Ledger. The costs are charged back to the organization indicated in the ChartField distribution row in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management.

See Understanding the Pricing Process.

Retirement Processing for Work Order Tasks

When the Work Order Close process (WM_CLOSE) closes a work order task associated with a work order managed project that involves the retirement of the asset, then the process initiates the retirement cost flow. When you select the information for asset capitalization and chargebacks on the Work Order Task Accounting page, the information is updated on the project activity when the work order is closed.

See Retiring Assets.

See Understanding Integration with PeopleSoft Maintenance Management.

Asset Maintenance History

The Work Order Close (WM_CLOSE) process updates the asset maintenance costs and the total asset downtime hours, which is a total of all the downtime entered for a work order task, in PeopleSoft Asset Maintenance History. The Maintenance Cost Data Extraction process (WM_ASSETCOST) extracts the costs from the Asset Maintenance History. Run this process on a regular basis, selecting the appropriate parameters, to enables the Maintenance Cost Inquiry to display the latest maintenance cost information.

See Using the Asset Maintenance History Inquiry.