Orders & Troubles

Orders/Troubles

The Orders and Troubles menu is the primary location for many telephone and data system tasks. From this menu, you create and complete work orders, manage information relating to set devices, circuits, subscribers, and accounts and create/complete trouble tickets relating to set device and circuit repairs and maintenance.

Through this menu option, users can track work orders in several different ways and view the history of completed or cancelled work orders.

The approach to the work order system is slightly different from the approach used in CAIRS 32. In CAIRS, we use Work Flows; this is the process the work order goes through from start to finish. Each Work Flow contains two parts, the work centers, and time frames.

A work center is much like an Inbox/basket in that it holds a set of data components you need to complete before the Work Order can be sent to the next work center and time frame. Examples of work centers are: Directory, Inside Plant, Outside Plant, QA, etc.

Each work center is assigned into a time frame; a time frame allows the work flow to progress sequentially. This means the work from one work center needs to be complete before the work order can continue within the work flow. If two work centers are in the same time frame, they can be worked on concurrently. Once this Work Order enters the time frame, both work centers can access and complete their work at the same time (with respect to Open Record Management).

! Open Record Management is important in the work order process. When one person is accessing the work order, they own it; meaning, if another person tries to open it and make changes, CAIRS will notify them that the work order is currently opened by another user (the user name is displayed) and any changes they have made might not be saved to the record.

Assigned to each work center are one or more data components. A data component is the information you are manipulating with the work order. There are eight different data components:

  • Subscribers
  • Authorization Code
  • Circuit
  • Land Radio
  • Account
  • General Task
  • Cell Phone
  • Set Device
  • AS5300 Sets
  • Cisco Sets
  • Set Device (EWSD)

Remember, when a data component is added to a work center, the required fields for the component must be completed before the work order can be sent to the next work center.

Menu Options

The Orders/Troubles menu has five options:

  • Orders –create, modify, and view work orders within the database.
    • My Work Center Orders – provides a list of work orders currently assigned to a work center to which you have access.
    • Orders Assigned to Me – provides a list of the work orders assigned or sent to you by another user.
    • Orders Created By Me – provides a list of the work orders that you created.
    • Held Orders – provides a list of work orders currently on hold.
    • All Active Orders – provides a list of all open work orders within your system.
    • Order History – provides a list of cancelled or completed work orders within your system.
  • Troubles – allows you to view, create, and modify trouble tickets within the database.
    • My Work Center Troubles – provides a list of trouble tickets currently assigned into a work center you have privileges to access.
    • Troubles Assigned to Me – provides a list of trouble tickets assigned or sent to you by another user.
    • Troubles Created By Me – provides a list of the trouble tickets that you created.
    • Held Troubles – provides a list of trouble tickets currently on hold.
    • All Active Troubles – provides a list of all open trouble tickets within your system.
    • Trouble History – provides a list of trouble tickets cancelled or completed within your system.
  • General Orders – allows you to view, create and modify general orders with sub work orders
    • All Active General Orders – provides a list of the open general work orders within your system. This section allows you to create sub work orders.
    • General Order History – provides a list of the cancelled or completed general work orders within your system.
  • General Tasks – allows you to create tasks relating to your work orders or trouble tickets.
  • Preventive Maintenance Jobs – allows you to set schedules for preventative maintenance, for example, setting reminders to backup your database
  • Reports – there are four different reports that you can view and export to multiple formats.
    • All Orders and Troubles – displays a list of all the work order/troubles within your system, this includes open, completed and cancelled.
    • All Orders and Troubles By Directory Number – displays a list of the work orders/troubles within your system based on telephone number, this report includes open, completed and cancelled work orders.
    • All Orders and Troubles By Circuit – displays a list of the work orders/troubles within your system based on circuit name, this report includes open, completed and cancelled work orders.
    • All Portal Requests – displays a list of work orders/troubles with your system that were submitted via the Subscriber Portal, this includes open, completed and cancelled work orders.
    • Equipment and Service By Category – this report works in connection with the report category associated to an equipment type, when you run this report all equipment associated to a work order that have a category display within the report

There are a few items that need to be completed before you can start to work through a work order. The first two being creating your work order categories and managing your note categories.