Work Orders

Overview#

• Work Orders (WO) are the work instructions for production. They are also known as Work Tickets, Job Cards and Routing Forms.
• A Work Order lists what is produced (the Output), the Materials and Services it needs, and the specification, and it drives the Production Planning Board.

You can create a Work Order in these ways:

• Manually.
• From a material, to replenish stock (New > New Work Order from Material).
• Copied from a Sales Order, to produce a customer order.
• Copied from a Quotation, for example, to produce a no-cost sample.
• Copied from a Campaign, or created from the Service Manager.

A Work Order is either a Production Work Order (the default) or a Design Work Order (see Design Work Orders).

Before you create Work Orders, set up:

1. The Materials and Services used in production, and the estimating setups if Work Orders come from estimates.
2. The Work Order Statuses, including the New and Output Received defaults.
3. The Production Stages, if you use the Production Planning board.
4. An output template for the workticket (see Output).

Settings#

User Settings#

General Settings#

List View#

• The list opens in the view set by your Default Transactions View setting.
• Menu > Views switches between the Transaction view, which displays one row for every Work Order, and the Output view, which displays one row for every output line on the Work Order.

For step-by-step instructions, see the Work Orders List View Tutorial.

Buttons Explained#

Filters Explained#

Fields Explained#

Output View: Fields Explained

The Output view displays one row for every output line on the Work Order.

Edit View#

For step-by-step instructions, see the Work Orders Edit View Tutorial.

Buttons Explained#

Actions Button#

Header Explained#

Output (tab)#

The items the Work Order produces. Add them with S/Orders (lines from the customer's Sales Orders) or Material (to produce for stock).

Specification & Notes (tab)#

The job's specification, shown on the workticket, and internal notes.

• Click Edit to change the specification. Its font size is set by the Default font size for Specification general setting.
• Click Add or Edit under Notes to add or change internal notes.

Materials (tab)#

The materials the job needs.

• To add one, select the material, enter a quantity, select the quantity type and click Add.
• Custom adds a custom line.

• Fixed: the quantity you enter.
• Est X: the Work Order Qty multiplied by the quantity you enter.
• Est /: the Work Order Qty divided by the quantity you enter.

Services (tab)#

The services the job needs, internal or outsourced. Click Add to add a service, or Custom for a custom line.

Design (tab)#

Appears on Design Work Orders. Add Image adds images with captions, and Add Colour adds a colour line with its Colour Change and Design Change (plate changes and colour changes).

JDF Switch (tab)#

The parts that are printed, with the files sent to Enfocus Switch.

• The tab is hidden on Design Work Orders.
• The parts table can be added to an output template (see Output Data Pipelines).

• Add Part adds a part, with its size, bleed, substrate, Qty Up, pages, printing, finishing and Qty Out. Each part has a status: Waiting, Production or Complete.
• Add File links an Artwork, Preflight, Proof or Dieline file to a part. Files must be linked to Parts, and Filter to selected Part shows only the selected part's files. Each file has a status: Pending, Uploaded, Pre-press, Rejected or Production.
• Proof sets the proof type: None, Digital, Printed, or Digital and Printed.
• Custom1 to Custom6 are your own fields, with lookup lists you edit on the list view (Menu > Edit Lookup lists).
• Upload sends the job to Switch (Upload Job to Switch) or exports it (Export to SysPro). The JDF Switch folder settings must be set first.

Parts: Fields Explained

Files: Fields Explained

Statuses#

Work Orders use the statuses set up for the module. See Statuses for the status groups and default statuses.

Item Statuses#

Lines have their own fixed statuses, separate from the Work Order's status:

How Work Orders Work#

Design Work Orders#

• The Type field (Production, the default, or Design) separates Design Work Orders from Production Work Orders. This feature is useful in a packaging environment, where you regularly produce the same product and need to be sure which design is current.
• Design Work Orders are typically linked to items that are often reordered.

• You can add images with captions, plate changes and colour changes to Design Work Orders (see Design).
• When a Work Order (Design or Production) is created from the Service Manager, the Due Date and Reference are copied to the Work Order.
• Actions > Import last Design Work Order copies the images and colours from the last Design Work Order, if one exists.
• The WO (Design) and WO (Last) columns on the Output grid show the current design and the last production run.

The images and changes of the last Design Work Order are available on output templates (see Output Data Pipelines).

Update from Estimate#

A Work Order can be updated from an estimate. Updates are needed if the quantity changes, or if production decides to run the job differently from the estimate.

• The update is applied automatically when an output item that has a linked estimate is added to the Work Order.
• If the Work Order is not linked to an estimate, click Actions > Update Work Order from Estimate. In the popup, select an estimate, change the Quantity and click Select (button) to update the Work Order.

Planning#

Use Menu > Open Planning to manage the Work Order on the Production Planning board. Planning is only available on Active Work Orders. From there you can:

• Batch update the status, Stage, Start Date and Due Date.
• Add new stages, or split existing stages.

Custom Actions#

• Any custom Actions your administrator set up appear in the Actions dropdown, under a Custom Actions heading.
• On the edit view, an Action runs on the open Work Order.
• On the list view, it runs on the selected rows.
• After an Action runs, the screen refreshes.

See Actions.

Output Templates#

For the data available on output templates, see Output Data Pipelines.