Setting up work orders and tasks
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Summary of Setting up work orders and tasks
Work orders in Field Service Management (FSM) are essential for organizing and communicating work requests to Field Service agents. Each work order can contain multiple tasks that break down the work into manageable components. Setting up work orders and tasks provides a structured, task-driven process to manage and track the work agents must complete, including customer details, locations, required skills, and parts.
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Configuring Work Orders and Tasks
- Work Orders: Serve as the main record containing information about the requested work, customer, location, and configuration items.
- Work Order Tasks: These are subtasks under a work order, categorized by type to ensure consistency (e.g., specific assignment groups). Tasks can require agents to complete questionnaires (such as safety checklists) and support automatic time tracking for accurate time card generation.
Optional Configurations for Enhanced Functionality
- Field Service Work Configurations: Customize task forms to capture workflow-specific data such as fixed costs for maintenance or detailed cost/duration for break-fix tasks.
- Planned Work Management: Manage recurring activities like maintenance or inspections by scheduling them regularly. Requires installation of the Planned Work Management application.
- Access Hours Auto-Population: Set default work access hours based on customer preferences (account, location, asset) to ensure tasks are scheduled only during available times. Enabled via the Access Hours Management plugin.
- Linear Assets Support: Manage linear assets such as roads or cables by activating the Enterprise Asset Management plugin.
- Playbooks: Provide agents with guided workflows to manage the lifecycle of work order tasks through detailed activity sequences.
- Customer Experience: Allow customers to receive updates, track agent locations, and provide feedback by installing the Customer Experience plugin.
- Request Task Management: Split complex requests into separate tasks for assignment across different people, locations, or times.
- Quality Management: Add reviewer roles to enable task review and feedback by installing the Quality Management plugin.
Security and Access Control
Access to FSM is primarily role-driven, with the wmagent role allowing operational activities such as updating tasks and recording time. To enforce stricter security, customers can:
- Configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for record and field-level security.
- Use query rules and business rules to filter data dynamically.
- Apply UI policies to restrict user interface access.
- Implement domain separation for isolating data and access controls between departments or sensitive areas.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
By setting up work orders and tasks effectively, customers can:
- Provide clear instructions and structure for Field Service agents to complete jobs efficiently.
- Automate task creation and time tracking for accurate operational management.
- Customize workflows and data capture to fit diverse service scenarios.
- Enhance customer engagement through timely updates and feedback mechanisms.
- Maintain strong security controls to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance.
When work is required, create a work order to provide information for the Field Service agents to fulfill the request. Create work order tasks to break down the tasks required to complete the work order.
You can use Field Service Management and only set up work orders and work order tasks to start work. Or you can set up additional configurations to automate some of the process around creating and managing work orders and work order tasks.
Configuration overview
The steps for setting up work orders and tasks are:
- Configuring work orders
Configure Field Service Management to use a task-driven process, wherein each work order encapsulates a list of essential tasks. Upon the creation of a work order, a corresponding task record is instantly generated. Task-driven processing can provide structure and clarity for intricate projects.
Work orders in Field Service Management store information about requested work, including customer names and addresses, locations where work is to be performed, and any associated configuration items. Work orders can include one or more tasks that contain specific details about the work to be performed, such as required agent skills or part requirements. Work orders are the driving force behind Field Service Management. They define what Field Service agents must do to complete their jobs.
- Configuring work order tasks
Categorize work orders are comprised of at least one, but usually multiple, work order tasks. You can categorize work order tasks by type so that work order tasks of the same type are consistent, like if a certain type of task always requires a specific assignment group. Additionally, you can require agents to complete questionnaires before, during, or after completing a task. For example, if you want agents to complete a safety checklist before starting a task, you can use questionnaires. Work order tasks also allow for automatic time recording that tracks and translates time worked on a task into a time card.
- (Optional) Configuring Field Service Work Configurations
Customize the information captured on a work order task to better suite similar but different workflows. For example, maintenance and installations can have a fixed cost associated with them, but break-fix tasks may need to capture additional information related to the cost and duration of the task. With Field Service work configurations, you can set up these task types to capture specific information.
- (Optional) Configuring Planned Work Management
Manage flexible work plans for any recurring activity that requires regular maintenance. For example, you can use planned Work management to schedule maintenance, inspections, or audits. You can install the Planned Work Management application (com.snc.fsm_planned_work_management) if you have the admin role.
- (Optional) Configuring the auto-population of access hours in a work order task
Define default access hours for a work order task based on customer preferences such as account, location, or asset, enables the auto-population of the access hours for the task. For example, you can set the access hours for a business to guarantee that work order tasks are only assigned to the location when it’s open. You can activate the Field Service Management Access Hours Management plugin (com.snc.fsm_access_hours) for Field Service Management if you have the admin role.
- (Optional) Activate linear assets support in Field Service Management
Enable effective management of assets like roads, telephone lines, or fiber cables. You can enable the Field Service Management application to support linear assets by activating the Enterprise Asset Management plugin (com.sn_eam) if you have the admin role.
- (Optional) Configuring Playbooks for Field Service Management
Enable agents to manage the life cycle of work order tasks by guiding them through sequences of activities. Playbooks show detailed workflows associated with a specific type of work order task and the activities that must be completed to resolve that task.
- (Optional) Configuring Field Service Management Customer Experience
Provide customers with timely updates about their reported issues, enabling them to track the location of agents and provide agent feedback. You can install the Field Service Management Customer Experience plugin (com.snc.fsm_customer_experience) if you have the wm_admin role.
- (Optional) Request task management
Split requests into separate tasks. This can be helpful if you want to assign different parts of a task to different people, assign parts of a task to people in different locations, or schedule parts of a task to be completed at different times.
- (Optional) Configuring Field Service Quality Management
Add the "Reviewer" role to Field Service Management. The reviewer can review tasks and provide feedback. You can install the Field Service Management plugin (com.sn_fsm_quality) if you have the wm_admin role.
- Enforce access control at record and field levels. For more information, see Configure an ACL.
- Apply pre-query filtering. For more information, see CSM Query Rules.
- Apply dynamic filtering. For more information, see Before Query business rules.
- Apply restrictions at the UI level. For more information, see Using UI policies.
To enforce strict separation between different departments or to separate sensitive data, domain separation is recommended. It ensures data isolation, domain-specific access controls, and controlled data sharing.