Manage work orders
Summarize
Summary of Manage work orders
Work orders in ServiceNow are requests for off-site work that require creation, qualification, and task management by users with appropriate roles. These enable efficient tracking and handling of work performed outside the primary site, ensuring that all necessary information and tasks are properly managed for timely completion.
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Creating work orders
Users with the wminitiator or wminitiatorqualifier roles can create work orders either from scratch or by generating them from other existing records. Work orders can be created from cases, incidents, changes, problems, project tasks, or from other existing work orders, with a limit of one work order per record.
Work orders created from existing work orders
If the scope of an ongoing work order changes, a new work order can be created from the original to track the additional work. Key information copied includes:
- Reference to the original work order (Initiated from field)
- Affected Configuration Item (CI)
- Caller
- Location
- Priority
- Short description and description
This functionality allows existing work orders to serve as templates for new ones.
Work orders created from other records
Creating work orders from different record types copies relevant data to ensure consistency and efficient tracking:
- Incident: Incident reference, caller, location, priority, short description, description.
- Case: Account, contact, affected CI, location, asset.
- Problem: Problem reference, affected CI, priority, short description, description.
- Change: Change reference, affected CI, priority, short description, description.
- Project task: Requires integration with Project Portfolio Management; synchronized fields include short description, location, state, scheduled start, and estimated end.
Filtering and organization
Work orders can be filtered by attributes such as qualification group, location, initiated from, priority, and state. This filtering facilitates grouping similar work orders for streamlined management and oversight.
Work orders are requests for off-site work. Users with the appropriate roles create the work orders and provide the necessary information needed for the work order tasks. Then other users qualify those work orders and create the tasks necessary to complete the work order.
Creating work orders
If you have the wm_initiator or wm_initiator_qualifier role, you can create work orders. You can create entirely new work orders, or you can create a work order from another record.
Work orders can be created from these other record types: case, incident, change, problem, or project task. They can also be created from another existing work order. For each record, you can create only one work order.
- Work orders created from another existing work order
If the scope of an existing work order changes during the execution phase, you can create another work order from it. Analyze whether the scope change can be managed by adding additional tasks instead of creating another work order.
When you create a work order from an existing work order, the following information is copied from the original work order:
- Work order record reference (in the Initiated from field)
- Affected CI
- Caller
- Location
- Priority
- Short description
- Description
Because some information is copied from the original record, an existing work order can be used as a template to create new work orders.
- Work orders created from an incident, problem, change, or project task record
If an incident, problem, change record, or project task must be assigned to an off-site agent and tracked, you can create a work order from it. Some information from the original record is copied automatically into the new work order.
Record type Fields copied to the work order Incident - Incident record reference (in the Initiated from field)
- Caller
- Location
- Priority
- Short description
- Description
Case - Account
- Contact
- Affected CI
- Location
- Asset
Problem - Problem record reference (in the Initiated from field)
- Affected CI
- Priority
- Short description
- Description
Change - Change record reference (in the Initiated from field)
- Affected CI
- Priority
- Short description
- Description
Project task Note:Before work orders can be created from project tasks, Field Service Management must be integrated with Project Portfolio Management- Short Description
- Location
These work order fields are synchronized with the project task- State
- Scheduled start
- Estimated end
For more information about the synchronized fields, see Integration with Project Portfolio Management.
Work orders can be filtered based on different attributes, such as qualification group, location, initiated from, priority, state, and so on. This help to create a group of similar work orders.