Using the work orders list to chase what is stuck

Summary

The Work Orders page is a worklist. It opens on the jobs that need someone to do something, with the longest-neglected job at the top. Each row tells you how long it is since anything happened to the job, when it is next booked in, whether it is on site, and whether it has been invoiced. A row of views across the top (Active, Open, Stuck, Parts, Unbilled and All) lets you switch between chasing neglected jobs, chasing parts and collecting what you are owed. Search always reaches every job, whichever view you are on.

Prerequisites

• You can open work orders. Owners, managers and service advisors can by default.
• To see invoice numbers and payment states on the rows, your role also needs to view sales invoices. Owners, managers and service advisors have this as standard.

Steps

Open the list

1. Select Work Orders in the sidebar.
2. The list opens on the Active view, or on the view you last picked in this browser (see “Your default view” below).
3. Above the rows, a line reads “Showing 1-50 of 38 Active work orders”. The list shows 50 jobs per page. Use Previous and Next at the bottom to page through.

Pick a view

The six buttons above the list are views. Each one carries a count of how many jobs it holds across your whole garage, not just the page you are looking at.

1. Active: what matters this week. Jobs being worked on always appear. Other open jobs appear if someone touched them in the last 30 days or they have a booking in the last 7 days or the next 14 days. A cancelled booking does not count. Finished jobs appear if they were touched in the last 7 days or the vehicle is still on site.
2. Open: every job that is not in a finished status.
3. Stuck: open jobs that have gone untouched for longer than the limit you set for their status in Settings > Workflow. A nightly check flags them, and the flag clears as soon as anyone updates the job or books it in.
4. Parts: open jobs with the parts-on-order flag, whatever their status. A job that is In Progress with a part on order shows here.
5. Unbilled: customer jobs with no invoice raised yet (see “What Unbilled means” below).
6. All: every work order, including finished, cancelled and abandoned jobs. This view lists the newest job first.

Tap a view to switch. If a count shows a dash instead of a number, that count could not be worked out just now. The list itself still loads. Refresh to try again.

Read a row

Each row reads left to right. On a narrow screen some columns move to a second line under the customer name, so nothing is lost.

1. St (status): a short code for the status in its colour, such as IP for In Progress. Hover over it for the full name. An outlined, hollow code means the status is not one of the statuses in your workflow settings (see Troubleshooting).
2. Ref, Customer, Reg and Vehicle: select the customer name or the registration to open their record.
3. Job: the job description.
4. Booked: the date and time of the next booking that has not been cancelled. Select it to open the scheduler on that day. It is blank when nothing is booked.
5. Invoice: for an invoiced job, the invoice number and a payment code: PD (paid), PP (part paid), UP (unpaid) or OD (overdue). Select the number to open the invoice. Under Unbilled, this column instead says No invoice or Draft 12d (a saved invoice draft started 12 days ago).
6. Flags: short warnings. OS means the vehicle is on site (green while the job is live, amber once the job is finished and nobody has collected it). MOT and TAX or SORN warn about the vehicle’s MOT or tax. SP marks a sale-prep job and IN an internal job. A number shows unread customer messages.
7. Age: the number of days since anything changed on the job. A flag icon beside the number means the job has been flagged as stuck, and the number then counts days since it was flagged. Hover for the reason, for example “Flagged 27d ago. Pending jobs are chased after 30 days.”

No money amounts appear anywhere on this list. That is deliberate: one screenshot of this page should never be a summary of fifty customers’ balances. Open the job to see the figures.

Open a job

1. Select anywhere on a row to open the full work order.
2. Middle-click, or right-click and choose to open in a new tab, to keep your place in the list.
3. To book an appointment or edit the job, open it. The list no longer has a preview panel.

Sort by age

1. The working views (Active, Open, Stuck, Parts and Unbilled) list the job untouched longest first.
2. Select the Age column header to reverse the order. Select it again to switch back.
3. Age is the only column you can sort by.

Search

1. Type in the search box. It matches the reference, the customer’s name or company name, the registration, the make and model, and the job description.
2. The counts on every view update to match your search, so you can see at a glance which view holds the job.
3. If nothing matches in the view you are on but the job exists elsewhere, the message offers See all N matches. Select it to switch to All with your search kept. Finished jobs are never out of reach of search.

Filter by status

1. Use the status dropdown beside the search box. It lists every status in your workflow, plus any status that is actually on one of your jobs, in alphabetical order.
2. A status filter combines with the view. Stuck plus Scheduled shows only stuck Scheduled jobs.
3. Open, Stuck and Parts only hold open jobs, so the dropdown does not offer finished statuses under those views. Switch to Active, Unbilled or All to filter by a finished status such as Abandoned.

Your default view

1. The last view you pick becomes your default in this browser. Next time you open Work Orders it opens there.
2. Pick Active again to go back to the standard default.
3. The preference is saved in the browser, not against your login. A different browser or computer starts on Active, and anyone else using this browser gets your choice.
4. A link that names a view, such as a bookmark or a shared link, always opens that view.

What Unbilled means

A job appears under Unbilled when all of these are true:

• It is a Customer job. Sale-prep and internal jobs never appear, because they are never invoiced to a customer.
• No sales invoice has been raised for it. A job whose only invoice was voided comes back.
• Either the job is in your job-finished status (the status marked Job finished in Settings > Workflow), or someone saved an invoice draft on it more than 7 days ago, whatever its status.

The last condition matters. A Pending job with a month-old invoice draft is money nobody has billed, and it would never show up if the list only looked at finished jobs. The Invoice column tells you which case each row is: No invoice for a finished job, or Draft 12d for a job carrying an old draft.

Expected Outcome

• The list opens on the jobs that need attention, oldest-neglected first.
• Each view’s count matches the number of jobs you see when you select it.
• Search finds any job, including finished ones, from any view.
• Unbilled shows finished customer jobs with no invoice and jobs carrying an invoice draft older than a week.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A job I know exists is not in the list. Cause: The view you are on does not include it. Active hides jobs nobody has touched for a while, and Open, Stuck and Parts hide finished jobs. Fix: Search for it. If it sits in another view, select See all N matches, or select All.

Problem: A row has a hollow, outlined status code, and a line above the list says some jobs have a status that is not part of your configured workflow. Cause: The job carries a status name that is not one of the statuses in Settings > Workflow. This usually comes from imported data or an old spelling, for example “Completed” when your workflow uses “Complete”. Only people who can open Settings see the line above the list. Fix: Hover the code to read the full status name, open the job and move it to the right status. Do not add a new status to your workflow just to match a stray name. Jobs created from a quote (Draft) or booked online (Awaiting Drop Off) also show a hollow code. That is expected, they are not counted in the line, and they need no fix. See Workflow configuration.

Problem: The Age number looks too low for a job that has plainly sat idle. Cause: Age counts days since the record last changed, and any change counts, including automatic ones such as a reminder being logged. It is not how long the job has been in its current status. Torqueflow does not record when a status changed. Fix: Use Stuck to find neglected jobs. Stuck is decided by the nightly check against your per-status limits, not by the Age number.

Problem: Stuck is empty, or a job I expect is missing from it. Cause: Only statuses with a Mark stale after (days) limit can be flagged. Finished statuses never are. The check runs once a night, so a changed limit takes effect the next day, and any update to a job clears its flag. Fix: Set a limit on the statuses you want chased in Settings > Workflow.

Problem: The Unbilled count looks too low. Cause: Unbilled uses the one status marked Job finished. A job on a near-miss spelling, such as “Completed” when your job-finished status is “Complete”, is not treated as finished unless it also carries an invoice draft older than 7 days. Fix: Filter the All view by the odd status, then move those jobs to your real job-finished status.

Problem: Two different statuses show the same short code. Cause: Codes are built from the status name, so “Complete” and “Completed” both read Co. Fix: Hover the code for the full name. A hollow code is the one not in your workflow settings.

Problem: The Invoice column is missing. Cause: Your role cannot view sales invoices. Fix: Ask the owner to grant sales invoice access in Settings > Roles if you need it.

Problem: I cannot sort by Status or Customer. Cause: Only Age is sortable at the moment. Fix: Use the status dropdown to narrow by status, and search to find a customer.

Notes

• Old links that ended in ?show=all still work and open the All view.
• The Workshop board’s Active view uses the same rules as the list’s Active view, so both show the same jobs.
• The OS flag is the quickest way to spot a finished job whose vehicle is still marked on site. Clear those from the On site screen.