Create Maintenance Tasks
Introduction
Maintenance Tasks are similiar to work orders but they're only dedicated to Resources. They're documents where you can set up needed resources and post the consumption on them. Assets, Items and Expenses lines are not possible to add.
You can plan Maintenance Tasks to consider other types of activities for your resources when doing maintenance planning. For example, a maintenance team is not available every first Monday of the month because the whole team has regular first-aid training.
Maintenance Tasks are fully supported by Advanced Planning functionality in the same way Work Orders are.
Create a Maintenance Task Plan
- On your role center, you can open a new Maintenance Task Plan in different ways:
- Search for Maintenance Task Plans and open the list from search > Maintenance Task Plans > New, or
- Work Orders > Maintenance Task Plans > New.
- In the Description field, enter your own description.
- In the Category Code field, select a Maintenance Task Category.
- Maintenance Task Categories might contain a default Priority Code that will be applied automatically to the document after specifying the category code value.
- In the Priority Code field, select a Maintenance Task Priority. If this field is automatically filled out, it means the Maintenance Task Priority was set up on the selected Maintenance Task Category.
- In the Status field, the Maintenance Task will be set to 'Open' automatically. It changes to 'Released' once you release it, just like on a Work Order and Round Order document.
- In the Asset Responsibility Center, you can define to which Asset Responsibility Center this plan is dedicated.
- Specify any Checklists to be done before, during, or after the maintenance task. Read more about Checklists.
- If you want to specify the number of days in which the Maintenance Task should be done/closed based on the planned date, specify the Latest Finish Date Calculation in the Additional Parameters tab. Based on this data, the Latest Finish Date visible on the Maintenance Task will be calculated. If the Latest Finish Date Calculation is blank, the Latest Finish Date will be equal to the Original Planned Date on the Maintenance Task calculated from the plan.
- Add dedicated Resources to the Plan.
- Add Maintenance Tasks Steps.
When everything is ready you can release your maintenance task plan so it will be ready to create a maintenance task.
On the Maintenance Task Plan, you can find the following areas:
General
Here you can set up:
- Number of the document
- Description of the plan
- Category code
- Priority code
- Asset responsibility center
- Checklists
- Dimensions
Frequencies
Here you can define (in the same as on the Work Order Plan) when the plan should create a dedicated Maintenance Task.
For Maintenance Task Plan, two frequencies are dedicated:
- One-off
- Calendar
Resources
Here you can specify resources that are planned to be applied to Maintenance Task. Specifying Resources works the same way as on any other order document. Read more in the article Resources on Work Order Plans.
Task Plan Steps
Here you can create a list (the order will be copied to the maintenance task) of all steps that should be covered in the maintenance task. You can specify that a resource is responsible for a specific step.
To see a list of Maintenance Task Plans, select Work Orders > Maintenance Task Plans on your role center, or search for and select Maintenance Task Plans. In the Maintenance Task Plans list, you can see a filter in the upper-left corner of the screen. The default selection of the filter is 'All'. In the filter:
- Select 'Closed' to see plans with the status 'Closed'.
- Select 'Not closed' to see plans with the status 'Open' and 'Released'.
Use Power Automate Workflows
You can create workflows for when a resource number is specified on a maintenance task and when a maintenance task is created. Read more about how to set up workflows using Power Automate in Business Central.
Use Maintenance Tasks for Counter Readings
Use Maintenance Tasks to conduct Counter Readings. Since Maintenance Tasks don't involve assets, they're ideal for when you need to do counter readings.
Add Counters to a Plan
On the Maintenance Task Plan, you can specify which counters you want to create readings for.
- Go to Settings > Personalize and select the Counters field to view it on the page.
- As you can see in screenshot 01, the column 'Reading Order' can be used if the order of the readings are important.
- This field can be shown through personalization.
- Select Add Counters to start adding counters to the list.
- When you're done, you can release the document.
- You can still make changes to the Counter section, even when the document is released.
- Calculate the document.
- When the document is calculated, the list of counters are added to the Task.
Input Counter reading values
On the Maintenance Task, you can now see the Counters list and input the reading values. See screenshot 02.
- The 'Reading Order' column must be shown through personalization here as well as on the Plan.
- Input reading values.
- The date of the reading values are automatically applied then you input reading values.
- The reading value and reading date can be edited as long as you haven't registered them yet.
- When you have completed the input of reading values, select Register Reading.
- You can now see that the 'Reading' column is checked for each line that you have registered, and view other information related to the reading (see screenshot 03).
- When you close the task, and you have lines where there is a reading value and reading date, but they're not registered yet ('Registered' column not checked), these will be registered automatically.
- If you haven't completed all readings upon closing, you will be notified.
Posted Maintenance Task
All information about the readings are transferred to the posted Maintenance Task. The counter area is visible as long as a counter reading has been registered. See screenshot 04.
In Counter Entries, you can see the source of the entry (maintenance task) as 'External Document No.'.
Use Maintenance Tasks for Measurement Readings
Use Maintenance Tasks to conduct Measurement Readings. Since Maintenance Tasks don't involve assets, they're ideal for when you need to do measurement readings.
Add Measurements to a Plan
On the Maintenance Task Plan, you can specify which measurements you want to create readings for.
- Go to Settings > Personalize and select the Measurements field to view it on the page.
- As you can see in screenshot 01, the column 'Reading Order' can be used if the order of the readings are important.
- This field can be shown through personalization.
- Select Add Measurements to start adding measurements to the list.
- When you're done, you can release the document.
- You can still make changes to the Measurements section, even when the document is released.
- Calculate the document.
- When the document is calculated, the list of measurements are added to the Task.
Input Measurement reading values
On the Maintenance Task, you can now see the Measurements list and input the reading values. See screenshot 02.
- The 'Reading Order' column must be shown through personalization here as well as on the Plan.
- Input reading values.
- The date of the reading values are automatically applied then you input reading values.
- The reading value and reading date can be edited as long as you haven't registered them yet.
- When you have completed the input of reading values, select Register Reading.
- You can now see that the 'Reading' column is checked for each line that you have registered, and view other information related to the reading (see screenshot 03).
- When you close the task, and you have lines where there is a reading value and reading date, but they're not registered yet ('Registered' column not checked), these will be registered automatically.
- If you haven't completed all readings upon closing, you will be notified.
Posted Maintenance Task
All information about the readings are transferred to the posted Maintenance Task. The measurement area is visible as long as a measurement reading has been registered. See screenshot 04.
In Measurement Entries, you can see the source of the entry (maintenance task) as 'External Document No.'.
Calculating Maintenance Task Plan
Created Maintenance Task Plan can be released and when in this status, the maintenance task can be created if the frequency is triggered. You can calculate the plan directly from the card or from the Work Order Planning Worksheet. There is an additional option added when you specify which plans should be calculated.
Simulate Maintenance Tasks
Run a Maintenance Task simulation to see calculations of the resources expected to be consumed on Maintenance Task, based on the content on their plans.
The simulations are created every time you calculate the plan. You can also run the simulation manually by searching for and using the task Simualte Maintenance Tasks.
Maintenance Tasks are fully supported with simulations. On the page, you can inspect incoming Maintenance Tasks and their lines.
Maintenance Task Card
A maintenance Task is a document created from its plan. See screenshot 01 for an example.
On the card you can find the following sections:
- General
- Resources
- Task Steps
- Audit
On the Maintenance Task Card, you can use the basic Status to define the current state of the document, or you can use Advanced Maintenance Statuses.
General
Here you can edit the Status, Description, Planned Date, Posted Date, Asset Responsibility Center, or add Checklists. You can also see how many steps are included in the task and how many of them are completed or remaining.
Resources
Here you have the same options as on the Work Order Card.
Task Steps
The order of steps is taken from the plan (see screenshot 02). Here you can specify if the step is done or not. This is only one value that can be changed on the line. You can't add new lines, edit, or remove existing ones. Checklists can be added for each step.
Audit
Here you can find information about who and when a document was created.
Create One-off Maintenance Task
You can use this task (from the search button) to start the process of creating a one-off maintenance task. You need to specify the description, category, and priority. On the bottom, there is an area where you can add steps one by one by providing a description. The process will create a one-off maintenance task and relevant maintenance task plan. This process is similar to the creation of a One-off Work Order.
Resource
On the resource card, you can use the Maintenance Availability button to check what the resource has planned in the company.
Posted Maintenance Task
The document reflects the Maintenance Task at the moment it was closed. Therefore, you can easily check what was posted and which steps were done. Select the search button and look up Posted Maintenance Tasks.
You can use Power Automate to set up workflows for when a task is completed. Read more about how to set up workflows using Power Automate in Business Central.