Use the WO Report/Printout and the WO Statement

The Report tab of a Work Order provides two printable report views of the Work Order, providing an efficient, hard copy format to communicate all pertinent information about a Work Order in one place.

The Work Order Report tab contains two sub-tabs: the Work Order sub-tab, and the Work Order (Statement) sub-tab. The Work Order sub-tab provides a printable Work Order report with the requisite instructions for a technician. This report is also called the Work Order Report/Printout. The Work Order Statement provides a printable report that reviews the Work Order's activity and results.

These reports offer an effective communication tool for the whole life cycle of a Work Order. They are also highly configurable, allowing organizations to tailor the reports to fit their needs. Finally, the "hard copy" format (i.e. easy to print and Email) provides simple communication pieces to inform necessary parties.

This article covers some of the primary Preferences used to configure these reports, and explains various methods for printing and Emailing the reports.

Configuring the Work Order Reports

These reports can be configured in the Work Order > Work Order Report Category of Preferences.

Selecting Data to Display

You will notice that many of the Work Order Report Preferences are prefixed with a label, indicating the section of the report the Preference applies to (Maintenance Details, Tasks, etc.). Use these labels as needed to locate particular Preferences.

There are three identical Preferences for most sections/labels, that allow for the following options:

• You can exclude or include these sections from the reports by setting the Print section to Work Order? Preference.

• You can choose to only show a section if there are records to display by setting the Print section if there are no records? Preference.

• If you do choose to display sections with no records, you can further decide how many blank lines to show for the section.

Once you have determined the data to display on the Work Order Reports, there are many more Preferences available to tailor the reports to suit your needs. We will now turn to describe a few of these Preferences, but because there are so many Preferences available, we will only cover some of the more commonly used and/or most beneficial options here.

Task Images

Up to two images can be added to each Task in the Tasks tab of a Work Order, supporting additional documentation for specific Tasks. The availability of two images per task allows for before and after images for each Task. To include these images on the Work Order Report/Printout, set the Tasks: Show Work Order Task Images? Preference to the desired number of images to show.

Documents Section

The Work Order Report/Printout can show the Documents section if desired by setting the Documents: Print Document Section on Work Order? Preference. This section will display links to any documents, images, or PDF's added on the Attach > Documents sub-tab of a Work Order, as long as they are also marked to "Display Link on WO." This is especially helpful for document types that cannot be appended to the report, and thus will not print along with the report. Users can follow the link to View these documents since they may not display in the body of the report.

Images Section

The Work Order Report/Printout can also show the Images section, which will display files added to the Attach>Images sub-tab of a Work Order. To enable this, select the Preference entitled Work Order Images to Display. You can either set the Preference to show all images on the Images sub-tab, or only the images marked as Active.

PDF Attachments

The Preference entitled Include PDF Attachments Marked as Append to Work Order allows you to choose whether PDF's added on the Attach tab of the Work Order (and marked to "Append to Work Order") will display in the body of the printed/emailed report. Because of the versatility of the PDF format, enabling this Preference gives organizations increased ability to include helpful documentation within the report itself.

The Preview action button at the bottom of the window will open the Work Order Report/Printout regardless of which tab/sub-tab you are currently in for the Work Order record. You can print or Email the Work Order Report/Printout from the Preview window. Keep in mind that the Preview button cannot be used to view, print, or Email the Work Order (Statement) report.

The Work Order Statement will honor the same Preferences as the Work Order Report/Printout, restricted to the following sections:

• Tasks Section

• Labor Section

• Parts/Tools Section

• Other Costs Section

• Labor Report Section

There is also a Preference to determine if Labor Comments will show on the Work Order Statement.

Printing and Emailing Work Order Reports

The Work Order Report tab is configured with highly visible Print and Email buttons, making it as easy as possible to distribute the Work Order to necessary recipients.

MC provides several automation options that allow organizations to print/email the Work Order Reports automatically. Take a look at the following methods and settings you can use to do this:

Auto-Print Using Rules Manager & Outlook

Microsoft Outlook can be configured to auto-print Emails. This Outlook configuration can be tied to a Rule set up in the Rules Manager of MC, providing the means to automatically print Work Order Reports as needed. For example, if you had an Email notification that was sent out to a dispatcher every time a Work Order was assigned to his/her Repair Center, the notification could be configured to attach the Work Order Report/Printout to the Email. Outlook would then auto-print the Email, along with the attached report. Follow the directions below to set up this process:

Rules Manager Setup

• From the MRO, click Tools>Rules Manager...

• The Rules Manager dialog will appear. Click the New button.

• The New Rule dialog will appear. In the Event tab, select the Event called Work Order Assignment (New Assignment).

• Change the Rule Name to "Work Order Assignment - [technician's initials]," and then select the Rule Order and the Repair Center that the rule will be assigned to.

• Next, select the Criteria tab, and click the Edit button.

• In the Criteria dialog that opens, ensure the Assigned? field is set to is in the first column and Yes in the second, and the click Apply:

• Now select the Actions tab, select the Email option, and click the Event Recipients sub-tab to choose the necessary recipient(s). If the recipient is a specific person, like a dispatcher, then you can click the Recipients sub-tab and manually enter the person's Email address.

Outlook Setup

Now that your rule has been set up inside Maintenance Connection, we can now set up the auto-print rule in Microsoft Outlook. Keep in mind that not all Email applications will support this kind of rule, even some versions of Outlook. The following steps apply to Outlook 2016. A similar process may work for other versions or applications that support an auto-print rule:

• In Outlook, click File>Rules and Alerts.

• In the Rules and Alerts dialog, click New Rule...

• The Rules Wizard dialog will open. Under the "Start from a blank rule" options, select Apply rule on messages | receive. Then, click Next.

• Click the checkbox for from people or public group.

• Then under Step 2, click the people or public group link.

• The Rule Address dialog will appear. Use the Search option to add MC Agent (agent@maintenanceconnection.com) to the From-> field, and then click OK. If you do not have agent@maintenanceconnection.com in your contact list, you will need to make sure this is done.

• Click Next to progress the Rules Wizard.

• Under Step 1, click the checkbox for print it, and then click Next.

• Specify the name for your new rule and ensure the Turn on this rule indicator is checked. Then, click Finish.

Now that both rules have been set up (one in the Rules Manager and one in Outlook), any new Emails received from agent@maintenanceconnection.com will automatically print, including any Emails containing new Work Order Report/Printouts. You can add further criteria to the rule in Outlook if you would only like Work Order Report/Printouts to print automatically. Otherwise, all Emails from the MC Agent will also print automatically.

Scheduled Report Emails

While the previous method is designed to automatically Email and print individual Work Orders upon assignment, scheduling the Work Order Report/Printout to Email at certain times allows you to automatically send all Work Orders generated over a specified period of time. To Email the Work Order Report/Printout as a Scheduled Report:

• In the Reporter, locate the Work Orders (No Grouping) report. This is the Base Report used to build the Work Order Report/Printout in the Work Orders module. Once selected, click the Setup Report button at the bottom of the Reporter window.

• The Schedule > Email sub-tab will display by default. Set the Email Schedule field to On.

• Email scheduling options will appear. Define the fields as needed, including the desired recipients and then click Apply:

We recommend keeping the Attachment Type as HTML. This is especially important if the Work Order Report/Printout contains PDF attachments, as these will not appear in the body of the report unless it is exported in HTML format.

• Now that the report is on a Email schedule, you will want to define the Report Criteria to only show open Work Orders within a desired timeframe. To do this, select the Work Orders (No Grouping) report again, and click the Run Report button.

• The Report Criteria dialog will appear. In this example, we will set the Target Date criteria to read is within Last week. This will cause the Report to show only those Work Orders due within the last seven days.

• Click Save to save the Criteria for the Report.

• When the scheduled Report Email sends, it will show the Work Order Report/Printouts for all open Work Orders with a Target Date within the last seven days.

You could use the auto-print rule for Outlook described above to ensure that the Scheduled Report prints automatically as well.

Automation Repair Center

Users can specify an Automation Repair Center on the Work Order Report/Printout, which allows the report to show Repair Center specific content when sent through an automated process (such as a Scheduled Report or Rule Notification). As seen above, there are extensive Preferences available to configure the Work Order Reports (including: time zone, show/hide controls, signature block display, and the inclusion of User Defined Fields), so it is helpful to ensure automated reports honor these Preferences. Follow the steps below to define the Automation Repair Center for the Work Order Report/Printout:

 

• Select the Work Orders (No Grouping) report in the Report, and click the Setup Report button.

• In the Report Setup window, select the Advanced tab.

• The Report Profile sub-tab will appear by default. Define the desired Repair Center in the Repair Center (For Automation) field, and then click Apply.

• Any automatically Emailed Work Order Report/Printouts will now honor Repair Center Preferences.