Create a production work order

Put a task in the queue with the machine, the operation, the quantity and the files an operator needs to run it.

The Create Workorder form adds one task to the production queue: one operation, on one machine, for a quantity of one part. It is the same form on the web and in the mobile app.

Only the title is required. Every other field is a chip in the row above the title, and each chip opens a small panel over the form.

Before you start

• Production Scheduler is part of the Scheduling Engine module. Seeing the Work Queue tab is not proof you are entitled to it. See Module entitlement.
• A part with at least one operation, if you want the task to count anything. See Create parts and operations. You can create both from inside this form, see Operation and quantity.
• Nothing on this form is role-gated. Any member of the organization can open it and create work.
• The camera tile is mobile only. See Install the mobile app.

Open the create form

1. Go to the Work Queue at /production?select=work_queue.
2. Press the blue circular + at the top right of the toolbar.

The dialog opens headed Create Workorder. It also opens from the + in the mobile toolbar, labeled Create work order, and from the Jobs tab of a machine page, where the machine is filled in for you. See Run a job from the machine page.

The Create Workorder dialog as it opens from the Work Queue, with every field collapsed into the chip row above the title.

The form resets every time it opens. Nothing is kept from the last work order you created, so a dialog you close by accident is a dialog you retype.

Press Cmd+Enter, or Ctrl+Enter on Windows, to submit without reaching for the button. The footer says which one your machine takes.

Machine and parent job

Asset is the machine that will run the task. Open the chip, search by name or identifier, and pick one. The list shows thirty machines at a time, so search rather than scroll in a large plant.

Part of Job is the parent job, the order this task belongs to: a quantity of a part, due on a date, that fans out into one task per operation. Tasks that share a parent job show the same job chip on every card in the queue.

The Asset and Part of Job chips at the head of the chip row. Choosing a machine fills in the operation, and the parent job too when that machine already has queued work.

Choosing a machine fills in two other fields for you. The Operation chip takes the operation the machine is auto-detecting, the one its sensor is already counting against. The Part of Job chip takes the parent job of the machine's most advanced open task, preferring one in progress, then one on hold, then one not started.

Both are suggestions. Clear either chip and pick your own, and nothing refills it until you change the machine again.

To start a job that does not exist yet, open Part of Job and press Create new job. That opens the Create Job dialog, where you name the job, choose or create its part, set a quantity and a due date, and the new job is selected here when you save it.

Operation and quantity

Operation is the step this task performs, for example OP20 Turn on part BH-4021. The picker groups operations under their part, and searches both names on the server, so typing a part number finds every operation on it.

The Operation chip open on a chosen operation, with the Required Qty (optional) box beneath it.

Required Qty (optional) appears under the operation once one is chosen. It is how many good parts this task is for, and it is what the queue counts against, for example 12/250 pcs on the card.

Create a part or an operation without leaving the form

Press Create New Operation in the operation panel to switch the panel into create mode. It works on every platform, not only in the mobile app.

1. Search for the part, or type a new name and press the create row. The form posts the part and toasts Part created.
2. Type the operation name. More details (optional) expands to a description, a quantity per cycle, an ideal cycle time in seconds, and a detection algorithm.
3. Press create. The form toasts Operation created and lists the new operation under the part.

A part created this way arrives with no usable operation. The API creates a placeholder called Untitled Operation and the form deletes it, so step 2 is not optional if you want the task to count anything. For the full field list, see Operation fields.

Work sessions

A session is one run of a task: a start, an end, the good parts made and the scrap logged against them. The Work Sessions chip appears only once both a machine and an operation are set, because a session logs parts made for that operation on that machine.

Press the chip, then Add Work Session. The New Work Session editor opens with a Start and End, a Good Parts stepper, scrap rows carrying a reason and a note, and a free note field.

Sessions staged here are held on the form. Nothing is posted until you create the work order, so a session you stage and then delete costs nothing.

Opened from the Work Queue, the editor defaults to the last hour. Opened from a machine's Jobs tab it fills the gap instead: from the end of the previous finished session on that machine, or from the shift start, up to now.

The editor refuses a window it cannot store. It reads Start time must be before end time, Start and end time cannot be the same, Session cannot start in the future, Session cannot end in the future, or Overlaps with another session naming the job and the times it collides with.

Set workorder status appears under the staged sessions as soon as one of them has both a start and an end. It offers On Hold and Completed, and applies that status to the new work order after it is created. Leave it alone to create the task at Not Started.

Use it when you are recording work that already happened. A task you are backfilling at the end of a shift is finished, and creating it at Not Started leaves the queue claiming there is work to do.

Required and created parts

Required Parts is what the task consumes, and Create/Release Parts is what it leaves behind: a part it makes, or a tool it hands back to the crib. Each line names a part, a location to take it from or put it into, and an amount.

Both lists fill themselves from the operation. When the chosen operation has material rules, choosing it stages every rule as a line and scales the amounts to the quantity you entered.

For example, an operation that takes two carbide inserts per part stages Carbide insert CNMG-432 x 500 against a quantity of 250. See Bind materials to an operation.

A staged line reserves nothing until it has both a location and an amount above zero. A line missing either turns amber and reads Set a location, or this part is not reserved, and the chip count turns amber with it.

Pressing Create Workorder with an amber line stops once and explains itself: 2 staged parts will not be reserved: set a location and an amount, or press Create again to continue without them. Fix the lines, or press the button a second time to create the work order without them.

Delete a line and it stays deleted. The prefill remembers what you removed and does not put it back when you change the quantity.

Images and files

Images takes photographs and drawings that should render inline, and Files takes everything else. Both accept a drop as well as a click, and both upload as soon as the file lands.

Images are converted to WebP and capped at 1600 px on the long edge before upload, so a phone photograph does not arrive as an 8 MB file. The chip accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP and SVG, and rejects anything else with <name> is not a valid image. Send a PDF or a STEP file through Files instead.

You do not need to attach the drawing to every task. Attach it to the part once, in the Parts List, and every task on that part's operations shows it.

The Files panel in the job runner, the page an operator opens a task on, has two sections: Work Order Files and Part Files. It reads both. See Add pictures and files.

Dependency

A dependency says this task cannot start until another one is done. Open the chip, search the production work orders by title, operation or part, and pick the predecessor.

The Dependency chip open on a chosen predecessor. Set one only when this task truly cannot start until that one finishes.

Each result shows a title over an operation, and never the job it belongs to. The same operation queued on two different orders gives two results that read identically, so a search that returns a pair tells you nothing about which one to pick. Search the title rather than the operation when the distinction matters, or set the link on the Gantt instead, where the task carries its job.

Set a dependency only when the second task genuinely cannot start first. Dependencies constrain the Gantt, and a schedule over-constrained on the first pass is harder to debug than a late job. Sawing before turning is a dependency; running two unrelated jobs in a preferred order is not.

Once set, the link drives three things on the board: an arrow on the Gantt, a Predecessor is late entry in Schedule issues when the predecessor cannot finish in time, and the red bar that goes with it. See Link dependent tasks and Waiting on a late predecessor.

The operator never sees it. The job runner has no dependency field, so a task whose predecessor is unfinished still looks ready to start from the floor.

This form does not check for a cycle. The Gantt does, and refuses a link that would create one with That link would create a circular dependency, so an impossible chain built here surfaces the next time somebody drags it.

Time estimate and due date

The estimate is how long the task should take. It is what the Gantt draws the bar from and what the optimizer packs against, and it is the field most often left empty.

Time Estimate takes free text. 2h 30m, 90m, 1 day 3 hours and a bare 90 all parse; anything else reads Invalid format in red under the input and is discarded on create.

The form fills it in for you from the operation's ideal cycle time times the quantity, and says where the number came from: Estimated from 45s cycle x 250 pcs. Edit it or clear it once and the form stops touching it, even if you change the operation afterwards.

Priority is set for you the same silent way. The form takes the first priority in your organization's list and offers no picker, so change it on the board if it matters.

Create the work order

Press Create Workorder. The button stays grayed out until the title has text in it, which is the form's only validation.

The form always assigns the new task to you. The Assigned to line above the chip row names you, it is read-only, and there is no assignee picker. A task created here lands in your My Work list rather than in the Available Work list everybody shares.

The Assigned to line above the chip row. It always names you, and the Create Workorder form has no control to change it.

To hand the work to somebody else afterwards, add them on the job page in the mobile app, or drag the task into their lane on the board. See On mobile and Group by asset, job or operator.

On success the form toasts Workorder created successfully, closes, and the queue reloads. The new task appears at once on the page you created it from, and does not appear on anybody else's open queue until they reload.

Job fields

For the full field list across every production surface, including the scheduler columns and the export, see Job and scheduler fields.

When creation fails

A generic Something went wrong or An error occurred means the request failed and nothing was saved. See Troubleshoot monitoring.

On mobile

The mobile app opens the same form with the same fields. Only the layout changes, and which layout you get depends on the viewport rather than the device, see On mobile.

The same Create Workorder form in the mobile app. Every field is a chip: part of job, operation, asset, required and created parts, images, files, dependency and time estimate.

One control is mobile only. Take photo appears as a second dashed tile inside both the Images and the Files panels, and opens the rear camera straight into the upload. A photograph taken that way goes through the same WebP conversion as a file picked from the gallery.

Everything else behaves as it does on the web, including the self-assignment. The one thing the phone adds afterwards is the People section on the job page, which is the only assignee control anywhere in the Work Queue. See On mobile.

See also

• Start, pause, and complete a job
• Find your next job in the Work Queue
• Plan jobs on the scheduler board
• Job and scheduler fields
• Submit a maintenance request