When to Use Parent/Child Work Orders

Parent/child work orders are available in Calem. They can be utilized to support various maintenance workflows. For instance, a PM round may be generated into one PM parent work order with each PM round stop as a child PM work order. 

Calem Enterprise supports two workflows in managing parent/child work orders.

• Case 1: Parent work orders cannot be completed till all child work orders are completed.
  • For example, a parent work order is created for a problem. It is dispatched to more than one team by creating a child work order for each team. This is done because it is not clear what the problem is and multiple teams are engaged to work together to resolve it. In this case, child work orders are ideal places to keep notes and records by each team. The problem cannot be resolved till all its child work orders are resolved.
• Case 2: Parent status is cascaded to child work orders.
  • For example, a network switch device went down which caused its dependent devices to go down as well. A monitoring application created work orders for failed devices. The work orders for dependent devices are made into child work orders of the one for the network switch. The resolution of the parent work order is copied to child work orders. When the switch is fixed, all dependent work orders are fixed through status cascading. It is very efficient without requiring a user to manually modifying each child work order.

1. Status to Child

The "Status to Child" checkbox is introduced to manage the parent/child work order management:

• Menu path: Work order form | More menu | Status to Child
• • If the flag is checked the parent status change is cascaded to child work orders.
• If the flag is unchecked the parent work order cannot be completed till all child work orders are completed.

2. Add Child Work Orders

A new menu "Add Child" is available from work order screens: 1)  From "Review" tab of TaskView;

2) From the "Child WO" tab of DataView: 

3. Search/Multi-Select Work Orders

Work orders of the following conditions are available to be selected to add as child work order:

• Status: "New"
• No parent work orders

4. Display of Child Work Orders of "Case 2"

The "Case 2" child work orders have a parent with "Status to Child" checked. 

• They are caused by the parent work order and will be resolved when the parent work order is resolved.
  
• They are not displayed in work order lists like "Open WO".
• They can be displayed in "Work Order | Open | All WO/Child WO" list form that's added for R11e.

5. Work Order Notifications for Child Work Orders of "Case 2" 

The work order status notifications are not generated for child work orders of "Case 2". 

• The notifications of the parent work orders are generated as expected.
• Not generating notifications for child work orders of "Case 2" reduces email clutters when parent status change causing child work order status changes.
  

Additional resources

• Work Order Life-Cycle Diagrams
• Work Order Status Access Control
• Work Order Step Enforcement by Status
• Work Order Required Fields by Status
• Work Order Open Alert
• User Guide and Admin Guide (customer account required)
• Calem Enterprise Training Site
  
• Calem Enterprise Blogs
  
• Calem Enterprise demo