A work order is a structured record of an order for a vendor to complete work.

Work orders are created after someone submits a work request, when an inspector creates a request or order from their inspection, or when the property manager determines work needs to be done.

When work is requested, it makes sense to start with the request. When work is to be assigned based on an awarded quote request (RFQ), start with the quote request. When work is to be assigned based on an inspection, start with the inspection. Specifics on dealing with work requests, quote requests, and inspections are available in other articles.

If you are creating a work order outside of the context of a request or inspection, you can do so from a place's (unit or property) view, from the person's view (typically an owner or vendor), or from the global maintenance view. This is a blank, standalone work order.

From a place: Select Places > Place Type > Unit or Property > Maintenance > Add Work Order.

From a person: Select Management > Category of Person > Person Requesting Maintenance > Maintenance > Add Work Order.

From maintenance: Select Management > Maintenance > Add Work Order > Select Person Ordering or Performing Maintenance.

Depending on how you accessed the new work order, if there is more than one eligible unit or property, you must assign the correct one before you can enter the content of the order. Once a place is assigned, information from that place will display in the work order, including maintenance instructions, preferred vendor(s) and/or vendor(s) with a services contract on this place, service providers, registered keys and/or access codes, and more. If you have registered appliances or equipment in this unit, these will display with the option to assign them to the work order. If they are under warranty, this will display in the warranty shield, along with the warranty information.

If the new work order was created from a request or inspection, much of the work order information will be pre-populated.

Complete all elements of the work order, using the help tips as guidance for individual elements. When you are done, select your notification options, and select the Save button.

Work orders are crazy powerful with a ton of options. We'll highlight some of the features commonly asked about.

Actions

Actions provide you with option buttons to set parameters for the next most-common-probable action you'll take on a work order. When you select an action button, various elements of the work order are automatically adjusted considering everything in that action. Use the action options to make work order management easy.

Stages

Stages provide a way to track exactly where the work order is in process, making it easy for you to collect necessary information, communicate, or take actions to move it along toward completion. The stages are automatically set when someone takes action on the work order, and can be manually overridden or set by you.

For example, you may set a work order to "Client Approval Pending". This means you have to get approval from the owner before you can begin work. When you notify the owner using the notification options, the owner can log in to their portal to review and approve, use the loginless link to review and approve without logging in, reply to the email, or call you. Specific options are determined by your policy and configuration. Once the owner has weighed in, the stage will automatically change to "Approved by Client", "Rejected by Client", or "Modification Request by Client".  You'll get an alert, and the status on the work order will clearly show you it's time for you to take the next step. Note that a similar function exists for vendor acceptance of a work order, and can be enabled or disabled as you desire.

Timelines and stages show in a graphic chart that allows you to quickly identify where a work order is in process. You can also see this graph for all outstanding work orders by viewing maintenance reports.

Keys

If this unit or property has keys that are checked out to a vendor, record the checked out keys here. When the work is done, record the return of the key in the work order, or on the unit/property. If the key is not returned but the work order is done, you'll have overdue key alerts. Key/access logging and management are an entire system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Schedule

Dates and times in the schedule provide the vendor with requirements and expectations, and are used to alert you if a work order is overdue. They are also used to determine a vendor's on-time performance, which is automatically calculated in their suitability score. Dates do require a specific time in order to calculate this, but some work orders are just due by the end of business on a certain day. In such a case, enter that as your time for required by.

Appointment Confirmation

If the work order came from an occupant request, you can use the appointment confirmation feature of Harmony to ensure the occupant will be available as required (or away, as required) for the work to be performed. The work order will show that it's awaiting appointment confirmation (here, and on your calendar), until the occupant confirms (or requests rescheduling).

Resources

If the company or the owner make resources available to vendors for work orders, these resources can be assigned here. For example, the company may offer their lawnmower to a vendor to mow the lawn. This is where the resource is assigned and tracked, for the specific vendor and schedule. You can even have a scenario where the owner of a four-plex has their own lawnmower in the shed, and the vendor can choose to either use their own lawnmower, or rent the owner's lawnmore for $10/hr. Resources are an entire system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Request

If the work order came from a request, the details of the related request are outlined here.

Money

Money options can be set by you, or by the vendor when providing their estimate or total. If the owner has a limit on repairs, this will display beside the limit, cueing you to set the work order to awaiting client approval when the limit is exceeded.

The estimate and total are used to determine a vendor's on-budget performance, and are valuable when processing invoices for work orders, to ensure billing properly matches. Note that vendor invoices are tied to work orders, and there are numerous options in invoicing that allow you to correlate the work to invoices. This is covered separately in other articles. If you've processed an invoice that covers the work on this invoice, you'll see this indicated in the money section of the work order.

If you are withholding estimated or total amounts of a work order from an owner's distribution until the bill is paid (determined by your configuration), the Withhold Starting date allows you to defer this withhold. For example, if you're setting a work order for a $500 AC unit replacement in the spring, and it's now Christmas, the owner might not be too happy about this money being withheld when he's trying to pay his January credit card bill. After all, there will be thousands of dollars in rent arriving between now and then. In such a case, defer the withhold until the appropriate time. If, on the other hand, the AC replacement is estimated at $5000, you may want to leave this blank to withhold it now, to ensure the money is available when the work is done.

Tracking

Separately from the work order tracking, you can more granularly track the minutes and dollars for your reporting. For example, if the assigned vendor is your company handyman, knowing if the work order was done on time may not be enough. You may want to track how many minutes he actually spent getting it done. See the Job Log for other ways to track your vendors.

Permit tracking allows for cases where permitting is required in the process of completing the work order. Permitting is an entire maintenance sub-system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Job Log

If you require your vendor to participate in job logging, this allows you to track when a vendor arrives on site and leaves, and the status at such time. The job logging is done through the vendor's portal from their device. Job logging includes features that allow you to confirm the vendor location and exact time. Job logging is an entire maintenance sub-system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Documents/Photos/Videos

If your work order came from an occupant request, they may have included photos or videos of the problem. These flow into the work order automatically. If there are other documents, such as a schematic, that the vendor will need, you can add those here.

Checklists

If there is a specific checklist for this repair, or for all repairs, add the checklist here. The vendor will see and complete the checklist along with the work order. Checklists are an entire system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Messages

If there have been communications regarding this work order, these will display in the messages section. Messages are an entire system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.

Activities

If there are component activities on this work order, these will display in the activities section. A single work order can have multiple related activities, or none at all. For example, one task may be to assess the work, the next may be to go to the supply house with a shopping list, and another may be to file the warranty for the newly replaced fridge. Note that activities are generally for things the property management company does; what the vendor does is generally their own thing. Activities are an entire system in Harmony, more information is available in other articles.