Setting up work orders and tasks
Summarize
Summary of Setting up work orders and tasks
Work orders in Field Service Management (FSM) enable you to organize and track the work required for service requests by detailing customer information, locations, and necessary tasks. Work order tasks break down the work into manageable units, specifying details like required skills, parts, and assignments. This task-driven approach brings clarity and structure, especially for complex projects, allowing Field Service agents to efficiently fulfill requests.
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Key Features
- Work Orders: Capture comprehensive information about the requested work and act as the primary driver for FSM operations.
- Work Order Tasks: Categorize tasks by type to maintain consistency, assign appropriate groups, and optionally require agent questionnaires for quality and safety checks. Automatic time tracking on tasks helps translate work hours into time cards.
- Customization Options: You can tailor task data capture to different workflows (e.g., maintenance vs. break-fix) using Field Service Work Configurations.
- Planned Work Management: Schedule recurring activities like maintenance or audits by installing the Planned Work Management application.
- Access Hours Management: Automatically populate task access hours based on customer preferences to ensure work is scheduled during appropriate times.
- Linear Assets Support: Manage linear assets such as roads or cables by enabling Enterprise Asset Management integration.
- Playbooks: Guide agents through task life cycles with detailed workflows for specific task types.
- Customer Experience: Provide customers with real-time updates on issue status and agent location, improving transparency and feedback.
- Request Task Management: Split a request into multiple tasks to assign, locate, or schedule work flexibly.
- Quality Management: Add a reviewer role to monitor tasks and provide feedback for continuous improvement.
Security and Access Control
FSM access is role-driven, primarily using the wmagent role, which allows agents to perform operational tasks with flexibility unless restricted by Access Control Lists (ACLs), query rules, or UI policies. To enhance security, you can enforce:
- Record and field-level ACLs
- Pre-query and dynamic filtering
- UI-level restrictions
For strict separation of departments or sensitive data, domain separation is recommended to ensure data isolation and controlled access.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Efficiently structure and manage complex field service operations through task-driven work orders.
- Customize workflows and data capture to fit diverse service scenarios and improve operational accuracy.
- Improve agent productivity and compliance with automated task time tracking and mandatory questionnaires.
- Enhance customer satisfaction by providing timely updates and enabling feedback mechanisms.
- Maintain security and data integrity by leveraging role-based access and domain separation capabilities.
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 rule.
- 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.