Glossary
Work order
A work order is the digital document that assigns a specific task to someone in the field: what has to be done, where, with which materials, by when and with what evidence it has to come back. It is the smallest unit used to plan, track and invoice a field operation.
A well-formed work order carries four things: the job to be done, the asset or customer it is done on, the committed deadline and the evidence expected back — a checklist, photos, a signature. Missing any of the four, it stops serving its purpose: without a deadline you cannot track compliance, and without evidence you cannot prove it was done.
It is often confused with a ticket. The difference is that a ticket records a request while a work order assigns an execution: it has an owner, a time window and reserved materials. One ticket can generate several orders, and an order can exist without a ticket — preventive maintenance is generated on its own, by plan.
When the operation runs on paper, the order exists but its status does not: you have to call to find out whether it was done. That is the gap a field service management system closes, and it is also where invoicing gets lost: work that was carried out but never documented does not get billed.
Where GoDoWorks handles this:GDW Services