Work Order Creation Using the Work Order Component

Work Order Page

The Work Order page contains the header information that applies to the entire work order. Some of the information is optional and is more often entered at the task level. The Work Order page includes:

Overall header information, which consists of the estimated start and ending dates of the work order, the work order duration, and service request information if the service request was used to create the work order.

You can also see the current status of the work order. PeopleSoft Maintenance Management enables you to define statuses that are unique to your organization. However, you must match these unique values to internal system status values. These internal values dictate the activities that you can perform in a work order.

The approval status also appears in the header information. You can set up workflow to arrange for levels of management to approve the work order. The status of this approval process appears in the work order. You indicate in the setup of the work order business unit, work order type, and shop whether to enforce workflow approval or let the system automatically approve work orders.

You can attach information, such as diagrams, schematics, and other files that are relevant to the work order. In addition, you can enter values for supplemental data elements on the work order. Organizations often have specific information, such as additional fields, to describe hazardous waste data that they want to include in a work order. PeopleSoft Maintenance Management enables you to set up supplemental data elements and display them on a work order page without changing the underlying data model.
Asset information.

You can select the asset to maintain or repair or leave this field blank, because some maintenance and repairs do not involve assets. You can omit the asset information on the Work Order (header) page and specify an asset at the work order task level. If you select an asset on the Work Order (header) page, the system populates the work order tasks with that asset information. You can override the asset information on work order tasks if necessary.

Select the Display Asset Detailed Description check box on the Installation Options - Maintenance Management page (Set Up Financials/Supply Chain, Install, Installation Options, Maintenance Management) to view detailed description of the assets on the work order pages.

When you set up the work order business unit that is used to create a work order, the Definition page contains an Asset Lookup Field. You select the type of asset identification that you want to appear on the work order. You can select either asset ID, vehicle identification number (VIN), tag number, or serial ID. The asset lookup field that you select in the business unit will appear as the field name in the work order. Other asset information includes the asset location, the asset area ID, the asset criticality, and the parent asset, which you can select for assets that are components of other assets.

If the asset that you select has any warranties with which it is associated, a visual indicator displays a message that at least one active warranty exists. You can click a link to view those warranties to verify that you are not over servicing or under servicing an asset.

Any asset that is identified as hazardous appears with an alert on the work order to caution the user before beginning work. You can also access a Downtime link to enter the amount of time that the asset will be down. This information is updated in PeopleSoft Asset Management. An Asset Details link appears on the page, which provides additional information about the asset. You can also click links to view the Work Order Maintenance History and the PeopleSoft Asset Management Asset Maintenance History for the asset.
You can also define data that describes, quantifies, and qualifies asset failure events from various perspectives from the Work Order, Work Order Completion, Technician Workbench components, or directly on the Work Order Failure Tracking component.

See Understanding Work Order Failure Tracking and Analysis.
Job template.

When you identify an asset, you can search for and access the appropriate job template and copy the requirements data that is specified in the work order tasks and associated with the job template to the work order. This helps to streamline the data entry for complex or frequently occurring jobs. You can create additional tasks for the work order over and above the tasks that were created by the job template.
Work order tasks.

You can add work order tasks from this page. However, if you plan to define resources and other requirements for a task, you normally create and define each task on the Requirements page. Each task that you create is listed in this grid at the bottom of the Work Order page.

Requirements Page

The Requirements page enables you to define each work order task for planning and estimating purposes. You can optionally define the resource requirements for each task in this page. The information in the Requirements page includes:

The required start and end dates and times of the task and the duration of the task.

You can also manually change the status of a task. If the task depends on another task, you can identify that task and indicate the percentage of overlap between the two tasks.
Additional task data.

If you are a user with access to modify work order accounting information, you can click a link to access the Work Order Task Accounting page and select the appropriate capitalization/retirement filter, enter a minimum capitalization amount, and select a rate set or rate plan, which is set up in the Project Costing system. The Project Costing system uses this information to calculate chargeback costs for this work order task.

A default project activity value appears as read-only if this is a work order-managed project. You must select an activity if this work order is associated with a Project Costing-managed project.

If the shop that is associated with the work order allows crew scheduling, a default preferred crew ID is derived from the shop. You can override this crew, as well as change the shop for the crew for the task.

This is also where you can identify the name of a supervisor who is responsible for the work order, the task scheduler, and a contact. When you enter a scheduler's name, this task automatically appears in the Work Order Workbench for this scheduler.
Asset Information

If you identified an asset in the header on the Work Order page, this information is copied to each task. You can override this default data with another asset. If you specified that you want to use multiple assets in a work order in the work order business unit, you can identify different assets for each task. If ESRI mapping is installed, you can click a Map It button to view the location of this work order task on an ESRI map.

Note:

The integration with ESRI ARCGIS (Geographic Information System) and Asset Lifecycle Management is no longer supported as of FSCM Update Image 9.2.055.
Problem reporting.

The problem group, problem, cause, and resolution (PCR) fields enable you to associate the asset in the work order task with a specific problem. You define these codes in advance and create a problem group, which creates a hierarchical relationship between a particular problem, its associated causes, and possible resolutions that are associated with the cause. You can also associate a problem group with a classification of assets. When you select a problem group for a work order task, the problem, cause, and resolution field value choices are narrowed based on the way that you set up the problem group. You can use this information to track a recurring problem that is associated with an asset to determine whether you want to continue to repair the asset. You can associate the resolution codes with work order task templates and work order job templates so that when you find an appropriate resolution to a problem, you can select a template and automatically copy the necessary resources to a work order. This step can save you time and improve accuracy.

See Understanding Work Order Templates.
Resource requirements for a work order task.

You can define resource requirements for labor, inventory, purchased items, on-hand materials, and tools for each work order task. You can also create work order task templates and predefine some of this requirement information. When you associate the template with the task, the requirements are copied to the task. You can define requirements for:
- Labor resources.
  
  The craft that is identified in each work order task defines the labor resource requirements. You can enter the number of labor resources that you will need for this craft and the total number of hours that each resource will work. You can view the qualifications for resources that are associated with this craft and add to or modify those qualifications based on the qualifications that you need to complete the work order task. You can also enter the required start and end dates and times for the resources to work. If you indicate in the work order business unit that you want to record estimated costs for these labor resources, then the labor requirements display the estimated cost and billing amounts. These amounts are calculated based on the total number of hours times the number of craft persons that are required for the task times the labor cost rate and billing rate. The system derives the labor cost rate and billing rate from either the work order business unit or the shop.
  
  If your organization intends to assign crews to work order task requirements, you can use the Crew Scheduling Workbench to allocate the crew to work orders. The requirements for each work order task are automatically updated based on the crew assignments. Before performing the crew assignment activities for a given crew schedule period, you would need to first define the Crew Capacity Plan for that period.
- Inventory resources.
  
  You must install PeopleSoft Inventory to display the Inventory Requirements grid. From the PeopleSoft Inventory Item table, you can select the items that you plan to use to repair or maintain the asset that is identified on the work order task. If one or more EPLs is set up for the asset and inventory parts are defined, then you can select the parts from multiple applicable EPL templates. You can also add selected inventory items to an EPL. In each item row, you enter the planned quantity and the unit of measure for each item, which the system uses to calculate the estimated cost per unit and the estimated cost for the planned quantity. You control whether you want to calculate estimated costs in the work order business unit. You can enter any delivery instructions for the material, and when you identify the item and the quantity, the PeopleSoft Inventory system indicates whether the items are committed and displays the item SetID, the Inventory business unit, and the GL business unit that the system uses to post the amounts to the GL from PeopleSoft Inventory.
  
  Note:
  
  You can identify some items as floor stock. This means that the system does not include these items in the calculation of the costs for a work order. Floor stock refers to high volume, low cost items that are used regularly in a shop and that are of insignificant value to warrant the effort of charging them directly to every work order. Typical floor stock items are bolts, nuts, belts, and certain fluids, such as antifreeze, oil, and more.
- Purchase/On-hand resources.
  
  You can define the non-inventory items and open description items that do not require an item ID. Open description resources can be for a specific part that is not defined in the item table, a tool that is required for the completion of the work order, or a contract labor resource. For contract resources, you can optionally elect to set up a non-inventory item ID for that resource and use the item ID instead of an open description. You can also identify the materials that are on-hand in the shop and are therefore not calculated in the work order costs. If an EPL is set up for the asset and non-inventory, open description items and tools are defined in the EPL, then you can directly select the materials and tools that are defined in the list for the asset from the EPL. Similar to inventory items, you enter the planned quantity that you need for the work order task, the unit of measure, and any delivery instructions. If the item is a non-inventory item, the system displays the item SetID and GL business unit. If you indicate in the work order business unit that you want to calculate estimated costs, then the system multiples quantity based on the unit of measure times the unit cost of the selected type of resource and displays the estimated cost for each type of resource that you need to purchase. You determine in the work order business unit whether you want to purchase these resources using a purchase order or requisition created from PeopleSoft Purchasing, or a requisition created from PeopleSoft eProcurement. You can define requirements and copy these requirements to the Schedules — Purchase/On-Hand grid. When you access the Schedules - Purchase/On-Hand grids for the work order task, depending on which option you selected in the business unit, you can create a purchase order or requisition directly from the work order in PeopleSoft Purchasing or Peoplesoft eProcurement. You can also schedule the rows for the task and load the staging tables where they are converted into requisitions. Once requisitions are created, PeopleSoft Security controls whether the requisition can be accessed in PeopleSoft Purchasing or PeopleSoft eProcurement.
- Tool resources.
  
  Tools are assets that are used to perform work order tasks and are located in the asset repository. Tool requirements are based on selecting one or more asset classifications (asset type, subtype, manufacturer ID, and model). You enter quantity of a given type of tool that you need to complete the work order task and the number of hours that the one or more tools are needed. For tools, you can also enter the estimated usage based on the unit of measure that is appropriate to that tool. For example, you might need to use only one cement mixer for four hours to repair a wall. However, the cement mixer costs eight dollars per day to use. In this case, you would enter an estimated usage of one day. The cost per day is multiplied times this estimated usage figure and the required quantity to determine the estimated cost for the cement mixer. You can also enter estimated start and end dates and times for each tool.
Instructions, a checklist, attachments, and supplemental data with each work order task.

You can enter step-by-step instructions on how to perform the task and create a checklist of information to guide the technician in completing the task. When you identify the checklist after task steps as required, the system prevents you from changing the status of the task to complete until the technician digitally signs off on all of the required steps. If the checklist step is identified as before task, you cannot transition the task's status to a work in progress user-defined status until the step is completed.

If the system calculated the estimated costs for each type of resource requirement, then these costs are totaled and compared to the scheduled costs and actual costs in the Costs page of the work order.

Note:

Selecting an existing work order task template copies the requirements that are defined in the template to each of the grids (labor, inventory, purchase/on-hand, and tools) for the work order task.

Schedules Page

You enter the scheduled start and end dates and times for a task on the Schedules page. You can override the duration of the task, change the status of the task, select a dependent task and overlap percentage, if applicable, and a contact on this page. The default asset information is normally derived from the Requirements page or from the Work Order page. However, if no asset information was entered on the Requirements page or the Work Order page, you can select an asset for the task on this page if this task applies to an asset. If ESRI mapping is enabled, you can click the Map It button to access an ESRI map for this work order from this page. The same links that are on the Requirements page are available on this page.

If you defined resource requirements on the Requirements page, you can copy these requirements to the Schedules page for labor, inventory, purchase/on-hand, and tool resources.

The resource schedules include:

Labor.

PeopleSoft Maintenance Management enables schedulers to schedule labor resources individually or based on a crew. Labor resources, whether individual or within a crew, are selected based on craft code. When scheduling individual resources, you can select a button that initiates the searching process, which matches the pool of resources that are set up as a resource group in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management with the labor resource requirements for the work order task, and then recommends labor resources with the qualification and availability percentages. These percentages function as a guide in scheduling the resources to the work order tasks.

You can overbook a labor resource if necessary. You can also check the individual employee's calendar for availability. The system recommends labor resources based on the continuous scheduling flag, which means that you can schedule the resource only for a continuous block of time. If no employees are available to perform the task, you can create a purchase order or purchase requisition to hire someone from outside of the organization.

You can establish the schedule costs for each labor resource by entering the number of hours that the resource will work on the task. The default labor cost and bill rates are derived from the work order business unit or shop. The shops that are associated with scheduled labor resources are automatically added to the shop list on the Work Order Access page, which enables the resources to access the work order tasks in the Technician Workbench or to search for and access express work orders. You can also override the associated ChartField distribution for each resource. All accounting for labor resource charges is set up in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management and in PeopleSoft Expenses (which share their time-entry infrastructure), and the time data load to PeopleSoft Project Costing, which calculates actual costs and chargeback amounts.
PeopleSoft Inventory.

You must install PeopleSoft Inventory to use this feature, which results in the display of a link to the Inventory Schedules grid on the Schedules page of the work order. You can copy the Inventory requirements to the Inventory Schedules grids.

You can determine the parts that are required to repair or maintain the asset by selecting from the EPL if they are defined for the asset in PeopleSoft Asset Management. The EPL contains a list of the inventory and non-inventory parts that you need to repair and maintain the asset. PeopleSoft Maintenance Management enables you to select from multiple applicable EPL templates from the Schedules page. You can also select an inventory item for a row and add the item to the EPL, if applicable.

You can manually select an item from PeopleSoft Inventory and add it to a row in the Inventory - Schedules grid.

You can check the availability of an item based on a specific date by clicking the Item Availability button, which indicates on the Inventory Schedules Availability grid whether the item is available. If the item is not available, you can click a link to determine the reason or reasons that it is unavailable and view the earliest date that it will become available. You can also click the Item Availability and Balance inquiry links on the Inventory Schedules grid to review the current status of a selected item. You can determine item availability based on future dates for a batch of inventory items by generating the Work Order Task Material Readiness Report. You can enter delivery instructions, calculate the scheduled costs, and override the ChartField distribution values for each item. You must enter a date when you need the inventory item for the work order.

You indicate in the work order business unit, shop, or work order type level whether to commit and reserve each item or a batch of items that are specified in a work order based on a combination of commit rules and reservation rules. Items are committed based on the creation of the parts list, the creation of a pick plan, or a change in the work order task status, or you can commit the parts at the time that you want to reserve them. You select a commit rule and then select a reservation rule that reserves parts based on the creation of a parts list, pick plan, change in the work order status, or batch reserve. The scheduling row for the item indicates whether an item was committed and reserved. Authorized schedulers can also click the Reserve button in the work order to override the reservation rules and reserve an item on the spot.

You can also unreserve an item if a quantity is needed for a work order task with a higher priority. Planners and schedulers can also click the Shortage Workbench button on the Schedules page to move demand from one work order to another and to notify the primary work order contact that a quantity of an item is no longer reserved. When a work order task is closed, canceled, or completed, the system verifies that you want to perform this process, including the returning of excess demand to PeopleSoft Inventory. If you indicate that you want to continue, the system automatically handles removal of the excess demand from the work order task.

You can click the link to the pegging workbench to reserve incoming supply to your work order or view the pegging status of the item in the pegging inquiry. If you have been granted user access on the User Preferences, Maintenance Management page, you can select the pick plan processing options, as well as generate a pick plan. Depending on how you set up the pick plan, the technician can either print out the pick plan and hand it to the inventory clerk, or the system can route the pick plan to the inventory clerk. PeopleSoft Inventory provides additional options for the pick plan batch process that you can set up to run at various times that are appropriate to your organization.

See PeopleSoft Supply Chain Management Common Information: Understanding Pegging.
Purchase/On-hand.

To complete a work order task, you can identify items that require procurement, such as contracted labor, tools, non-inventory items, and open description resources in the Purchase/On-hand grid. You can also identify one or more resources that you might already have on-hand. These resources do not require procurement, but are required to complete the work order. Costs are not taken into consideration for any resources that are marked as on hand. If an EPL is available for the asset that is associated with this work order task, you can select the non-inventory parts that you need to purchase from multiple applicable EPL templates. You can also add non-inventory parts to an existing EPL.

You can inquire on any existing requisitions or purchase orders that were created for work orders by clicking the Procurement Inquiry button. You specify supplier information for the purchase, select each resource line that you want to purchase, and load those lines into staging tables. PeopleSoft Purchasing creates either PeopleSoft Purchasing purchase orders, PeopleSoft Purchasing requisitions, or PeopleSoft eProcurement requisitions depending on how you configure the work order business unit. If you have proper authority, you can click the Add Requisition or the Add Purchase Order button to navigate to the Procurement maintenance page and add a new requisition or purchase order.

The Purchase/On-hand Schedules grid also identifies whether a resource has been pegged and provides access to the Pegging Inquiry component in PeopleSoft Inventory. Once the resource is pegged, you can click the Item Availability button to determine availability of the selected item based on the scheduled due date. The Purchase/On-Hand Schedules Availability grid displays whether the resource is available. If it is not available, you can click the link to view the reasons that it is not available. You can also determine item availability based on future dates for a batch of procured items by generating the Work Order Task Material Readiness Report.
Tools.

Tools are assets that are used to maintain and repair other assets. You can identify them based on their asset characteristics (asset type, subtype, manufacturer ID, and model), as well as assign specific assets, which are identified by asset ID and the Asset Management business unit, if necessary. You can set up resource groups for tool resources, just as you can for labor resources, and perform searches for appropriate tools. The search compares the resource requirements of the tools with the tools that are set up in the specified resource group. The system recommends specific tool resources and determines their availability.

You can also check the availability of a tool by reviewing the asset calendar that is associated with the tool. You can overbook a tool if necessary. Searches for tools can take into account the continuous scheduling flag, which enables you to indicate whether you need the tool to be available for a continuous block of time. If you decide that you need to purchase a tool resource, you can copy the tool from the Tool Schedules grid into the Purchase/On hand grid by clicking the Move Selected to Purchase button.

Similar to the other resources, you can override the ChartField distributions for each tool resource. The cost and bill rate for tools are based on the asset type and subtype and are defined at the shop level. You can calculate the scheduled tool costs based on the amount of scheduled usage, such as 2 days at ten dollars per day, that you expect to use a tool on a job. PeopleSoft Maintenance Management stores these actual costs of tools and sends them to PeopleSoft Project Costing.
Warranty claim.

From the Schedules page, you can generate a warranty claim for the costs of a work order. Use this feature if your organization has warranties from suppliers or suppliers who allow you to recover the cost of work that you perform on the assets. The feature automatically copies all of the costs from the work order task into a warranty claim. You can then modify the claim and submit it to the supplier or supplier for the recovery of costs.

Actuals Page

The Actuals page in a work order displays the work order task with the scheduled start and end dates and times and the actual dates and times that the work order task started and ended. Actual values that appear in this page are usually entered on the Technician Workbench. In addition, the page has four grids:

Labor actuals

This grid displays the scheduled start and end dates and times and the actual start and end dates and times, as well as the actual hours that were worked for each labor resource who was assigned to the task.
Inventory actuals

This grid displays each item and its quantity scheduled and quantity required. It also displays the quantity issued and the quantity used for each scheduled item. If you want, you can enter the quantity used for each item.
Purchasing actuals

This grid displays the resource, the resource type, and its unit of measure.
Tools actuals

This grid displays the scheduled start and end dates and times and the actual start and end dates and times, as well as the actual hours that each tool was used, the actual quantity of usage units consumed, and the unit of measure for usage of the tool.

Costs Page

This page presents the total estimated, scheduled, and actual costs of labor, inventory, procurements, and tools for the entire work order. It also displays the variance between the estimated costs and the actual costs.

The page contains a sum of the totals that represents the total estimated, scheduled, and actual costs, along with the variance, for both the work order and each work order task. Another grid further delineates the total actual costs of each resource by category (labor, inventory, purchasing, and tools). You can click the Capitalize and Charge Back buttons for a work order task to view the actual capitalized costs and chargeback transactions. You can display the actual work order task costs before a work order task is closed by running the Cost Summarization process in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management. When you close a work order, the Cost Summarization process runs automatically and updates this page. The system automatically updates the tools costs when a technician enters them on the technician's workbench.

Note:

On-hand items are not calculated and rolled into the Costs page.

Miscellaneous Page

The Miscellaneous page of a work order contains much of the work order header information, along with when and who last modified the work order, the work order's source, such as service request, and the project ID that is associated with the work order. If this is a preventive maintenance work order, the system specifies the maintenance type. You can select a parent work order if the work order is a child of another work order. If this is a parent work order, the system lists the child work orders. If you created the work order based on another work order, then you can select the originating work order, which is informational only. You can also indicate whether this is a standing work order that always remains open or is reused multiple times.

You can set up work order access security to limit resources' access to work orders and work order tasks on the Work Order, Express Work Order, and Technician Workbench components.

The type of access you apply depends on the Technician WO Security option you choose on the Definition page of a business unit. You can apply full access (default), shop access, resource pool access, or shop and resource pool access.

You must also select Apply WO Security on the User Preferences – Maintenance Management page for each user who is a resource assigned to a shop or resource pool to which you apply work order access security depending on your selection in the work order business unit. For example, if you select Shop on the Definition page of the work order business unit, you would select this option for users assigned to the shops that are listed on the Work Order Access page.

If you selected one of the Technician WO Security "Shop" options on the Definition page of the work order business unit, you must select the Allow Access to WO Security check box on the User Preferences – Maintenance Management page to enable specific users to add shops and remove shops on the Work Order Access page in the Work Order component. The shop specified on the Work Order is automatically added to the shop list on the Work Order Access page and cannot be removed. In addition, if a resource who is assigned to a shop other than this work order's primary shop is selected for a task in the work order, this cross shop automatically appears on the Work Order Access page. Once these shops are listed in the work order, then only resources who have Apply WO Security selected in User Preferences and are assigned to one of the shops on the shop list can access work orders and work order tasks in the Work Order, Express Work Order, and Technician Workbench components.

The same principle holds true if you select Resource Pool in the Definition page of the work order business unit. Only resources who have Apply WO Security selected in User Preferences and are assigned to a resource pool associated with a project and activity in the work order that was created with the business unit with Resource Pool selected can access the work orders and work order tasks in the Work Order, Express Work Order, and Technician Workbench components that are created with this same business unit.

See Application Fundamentals: User Preferences - Maintenance Management Page.

See Using the Work Order Miscellaneous Page.