Creating Related Work Orders
There are several ways to create work orders with relationships.
- You can create a work Corrective Maintenance (CM) work order through either a Preventive Maintenance (PM) or Planned Event (PE) work order. This will automatically create a "Relates to" relationship between the work orders
- You can create a new work order through the "Related Work Orders" tab of an existing work order. This will automatically create a "Relates to" relationship between the work orders
- You can also manually add a relationship between work orders. This is covered more in-depth in the following sections.
Setting Relationships
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To begin creating a relationship between work orders, open one of the involved work orders in Edit mode. For questions on how to edit work orders, please refer to the How do I create and edit a Work Order? article.
- NOTE: Work Order Relationships have no other function other than to display how different work orders relate to one another.
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Next, go to the Related Work Orders tab of the work order.
- Select the appropriate Relationship option from the drop-down. You can find a list of all the available relationship types with examples listed in the final section of this article. The default selection is "Related to."
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Once the Relationship has been selected, enter the ID number of the related work order in the Work Order ID field.
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After you have entered the work order ID, click Add to create the Relationship. If the incorrect ID was entered into the field, you can click Reset to wipe the entry and start over.
- NOTE: In order to save the relationship, you will need to click the Save button in the UNITY main header.
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After you have saved your work order, your section could look like this:
OR like this:
Viewing Related Work Orders
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In order to view the details of a work order that appears in a Related Work Orders section, click the Work Order ID number
- This action will open the related work order in a new browser tab.
Removing a Relationship Between Work Orders
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To remove a Relationship, open one of the related work orders in Edit mode, then click the red X next to the appropriate work order
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After you have removed a relationship, you will need to Save the work order to finalize that change.
Relationship Options and Definitions
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Related to
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A general link between two WOs that are connected but without a strict sequence.
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Example: HVAC inspection is related to duct cleaning — one doesn’t depend on the other, but they’re part of the same maintenance project.
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Blocks
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This work order must be completed before another can proceed.
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Example: Electrical rough-in blocks ceiling installation — ceiling can’t be installed until electrical is done.
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- Blocked by
- This work order can’t start until the referenced work order is completed.
- Example: Painting is blocked by drywall repair.
- Precedes
- This work order happens before the other — more of a timeline reference than a strict dependency.
- Example: Preventive filter replacement precedes system inspection.
- Follows
- This work order happens after the other — again, timeline reference.
- Example: Equipment calibration follows initial install.
- Copied to
- This work order was used to create another — the second WO may have been slightly modified or assigned elsewhere.
- Example: You copied to another WO for a different building with similar needs.
- Copied from
- This work order was created based on another existing one.
- Example: You copied from a recurring WO template or similar job.