Record relationships and work orders
Relationships between records, such as work orders and tickets, help to simplify record management. You can create record relationships manually or relationships can be created automatically when you take certain actions.
The following types of relationships can exist between records:
- Related
- Originator and follow-up
- Related to global
Related records
Using the Work Order Tracking application, you can view records and relate work orders to the current record. You relate work orders informally for information purposes and to create a relationship between records. A related relationship does not determine status inheritance, affect workflow, or follow a set of business rules. Related relationships can be many-to-many, and do not represent record hierarchies.
You use the Related Records tab of the Work Order Tracking application to create relationships to other work orders and tickets. Relationships that you create on the Related Records tab have a relationship type of Related.
When you create relationships between records, you can take the following actions:
- Modify related records.
- View related information for similar records.
- View open tickets that are associated with a specific field in the Work Order Tracking application.
Originator and follow-up work orders
From the current work order, you can create another related record by selecting the Create action. When you create a work order or a ticket from an existing work order, the new record has a status of Follow-up. The original work order has a status of Originator.
You create follow-up work orders to associate work orders and tickets with each other and keep them in separate hierarchies. The costs of the follow-up work orders in separate hierarchies do not roll up to the same parent. For example, you can create a follow-up work order when you complete a job and observe that additional work is needed on the same asset or location.
A follow-up work order can determine the status of its originating ticket. An originating ticket cannot change the status of a follow-up work order. A follow-up ticket cannot change the status of the originator ticket if there is more than one follow-up. Your system administrator can configure these options.
When you create follow-up work orders, the asset, location, and general ledger account are copied from the originating work order to the follow-up work order.
You can view follow-up work orders on the Related Records tab of the originating record.
Globally related tickets
A global record is a ticket (a service request, a problem, or an incident record) that outlines an issue that affects many users. To make a ticket a global record, you must select the Global Issue check box on the ticket. You can then select the Show Similar Tickets action in the toolbar to select tickets to relate to the global ticket, creating a RELATEDTOGLOBAL relationship.
You can use this relationship type to manage all tickets that are included in the global ticket. For example, when you change the status of the global ticket, the system changes the status of all globally related tickets.
If your administrator has set up automated notifications of status changes, then the system changes the status of the tickets related to the global issue. All of the initial requesters reporting the same issue are notified of its resolution.
On the global ticket, you can view a list of related records and view the work and communication logs for all related records.
You cannot designate a record as global if it is already related to a global record or if it is a history record.