Tasks & Productivity

Work orders

Overview

A work order is a single customer request: who asked, what they asked for with its lines and quantities, and whatever order-header fields your company needs. You open it from the Human Resources workspace → the "Work" row → the "Work orders" tab — the row opens on "Tasks" first, and work orders are the third tab, after "Projects".

An order moves in three steps:

1. It is recorded from a single form and saved as a "Draft" — no task, no station, nothing reaching anybody.
2. It is sent to preparation by a human decision, becoming a staged task that travels the template's stations.
3. It is printed and followed — as a ticket on your company letterhead, from the day's list or from the station screen.

The template is what makes that possible: a configured project carrying the chain of stations, the item list and the print settings. You set it up once, and every order is born from it.

An order's status is derived from its task at the moment you read it and is never stored twice — so what you read in the "Status" column for an order travelling the board is the name of its current station. Everything else is a status rather than a station: "Draft", "In progress", "Delivered", "Cancelled", and "Task missing" if an order's task is lost.

How do I record a work order?

From the header of the work orders page press "New work order" (or use the empty state). This form is the only door through which any order is created:

1. Pick the "Template" and the day.
2. Pick the customer: search your contacts from the "Search contacts by name or phone…" box — the search starts at two characters and shows 8 results — or type the "Name" by hand, in which case it tells you: "No matches — the name will be saved as typed." Their phone and "Address" go alongside.
3. Fill in the order-header fields under "Order details" if the template carries them.
4. Add the lines: the "Item" from the template's list or a "Free line", then "Qty", "Unit", "Price" and "Note" according to what the template opened up, and "Add a line" adds another.
5. Write general "Notes" if you need to, then press "Save and create the task".

Saving creates a draft and nothing more — despite the button's name, no task is built and the order reaches no station before "Send to preparation".

How do I send an order to preparation?

A draft stays with you until you press the primary "Send to preparation" button on the order's page — it shows for a draft alone, and does nothing on an order with no lines. This is the only door that puts an order onto the work board:

• It builds a staged task from the template's stations and links it to the order.
• It stamps the "Status log" with who sent it and when ("Sent to preparation.").
• It fires the event that Automation & integrations hangs off.

Until then the "Stations" card says so plainly: "Not sent to preparation yet."

How do I follow today's orders?

The list is a single day's table in your company's timezone: "No.", "Customer" and their phone, "Lines" (the first three, then "+n"), "Status", "Total", and the "Orders" total.

• Move between days with the "Previous day" and "Next day" arrows, come back to "Today", or open "All days".
• Filter with the segments: "All" / "Draft" / "Open" / "Delivered" / "Cancelled".
• Search from the "Search by number, customer or phone" box.
• A day with no orders says "No work orders on this day.", before your first order "No work orders yet.", and before your first template "No templates yet — create one first (restaurant, workshop…) then record the first work order."

Click any row to open the order's page, which holds everything about the order on one screen: the day, the customer and the header fields; the line table with quantities, prices and total; "Stations" as a timeline drawn from the task itself (who took each station, and when it started and completed); the "Status log" with every transition and who made it — "Recorded as a draft", "Preparation started", "Out for delivery", "Completed", "Cancelled" — and the "Print log". The visible buttons are "Edit" and "Print", with the "⋮" menu for the rest.

How do I print the order's ticket?

From the order's page press "Print". The sheet comes out on your company letterhead — the logo, legal name, VAT number, CR number and address — with its title and footer from the template, and its lines with their prices if the template shows prices.

• "Default paper size" in the "⋮" menu picks the paper for this session (A4, A5 or 80mm) and overrides the template's default. There are no sizes beyond those three.
• Every print is recorded in the "Print log": who printed, when, and from which station. The trail keeps the last 50 prints (and a station name is truncated at 40 characters), and the order's page shows the last 5.
• The letterhead itself is edited once, in Settings → "Printed documents", and every sheet comes out of it: the order ticket, the production sheet and the driver sheet.

How do I shorten repeat orders?

Four tools for anyone taking the same orders every day:

• "Repeat order" (from "⋮") — opens the form with a copy of an earlier order: the lines, the customer, the header fields and the notes, dated today, with the original recorded as its source. A copy, not a reference, so the original stays a record and does not shift beneath the form.
• "Make this the customer's usual order" (from "⋮") — saves the order's lines onto the contact ("Saved as the usual order — offered on every new order for this customer."). It needs a customer linked to a real contact, and it is written from here alone — not from customer management.
• "Today's sheet" — one sheet for all your regular customers (those with a usual order on this template): a row per customer with their usual lines and editable quantities, and an "Include" checkbox. Anyone who has already ordered today shows marked "Ordered today" with a link to their order, and drops out of the selection automatically. "Save all" creates the orders row by row in sequence, each row with its own key ("Done — orders created:"), and a row that fails stays marked with its reason ("Some orders could not be created — check the marked rows."). Before your first usual order it says: "No regular customers yet — save an order as «usual» from its page."
• "Merge duplicates" (from "⋮", for a draft) — folds together lines the customer repeated. Two lines merge only if they would be prepared the same way: the same item, the same unit, the same note; so a different note ("no salt") or a different unit keeps them two lines. It never happens automatically — it is a button an operator presses ("Duplicate lines merged.").

How do I edit or cancel an order?

• "Edit" reopens the form on the same order, and saving revalidates everything against the same rules as creation and updates the task's text mirror: the title, the line text, the header values and the due date. The task's stages and its history are left untouched.
• "Cancel order" — the last, red row in "⋮" — closes the order and archives its task off the board, after a confirmation: "Cancel this work order? Its task will be archived." Then it says: "Work order cancelled."

How do I run the station screen?

The "Station screen" is a wall of cards for one station of one template — the screen you hang in front of the kitchen or the packing table. It has no sidebar row of its own: you open it from the "Station screen" button in the header of the work orders page, or from the template's row under "Templates".

"Pick the template, then the station this device works at." Then "Open the screen".

Each card carries the order number, a "{n} min ago" badge counting from when the station started, the customer, the lines in large type, and the notes — and it is marked late once 30 minutes have passed since the station started. It carries three buttons: "Started" (takes the station), "Ready" (completes it, so the order moves on to the next station), and "Print". The screen is live over the realtime stream with a backup poll every 60 seconds, and it carries "Refresh" and "Change station"; when the queue empties it says "No orders at this station right now.", and if the fetch fails, "Could not load the queue".

The "Auto-print on this device" switch is saved for this device and this station alone, and prints the ticket as an order arrives — on two conditions: that the template asks for auto-printing at this station specifically, and that the order has not been printed here before.

How do I produce the production sheet and the driver sheet?

Both come from the header of the work orders page, and both ask you "Which template?" if you have more than one. Both come out on the company letterhead.

• "Production sheet" — the kitchen's page: all of the day's live lines grouped by item, and under each item the names of the customers, so that a "no salt" is not lost inside a total. A hand-typed name that matches an item by any of its names or synonyms is counted with it. Drafts and cancelled orders are off the sheet, and it can be narrowed to incomplete orders.
• "Driver sheet" — the road's page: the day's orders that have reached a given station — the last one by default — or passed it, grouped by whoever holds that station: whoever took it, failing that its default assignee, failing that "Unassigned". Each order carries the customer's name, phone and address, the text of its lines, and a QR code that opens the order's page on the driver's phone.

How do I record an order from a WhatsApp message?

On any inbound text message in the Inbox a "Turn into a work order" button appears, opening the "Record orders from a message" panel, which reads the message into rows — one row per shop when the message carries a whole district's orders:

• The quantities are editable, the "Shop name" can be corrected, and above them "From" names the sender.
• A row whose name matched a contact carries a "Known contact" tag.
• Whatever was not read appears under "Not understood:", and whatever was not treated as an order at all under "Lines not counted as orders:" — so nothing is silently dropped. And if the message holds no orders it says: "No orders found in this message — record it from the work orders page."
• A low-confidence row arrives unticked and tagged "Needs review", so it is saved only by a deliberate press from you.
• "Save all" creates the orders row by row. After saving, the message bubble carries the order number and says "Registered — open to review or add another shop".

And if the message was already registered for this customer, or the customer has an order today that has left the draft, that is not hidden from you in silence — the row asks: "This message was already registered for this customer:", so you choose "Register it again"; or "This customer's order for today has left the draft:", so you choose "Add to it" (after which it says "Added to" with the order number) or "Start a new order". While any row is waiting on your answer, saving tells you: "Some rows are waiting on your decision — see the questions in the panel."

How do I read an order from a photo?

When the inbound message is a photo, the same button becomes "Read the order from the photo": the image is handed to a self-hosted reading service, and the text that comes back passes through the very same order parser, so the same panel opens with the same correction tools, plus a "Read from a photo — check every line" banner. The reader's confidence is folded into the parser's: a row takes the worst line read into it.

The limits: one image, 12 megabytes at most, an image only and no other file, and a 30 second timeout on the reading service. If it fails you are told plainly: "The photo could not be read. Try a clearer photo, or type the order by hand." (Arabic: «تعذّرت قراءة الصورة. جرّب صورة أوضح، أو اكتب الطلب يدوياً.») or "The photo-reading service could not be reached. Type the order by hand, and tell your administrator." (Arabic: «تعذّر الوصول إلى خدمة قراءة الصور. اكتب الطلب يدوياً، وأبلغ المسؤول.») or "Could not load the image from the conversation."

How do I set up the template?

Configuring templates is the company admin's alone: a holder of the "Work orders" permission records, prints, follows and runs the station screen, but creates no template and edits none. From the work orders page press "Templates" to open "Work-order templates" — and before your first template it says: "No templates yet. A template is a project with stations and items — start from the ready restaurant one."

"New template" opens "New template — restaurant": "Creates a project with the ready restaurant stations: intake ← prep ← packing ← delivery. Edit them afterwards as you like." You pick the "Prep team" and the "Delivery team", then "Create the template" ("Template created — review the stations and items, then save.").

"Edit" on a template opens its sections:

• "Stations — in the order an order travels": each station has a "Station name", its type, its team, its default assignee, its SLA "Hours" and a "Needs approval" checkbox, and "Add a station" adds one more. The limit is 12 stations, and at least one with a non-empty name is required ("Every station needs a name, and at least one station.").
• "Items": "Add an item" with an Arabic name, an English name, a unit, a price and an "Active" checkbox. The limit is 300 items per template, and 8 synonyms per item.
• Line options: "Show prices on the form and the sheet", "A note per line", and "Allow items outside the list".
• "Printing": "Sheet title (Arabic)" and its English counterpart "Sheet title (English)" (the default being "Work order"), "Paper size", "Copies" (between 1 and 5), the footer, and "Auto-print when an order reaches the station" together with the "Printing station".
• "Numbering prefix": up to 6 Latin letters (anything that is not a letter is stripped), defaulting to "WO" — so the numbers run "WO-0001" onwards, per company.

How do I route orders by line?

Editing a template gives you a "Routing by line" section: you pick the "Line field" — a select field from among the order-header fields — and the "Routed stage", then give every option of that field a default assignee: "Each option of the field names a default assignee who takes the stage when it starts."

When an order is sent to preparation, that station's assignee is set from the field's value on the order, and a multi-select routes by its first option. The limit is 50 options in the map, and an option with no assignee is dropped. And if the template has no select field you are told: "This template has no select fields — add a «line» field to the order fields first."

What a work order does not do

• It is not an invoice and not a tax document, and it posts nothing to accounting — see Sales & invoicing.
• It moves no stock and deducts no quantity: a template's catalogue is a list of names and prices, not a warehouse — see Stock & inventory.
• It creates no order automatically from a message, and sends the customer no confirmation message of its own accord; what exists is an event on sending to preparation, which you can build automation on if you want.
• No local print bridge (ESC/POS) and no cloud printing service.
• No delivery zones and no pricing for them, no geographic routing and no route optimisation.
• No multi-branch within one company: a station is a stage, and a branch comes as a second template.
• No customer-facing order link, no end-customer app, and no online payment from them.

FAQ

Q: I saved the order, so why did it not show up in the kitchen? A: Because saving creates a draft and nothing more, whatever the "Save and create the task" button says. The order reaches no station until somebody presses "Send to preparation" — and that is deliberate: no order travels the line without a human decision.

Q: I sent the order and got "No task — retry". A: Building the task failed, and the order is saved exactly as it was. Press "Recreate the task" on its page; that will not create a second order.

Q: Is a work order an invoice? A: No. The sheet says so outright: "This is a work order, not a tax invoice. No tax is due on it." It computes neither tax nor discount, and posts nothing to the ledger.

Q: I pressed save twice — are there two orders now? A: No. The form carries a duplicate-prevention key good for 24 hours, so a double click and a retry after a dropout both produce one order.

Q: I cancelled an order — do I get its number back? A: No. Cancelling is archiving, not deletion: the row stays in the record, and a cancelled order's number is never reused. A cancelled order cannot afterwards be edited, nor its lines merged.

Q: Why were two identical lines not merged by "Merge duplicates"? A: Because they would not be prepared the same way. Merging requires the same item, the same unit and the same note — "no salt" makes a line different on purpose.

Q: My employee cannot see "Work orders". A: Grant them the "Work orders" permission; it is not among the default permissions. The row then appears for them under the "Admin" section of their sidebar. See Teams & permissions.

Q: My employee records orders but cannot edit the template. A: That is the intent: configuring and editing templates belongs to the company admin alone, and the permission opens recording, printing, following and the station screen.

Q: Why can I not see the "Read the order from the photo" button? A: Reading an order from a photo is a separate feature, off by default for every company, which the platform operator turns on. "Turn into a work order" on text messages is available without it.

Q: Do I open the station screen from the sidebar? A: It has no sidebar row. You open it from the "Station screen" button in the header of the work orders page, or from the template's row under "Templates" — then keep its link on the station's device.

Q: Why does printing not come out silently on the tablet? A: Because mobile and tablet browsers do not allow it. Silent printing needs the desktop app or Chrome in kiosk-printing mode, and the screen tells you which one you are on rather than leaving you with the wrong impression.

Q: The order is at an earlier station — how do I send it back there? A: An order never goes back — transitions are forward only. What is open to you is "Cancel order", available to any live order that has not completed.

Quick reference

Related articles

• Tasks — an order sent to preparation is a staged task
• Projects — a template is a project, and the order-header fields are edited from it
• Inbox — recording orders from customers' messages
• Teams & permissions — granting the "Work orders" permission
• Settings & branding — the letterhead on printed documents
• Automation & integrations — what you build on the send-to-preparation event
• Plans & billing — the plans that include work orders