HOMEBUILDER:  SERVICE ISSUES AND WORK ORDERS

In this Article:

Overview | Before You Begin | Opening the Service Issues of an Inspection | Where Service Issues Come From | Step 1: Assess Each Issue | Step 2: Assign a Deficiency Type and Vendor | Step 3: Create Work Orders | Step 4: Issue and Send the Work Orders | Step 5: Record the Completed Work | Step 6: Resolve Concerns, Inquiries and Non-Issues | Step 7: The Inspection Is Completed | Example: A Customer Call | Re-trading Issues to Another Vendor | Service Issues Page Reference | Work Order Actions and Statuses | Service Issues and Service Work Orders (Whole Company) | Reports | Video | Related Articles

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Overview

This article is for the people who perform inspections and for the office staff, customer care, warranty coordinators, operations or accounting support who follow up on what an inspection finds.

Every problem recorded during an inspection becomes a service issue. Each service issue is closed in one of two ways:

• If it is a deficiency — something a vendor has to fix, it is placed on a service work order for the vendor responsible, and it is resolved when that work order is completed.
• If it is not — a concern, an inquiry or a non-issue, the office records a resolution and resolves it directly.

When every service issue of an inspection is resolved, the system changes the inspection's Status to 'Completed'.

Process

1. Record
   • Issues are recorded during the inspection, from the checklist or entered directly.
   • Done by an Inspector.
2. Assess
   
   • Each issue gets an Assessment; deficiencies get a Deficiency Type and a vendor.
   • Done by an Inspector or the office.
3. Create WOs
   
   • One service work order per vendor and contract.
   • Done by the office.
4. Issue & send
   
   • Work orders are issued, then emailed or printed for the vendors.
   • Done by the office.
5. Resolve
   
   • Completed work resolves its issues; other issues need a Resolution.
   • Done by the Office or the site.
6. Completed
   
   • The inspection completes itself when nothing is left open.
   • Done automatically.

Before You Begin

Service issues and work orders rely on the after-sales setup done during implementation: warranty items, deficiency types, checklist items and inspection types. That setup is described in Performing an Inspection and, in technical detail, in Inspections Setup Requirements.

Opening the Service Issues of an Inspection

1. Search Lots, open the Lot Card, and choose Inspections.
2. Select an existing inspection, or choose New to create one. The Inspection Card opens.
3. On the Inspection Card, choose Service Issues.

The Service Issues page opens, captioned with the inspection number, the Phase and the Lot. Each line is one issue, with its house area, checklist item, date reported and comment; the FactBox on the right shows the pictures taken for the selected issue.

Service issues can also be reached:

• from the inspection checklist, with Edit Checklist Issues on the Checklist Entries page — see Performing an Inspection.
• for the whole company, from the Service Issues page — see Service Issues and Service Work Orders (Whole Company).
• on the Inspector Role Center, with New → Service Issue, which creates an inspection of the default type and opens a new service issue in one step.

 

Where Service Issues Come From

Service issues are recorded during the inspection, in one of two ways depending on its inspection type:

• from the checklist of a Pre-Delivery Inspection or Quality Care inspection, where every entry marked 'Has Issues' gets one or more service issues.
• directly on the Service Issues page, for inspections without a checklist, such as a customer call or a 30-day inspection.

Both routes, and how a service issue is filled in on site, are described in Standardized Inspections Process and Performing an Inspection. This article starts where they end: with the issues recorded and waiting to be dealt with.

 

Step 1: Assess Each Issue

Every service issue needs an Assessment before anything else can happen to it. The Assessment answers one question: does a vendor have to fix this?

Rules to know:

• The Assessment can be changed while the issue is 'Open' and is not yet on a planning line or work order.
• Changing the Assessment clears the Deficiency Type Code. Changing it away from 'Deficiency' also clears Vendor No. and Vendor Contract No.
• Once a deficiency is on a work order, its Assessment can no longer be changed: "Cannot change Assessment from "Deficiency" to another option because the Service Issue is included in the Work Order …"

 

Step 2: Assign a Deficiency Type and Vendor

For each 'Deficiency', choose a Deficiency Type Code, the standard description of what is wrong, such as Floor laminate - scratches. When the issue has a checklist item, the lookup offers only the deficiency types that apply to it. Choosing a checklist item on a new issue also sets the Assessment to 'Deficiency', and if the checklist item has only one applicable deficiency type, it is filled in as well.

Choosing the deficiency type fills in:

• Item No. — the warranty item linked to the deficiency type.
• Vendor No. and Vendor Contract No. — the vendor responsible for that item in the Lot's Phase, when one is set up.
• Comment — the description of the deficiency type, but only if the Comment is empty. A comment the inspector has already written is never overwritten.

How the Vendor is Filled In

The vendor is not stored on the deficiency type. It is found through a chain of setup:

Deficiency Type  →  its Item No.  →  that item in Phase Items of the Lot's Phase  →  Vendor No. + Vendor Contract No.

1. The Deficiency Types page links each deficiency type to a warranty item. Several deficiency types can share one item — every closet problem, for example, can use the same closets warranty item.
2. The Phase Items page of the Lot's Phase holds, for each warranty item, the Vendor No. and Vendor Contract No. of the trade that does that work in that Phase.
3. If the Phase Item has no vendor, the item's Default Vendor No. and Default Contract No. are used instead.
4. If neither exists, the vendor is left blank and has to be entered by hand.

When the Vendor Is Blank

Choose the Vendor No., then the Vendor Contract No., on the line. The contract lookup shows only that vendor's contracts in the Phase.

Comment, Internal Note and Note to Vendor

A service issue has three text fields, and they reach different readers.

Due Date and Days Outstanding

• Date Reported — the inspection's Date Performed, or today if the inspection type uses today's date or the inspection has not been performed yet.
• Due Date — Date Reported plus the number of days set in Due Date Calculation on the inspection type (see Performing an Inspection). Changing the Date Reported recalculates it.
• Days Outstanding — how many days the issue is past its Due Date: counted to today while it is open, and to the Date Resolved once it is resolved. It is zero until the issue falls due, and is highlighted once it reaches the Critical Days Outstanding set in HomeBuilder Setup.

 

Step 3: Create Work Orders

1. Select the service issues. Selecting all of them is fine: only deficiencies that are not yet on a work order are processed; concerns, inquiries, non-issues and deficiencies already on a work order are skipped.
2. Choose Create Work Orders.

The system then:

• validates every selected deficiency for correct settings such as:
  • deficiency type whose warranty item has a Workflow Template Task.
  • vendor that exists and is not blocked.
  • inspection has a due date
• creates a planning line on the Lot for each deficiency, the warranty item, quantity 1, linked to the service issue.
• groups the deficiencies by Vendor No. and Vendor Contract No., and creates one service work order for each group, with Status 'New'.
• writes the work order number into Vendor Work Order No. on each service issue.

If one work order was created, its card opens. If several were created, a message reports how many.

A service work order is a Vendor Work Order of type 'Service'. Compared with a construction work order, its header also shows the Inspection No. and Inspection Type Code. Its Due Date is the inspection's Date Performed plus the Due Date Calculation days, and each line carries the warranty item, the deficiency description and, under Service Issue, the issue's comment.

The planning lines created for the inspection's deficiencies can be reviewed from the Inspection Card with Related → Planning Lines, where a Unit Cost can be entered for future purchases. See Inspection Card.

 

Step 4: Issue and Send the Work Orders

On the Inspection Card, choose Related → Work Orders (see Inspection card). The Inspection Work Orders page lists every work order created for the inspection — normally one per vendor.

1. Review the work orders. While a work order is 'New', more issues can still be added to it with Add Service Issues on the Vendor Work Order Card.
2. Select the work orders and choose Issue. The Status changes to 'Issued' and Date Issued is stamped.
3. Send them: Print, or Send by Email, which opens the email with the work order attached as a PDF so that the recipient and the text can be checked before sending.

The service work order lists each deficiency with its location, description, status and days outstanding, together with the pictures taken for it, and ends with a confirmation block for the purchaser and the project supervisor to sign. Its layout is different from that of a construction work order.

The address each vendor receives service work orders at can differ from the email on the Vendor Card, and so can the sender address. Both are set up as described in Inspections Emails.

 

Step 5: Record the Completed Work

When the vendor, the site supervisor or the purchaser confirms that the work is done, record it in either of two ways. Both end in the same place.

Date Completed defaults to today; Date Resolved has to be entered. Neither can be in the future. Completion Confirmed is switched on by default in both dialogs; what it records is explained in Standardized Inspections Process. 

Other Work Order Statuses

• Report as Done records that the vendor says the work is finished (Status 'Reported'). It is optional; the work is accepted with Complete.
• Re-Issue returns a reported or completed work order to 'Issued' — for example when the repair is rejected and has to be redone.
• Un-Resolve on the Service Issues page returns resolved issues to 'Open' and re-opens the inspection.

 

Step 6: Resolve Concerns, Inquiries and Non-Issues

These issues have no vendor and no work order. To close one:

1. Enter the Resolution — what was done or said. For example: Homebuyer was persuaded.
2. Choose Resolve, enter the Date Resolved, and choose OK.

The issue's Status changes to 'Resolved', and Resolved by User Id and Date Resolved are stamped.

If any selected issue other than a deficiency has no Resolution, nothing is resolved and the system shows: "Please enter "Resolution" to selected Service Issues with Assessment other than Deficiency, such as Concern, Inquiry, or Non-Issue."

 

Step 7: The Inspection Is Completed

As soon as no service issue of the inspection is 'Open', the system changes the inspection's Status to 'Completed' and sets Date Completed to the latest Date Resolved among its issues. Nothing has to be done by hand.

An inspection therefore stays open while any concern, inquiry or non-issue is unresolved, even when all its work orders are completed. If an issue is un-resolved later, the inspection returns to 'Open'.

Example: A Customer Call

Example — a customer call, no checklist: The purchaser of a Lot phones in two problems: the grass in the backyard is damaged, and the carpet in bedroom 2 is defective.

1. On the Lot, open Inspections, choose New, and set Inspection Type Code to the customer call type.

2. Open Service Issues. On the first line choose the house area BACKYARD and the checklist item LANDSCAPING. Landscaping has only one applicable deficiency type, so the Assessment 'Deficiency' and the grass deficiency type are filled in automatically.

3. On the second line choose BEDROOM 2 and the carpet checklist item. The carpet deficiency type is filled in, and with it the flooring vendor and contract from the Phase Items of the Lot's Phase.

4. The landscaping issue has no vendor, because no vendor is set for the landscaping warranty item in that Phase. Enter it by hand.

5. Create the work orders, issue and send them, and record completion as in Steps 3 to 5. When both issues are resolved, the inspection is completed.

 

Re-trading Issues to Another Vendor

If a deficiency went to the wrong vendor, or another vendor is to do the work, select it on the Service Issues page and choose Re-trade Selected. Re-trading the lines of a work order from the Vendor Work Order Card is described in Standardized Inspections Process.

• Only issues that are 'Open', assessed as 'Deficiency' and on a work order with status 'New' or 'Issued' can be re-traded.
• In the Re-trade Work Order Lines dialog, choose an existing destination Vendor Work Order No., or switch on New Work Order and enter the Vendor No.
• All the selected issues must belong to the same Phase. Issues from different Lots can only be re-traded into new work orders; each stays with its own inspection.

 

Service Issues Page Reference

Actions

Fields

Many columns are hidden by default; use Personalize to show them.

The FactBox pane shows the Picture of the selected issue with a count of its pictures, and Related Information with its planning lines.

 

Work Order Actions and Statuses

Service work orders are worked with from the Inspection Work Orders page, from the Vendor Work Order Card, and from the company-wide Service Work Orders page. The actions are the same as for construction work orders; see Vendor Work Orders.

Statuses

 

Service Issues and Service Work Orders (Whole Company)

Service Issues

To work with all service work orders in the company, search for Service Work Orders, or open it from the Role Center: HomeBuilder → After-sales Service → Service Work Orders.

The list shows the Inspection No. and Inspection Type Code of each work order and has the actions Edit, Issue, Un-Issue, Report as Done, Complete, Cancel, Print, Send by Email, Send by Email Silently and Sent Emails. To re-issue a work order, open it with Edit.

 

Reports

The After-sales Service → Reports menu of the Role Center offers:

The Send Deficiencies to Vendors page in the same menu lists each vendor with its number of open, resolved and total issues, and can print or send each vendor its deficiencies.

 

The video below, originally placed Performing an Inspection, walks through an inspection including its service issues and work orders.