Work Order

A work order is a central document that supports the execution and billing of a specific project, task, or service. It serves as a focal point for the communication, planning, execution, and tracking of work packages of all kinds – from internal maintenance tasks to tasks in complex, billable customer projects.

The documentation for DYCE Project Billing contains a general Introduction to billing professional services with DYCE and detailed information on properties of Work Orders.

Work orders play a role in several DYCE apps. This documentation describes the planning functionality within Project & Resource Planning and establishes cross-connections to Time Tracking and Project Billing.

Planning Services with Work Orders

As mentioned above, work orders cover several aspects necessary for the delivery and billing of services. Project & Resource Planning enables the creation and editing of work orders, the selection of existing project budgets for time recording, and the scheduling of services via Work Order Events.

Billing Work Orders and Sub-Work Orders

Customers and planners think in terms of topics — a change request, a project phase, a workshop. They want to see effort, cost, and progress aggregated at that level, and they want to estimate, quote, and approve work at that level too. How the team breaks the topic down internally — into individual tasks or tickets — is a separate question. Work orders support both views with a two-level structure:

• The Billing Work Order represents the topic. It carries the Customer, the Project, and the master set of budget allocations (Work Order Lines), and it is the level at which time and cost are reported and invoiced.
• Sub-Work Orders are the individual pieces of work underneath. Each Sub-Work Order rolls its time recordings up to its Billing Work Order, inherits Customer, Project, and Budget Type from the parent, and may only use Work Order Lines that exist on the parent.

For straightforward work, a single work order is enough. Sub-Work Orders are worth considering when a topic is split into multiple phases or assigned to different resources, while still being reported and invoiced as one. They are typically created in the source system that already organises work hierarchically — currently Business Central, Jira, or Azure DevOps — and arrive in Connect via synchronisation.

Work Order List

The Work Order List provides a comprehensive overview of all work orders in DYCE. It can be accessed via the main menu item Work Order.

The primary purpose of this page is to give the user quick and direct access to all relevant work orders. To narrow down the view, any number of saved filters can be created per user.

By default, the following columns are displayed:

• No.: The unique number of the work order (e.g., WO00092).
• Title: A short, concise headline.
• Description: A detailed description of the work to be done.
• Customer: The external or internal client.
• Project No. and Description: The parent project of this work order.
• Resource: The assigned main resource.
• Resource Group: The assigned resource group.
• Location: The physical or virtual place where the work is performed.
• Original Estimate: The estimated time required (in hours or days).
• Completed: The current status (yes/no).

If desired, additional columns can be displayed via the column menu (…).

The Work Order Card can be opened either by double-clicking or via the context menu (right-click) on the corresponding row.

New work orders can be created using the ⊕ NEW function. This function starts a wizard that guides you through the most important properties of a work order in three steps.

One or more selected work orders can be deleted using the trash can symbol (🗑).

Search

The Search field allows for a quick search across the following properties:

• No.
• Resource
• Title
• Description
• Customer
• Project No.
• Project Description

A search limits the list to the work orders that match the entered search term. Clicking the x symbol in the search field removes the filter.

Filtering and Saving Views

The list can be filtered by one or more properties and criteria by clicking the filter symbol (Y). The list permanently remembers the active filter criteria and therefore displays the same list each time it is opened.

If a set of filtered criteria is needed frequently, it can be saved as a filters using the save symbol (💾). The saved criteria can then be easily recalled with a simple click on the filter name.

tip

The color of the filter symbol indicates whether filter criteria have been defined.

• Gray symbol: no filter criteria active
• Blue symbol: filtered by one or more properties

Work Order Card

The Work Order Card is the central detail view for a single work order. It bundles all relevant properties from the areas of description, assignment, commercial details, billing, and planning in one place.

This view is typically opened when a user double-clicks an entry in the Work Order List or navigates to a linked work order from other parts of the application, such as the Tasks page or the context menu of a Time Recording.

General Structure

The Work Order Card is clearly structured into three main areas: the header area, the tabs, and a dynamic sidebar.

• The header area displays the most important identification features of the work order: the work order number, the title, and brief information about the customer, type, and status.
• The tabs group the properties into four areas: General, Invoicing, Planning, and Details.
• The right sidebar contains a dynamic dashboard that summarizes the most important key figures of the work order. The content of this bar adapts slightly depending on the selected tab.

General Tab

This tab contains the basic descriptive information of the work order.

• Title, Description, and Solution: Define what the work order is about.
• Internal Note: Text field for additional, non-public information.
• Type: A classification of the work type (e.g., Story, Bug, Task). The list of possible values is maintained centrally in the respective source system (e.g., Business Central, Jira, Azure DevOps).
• Completed (toggle): Determines if the work order is considered done. The status in the header area (Open / Completed) is directly derived from this toggle.
• Locked (toggle): Can be used to lock a work order for further time recording.

For more information, see the chapter properties of a work order.

Invoicing Tab

All information relevant for invoicing and budgeting is configured and viewed here. The tab is divided into four sections: Customer & Project, Budget, Work Order Estimates, and (on an existing work order) Time Recordings.

Customer & Project

The basic assignment of the work order. The Customer and Project drive everything that follows: which planning lines can be picked, which activity rates apply, and where the invoice ends up.

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On a Sub-Work Order the two fields are inherited from the parent Billing Work Order and can not be changed, so every Sub-Work Order under the same Billing Work Order posts against the same customer and project.

On a Billing Work Order with Budget Type = Project, Customer and Project lock as soon as the first Work Order Line is added, because the lines already bind the work order to a specific project budget.

See Customer and Project Rules for the full reasoning.

Budget

• Billing Work Order: Read-only reference to the Billing Work Order on which the time is invoiced. If it points to this work order itself, this is a Billing Work Order; otherwise it is a Sub-Work Order.

• Budget Type: Either Open or Project. On a Sub-Work Order the field is disabled because the Budget Type is inherited from the Billing Work Order. The setting controls how strictly time recordings have to match the work order's planning lines — see the Budget Type chapter for what each option means.

• Work Order Lines: A grid in which each row links the work order to a Project Planning Line — i.e. to a single budget allocation. Multiple lines per work order let one work order draw from several planning lines.

  Columns:

  • Project Task No., Project Task Description, and Project Planning Line Description — together these identify the Project Task and Project Planning Line the Work Order Line points at. This is the reference to the budget; time recordings booked against the line consume that planning line's budget.
  • Activity — optional. If set here, it serves as the default activity for time recordings against this line; the user can always change it on the time recording.
  • Service Billing Type — Time & Material, Budget, or Fixed Price; a dollar-icon next to the activity shows the billable status
  • Reserved Qty. — optional; how much of the planning line's budget is reserved exclusively for this work order. Time recorders see this as their budget for the task. If left at 0, no exclusive reservation is in place and the whole planning-line budget is available to draw from. Editable only on the Billing Work Order's lines (on a Sub-Work Order the cell is read-only, because reservation is held at the Billing Work Order level). See Budget Reservation.
  • Qty. Available to Reserve — what is left of the planning-line budget after current reservations.

  Quantities under 8 hours are shown in hours; 8 hours or more are shown in days (1 day = 8 hours).

  Toolbar:

  • On a Billing Work Order: ⊕ Create Work Order Line opens a dialog to pick a Project Task, Project Planning Line, and optional Activity, and adds a new line.
  • On a Sub-Work Order: ⊕ Get Work Order Line opens a dialog showing the lines already defined on the parent Billing Work Order; the user picks one or more to bring onto the Sub-Work Order.
  • Lines can be deleted via the trash icon or the row context menu.

Work Order Estimates

• Original Estimate: The initially estimated effort; this value is displayed in the sidebar under "Time Recording" → "Estimated".
• Remaining Estimate: Can be updated by the user to track the remaining effort.

Time Recordings

A list of all times recorded for this work order. Users with the Planner role can edit entries by double-clicking or using the context menu. New entries or deletions are not possible here.

Planning Tab

This tab is for operational planning and resource assignment.

• Planning fields: Here, the work order can be assigned to a primary resource, a resource group, and optionally a location, sprint, or area.
• Events: Events are specific appointments or planned work blocks. The work on the work order can be planned in detail for one or more resources here, including specific start and end times. New events can be created via ⊕ NEW.

For more information, see the chapter properties of a work order.

Details Tab

This tab contains links, references, and historical data.

• External Link: Specifies the origin of the work order and links it to the original element in an external system (e.g., a Jira issue or an Azure DevOps work item).
• Billing Work Order: Used to map hierarchies. If this work order is a subordinate task, this section refers to the parent "Billing work order," on which all times are consolidated for billing.
• Link: A direct, permanent link for quickly addressing this work order card.
• History (in the sidebar): Shows when the work order was created and last modified.

Sidebar

The sidebar provides a quick overview of the work order's status:

• Planning:
  • Scheduled: A status indicator (visualized by a green checkmark next to the resource) shows if the work order is scheduled. The checkmark appears as soon as at least one Event (planned work block) exists in the Planning tab, indicating that the work order has been scheduled.
  • Resource: Shows the primarily assigned resource.
• Time Recording:
  • Estimated: The originally estimated effort in hours (this value comes from the Original Estimate field in the Invoicing tab).
  • Actual: The sum of all hours actually recorded for this work order, regardless of the recording resource.
• Budget:
  • Budget Type: The budget type selected on the Invoicing tab.
  • Quantity: The budget set for the work order (e.g., in days), derived from the linked Project Planning Line (type Budget) (appears only if a Project Planning Line has been selected).
  • Actual: The portion of the budget already consumed (appears only if a Project Planning Line has been selected).

Editing Permissions

The editability of the fields is role-based:

• Time Recorder role: Can edit descriptive and status-relevant fields like Title, Description, Internal Note, Solution, Type, Completed, Remaining Estimate, Area, Sprint. Cannot edit Customer, Project, Budget Type, or Work Order Lines (the project task, planning line, and activity now live on the line, not on the work order header).
• Resource Planning role: Can edit all other structural and commercial fields, including Customer, Project, Budget Type, Original Estimate, and Planning Events. Can also create, get, edit (Activity, Reserved Qty.), and delete Work Order Lines.