Creating a Work Order

Attributes of a Work Order
Work Order Type
Work Order State Machine
Defining the Work Order Agent
Work Order Agent Report
Linking Work Orders to Configuration Items / Services
Saving a Work Order as a Template
Deleting a Work Order

Within a Change, the system offers a "Add Work Order" feature which enables any number of sub-tasks (Work Orders) related to a selected Change to be entered.

Attributes of a Work Order

Once a Change is created, it effectively serves as a container for the definition of sub-tasks, i.e. Work Orders, and these Work Orders can now be defined by the Change Builder.

Table 8.8.  Attributes of a Work Order

Attribute Required Field Details
Title Yes Short description / name of Work Order.
Instruction No Longer text description of the Work Order.
Work Order Type Yes Selection list to define the type of Work Order, e.g. approval, work order, PIR, etc.
Category Yes Defines the type of Change, e.g "3 normal", etc.
Impact Yes Defines the effects or impact of the Change, e.g. "4 high", etc.
Priority Yes Defines the priority of the Change, e.g. "5 very high", "3 normal", etc.
State Yes When creating a new Change, the status is automatically set. When modifying an existing Change the Change Builder and Change Manager can manually set the status. Available statuses and result statuses are defined by the integrated State Machine, see the section called “ Change State Machine ” .
Requested (by customer) Date No If required, this attribute can be deactivated via SysConfig for the 'ChangeEdit', 'ChangeAdd' and 'ChangeZoom' templates, and display the customer's desired implementation date.
Attachment No Enables related files and documents to be attached

In addition to these attributes, the assigned Work Order agent can collect attributes through the "Report" feature, which is explained in detail in the "Work Order Agent Report" chapter.

Work Order Type

The following entries for the "Work Order Type" attribute are available in the standard installation of OTRS::ITSM Change Management:

  • Approval

  • Work Order

  • Backout

  • Decision

  • PIR (Post Implementation Review)

The administrator can freely define and specify Work Order types, as well as add new types.

Work Order State Machine

OTRS::ITSM features a State Machine which defines valid statuses and possible result statuses for a Work Order. The standard installation generates suggestions based on the following logic model:

Figure 8.11. change-workorder-state-machine

change-workorder-state-machine


Adjustments to the State Machine can be made by the system administrator in the administration front end, under menu option "State Machine". The statuses and possible result statuses should be defined here. In OTRS::ITSM, this is illustrated as a table:

Figure 8.12. change-workorder-state-transition

change-workorder-state-transition


Where necessary, additional statuses can be defined under the menu option "General Catalog" -> "ITSM::ChangeManagement::WorkOrder::State".

Defining the Work Order Agent

Each Work Order can be assigned to a "Work Order agent", i.e. a person responsible for the execution of the Work Order.

The system offers access to all connected agent back-ends here. It is important to note that only agents who have full access rights to the user group "itsm-change" are displayed.

Figure 8.13. change-workorder-agent

change-workorder-agent


Work Order Agent Report

The assigned Work Order agent can document related information such as comments, the actual Work Order start and end times, required processing time and status.

Figure 8.14. change-workorder-agent-report

change-workorder-agent-report


Linking Work Orders to Configuration Items / Services

Within a Work Order, OTRS::ITSM allows linking to other objects.

In the standard installation, a Work Order can be linked to the following objects:

  • CIs

    • CI-Class Computer

    • CI-Class Hardware

    • CI-Class Location

    • CI-Class Network

    • CI-Class Software

  • Services

  • Tickets

These settings are defined via SysConfig under "Core -> LinkObject" and can be extended when desired.

Saving a Work Order as a Template

A Work Order can be saved as a template through the "Template" feature, within the Work Order itself.

The dialog box requires the Change Builder to give the template a name and an optional comment. Once the user leaves the dialog box by clicking the "Add" button, the Work Order will be available as a template when a new Work Order is being created.

Figure 8.15. change-workorder-template

change-workorder-template


Deleting a Work Order

The Change Builder can delete a Work Order as long as it is not referred to in a Condition (see the "Defining conditions" section).

Figure 8.16. change-workorder-delete

change-workorder-delete