The work orders page
A tour of the work orders page — the table, search, filters, column view, and pagination.
Work orders are the heart of the app. Nearly everything you do here begins with one: the parts you make, the operations you machine them through, the material you order, and the invoices and offers you send all belong to a work order. Learn this page well and the rest of the app falls into place.
Select Work Orders in the sidebar to open the list. It shows every job in your organization, with the most recent at the top. From here you can find any job, open it, or change its status and priority in place.
What's on this page
| Element | What it does |
|---|---|
| Search bar | Filters the list by client name as you type |
| Status filter | Narrows the list to the statuses you choose |
| Priority filter | Narrows the list to the priorities you choose |
| View | Shows or hides individual columns in the table |
| New work order | Opens the form to create a job. Admins and moderators only. |
| Work orders table | Each row shows a job's number, client, dates, status, priority, amount |
| Rows per page | Sets how many jobs to show at once: 25, 50, 75, or 100 |
| Pagination | Moves between pages with Previous and Next, and shows the current page |
Each of these is covered in detail below.
Search bar
The search bar matches on client name. Start typing a company and the list narrows to that client's jobs as you go, so you rarely need to type the whole name.
A few things worth knowing:
- It matches any part of the name, not just the start. Typing
metalfinds "Metalworks" and "Fine Metal" alike. - Capitalization does not matter.
- It searches client names only, not work order numbers. To jump to a job by number, sort the Number column instead.
- Search works alongside the status and priority filters. With a filter set, you are searching only the jobs that already match it.
To clear the search, delete the text in the box and the full list returns.
Status filter
The status filter shows only jobs in the statuses you pick. Click it to open a short list of every status, each with a checkbox.
Open the filter
Click the status button. It has a dashed outline until you select something.
Tick the statuses you want
Check one or more. If your shop uses many statuses, the small box at the top of the list finds one by name as you type.
Read the result
The list now shows jobs in any of the statuses you ticked. A job in Preparation still appears when both Preparation and In Progress are checked.
The statuses you can choose from:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Received | Enquiry arrived, not yet priced |
| Offer Sent | Price offer sent, awaiting an answer |
| Offer Accepted | Client agreed, job can be prepared |
| Offer Declined | Client turned the offer down |
| Preparation | Confirmed and being set up |
| In Progress | Parts are being made |
| Control | Machining done, parts being inspected |
| Completed | Finished, ready to dispatch and invoice |
Your choices show as badges on the button, so you can see what is filtered without opening it again. Pick more than two and the badges collapse to a count instead.
To start over, open the filter and choose Clear all. This clears only the status filter; the Remove filters button beside the filters clears status and priority together.
The status filter works alongside the search bar and the priority filter. With all three set, a job has to match every one to appear.
Priority filter
The priority filter works exactly like the status filter, applied to priority instead. Open it, tick one or more priorities, and the list shows jobs at any of the levels you picked. Your choices appear as badges on the button, and Clear all empties it again.
| Priority | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Low | No time pressure |
| Medium | Runs in the normal order |
| High | Pulled ahead of ordinary work |
| Urgent | Goes first, ahead of everything |
Set the status and priority filters together to answer a real question, such as which urgent jobs are still In Progress.
View
The View button, at the top right of the list, controls which columns the table shows. Open it and you get a checkbox for each column you can turn on or off. Untick Amount, for example, and the value column disappears from the table.
This only changes what you see. It hides nothing from the data, changes nothing for anyone else, and never affects the jobs themselves. It is there to make the list easier to read when you only care about a few columns.
Two things to keep in mind:
- The choice is not saved. Reload the page and every column is back.
- View is available on the desktop layout. On a phone the table already shows a trimmed set of columns to fit the screen.
New work order
The New work order button, at the top of the list, opens a panel where you raise a new job. Only admins and moderators can create work orders.
This gets a page of its own. Creating a work order covers the panel and every field in full.
The table
Each row in the table is one work order. Some cells just show information, and a few let you act on the job without leaving the list.
| Cell | What it is |
|---|---|
| Checkbox | Selects the row. The checkbox in the header selects every job on the page at once. |
| ID | The work order number, shown as #123. Click the ID heading to sort the list by number. |
| Client | The company the job is for. Click it to open the job. |
| Created | The date the work order was raised. |
| Status | The current status, as a dropdown. Change it here and it saves on its own. |
| Priority | The current priority, as a dropdown. Also changed in place. |
| Deadline | The due date, if one was set. |
| Amount | The value of the job, in its own currency. Shows no value until its positions are priced. |
| Details | Opens the job. Same destination as clicking the client. |
Two cells do the work of the page. The checkbox is how you gather jobs for a bulk status or priority change, and the status and priority dropdowns are how you move a single job along without opening it.
The last job you opened stays lightly highlighted when you come back to the list, so you can see where you left off. Dates throughout show as day.month.year.
Rows per page and pagination
When you have more jobs than fit on one screen, the list breaks into pages. The controls for this sit along the bottom.
On the left, the rows-per-page selector sets how many jobs show at once: 25, 50, 75, or 100. It starts at 25. Raise it to see more of the list without paging; lower it if the table feels long.
On the right, Previous and Next move between pages, and the box between them shows the page you are on. Previous is greyed out on the first page and Next on the last, so you can always tell where the list begins and ends.
The search and filters apply across the whole list, not just the page you are looking at, so narrowing the list first is usually quicker than paging through it to find one job.