Work order templates define workflows for service (and ‘widget’ product) delivery. They can be thought of as Gantt charts much like Microsoft Project project templates:
- Template names are unique
- Each Price Book Entry (PBE) has an associated template (since there are separate PBEs for each operation type on a product, different templates can be defined for new service turn-up, cancellation, etc.)
- A template can be shared among various PBEs/products, e.g., the same template can be used services differing only by term or a single shipment delivery template cane be used for all ‘widgets’
- Templates themselves do not have any associated recurring on non-recurring charges — these are defined by PBEs
- When work orders are created, they are built by copying (a.k.a. instantiating) a template — their structure is almost identical, except that work orders have actual dates
| Important | Work order templates are prepared by the product management team as part of CPQ implementation — system users do not need to design their own ones. |
The structure of the template looks as follows:
- Each template consists of tasks (they are the most fundamental unit of work)
- Tasks can be either manual (intended to be executed by a person) or automated (i.e., call APEX code routines)
- Template task ownership is copied to an actual task — the ownership can be either a specific individual, or more likely a queue (e.g., Engineering, Sales, etc.) from which it is later assigned to an individual. Owners do not matter for automated tasks
- Task name must be unique within a single template (i.e., it is possible to create task with the same name, e.g., ‘Prepare Equipment’ in different templates, but it is not possible to have two or more ‘Prepare Equipment’ within a single template)
- Tasks can be executed in parallel, however they can be constrained by dependencies
- User tasks are visible in the My Tasks list view
- Tasks assigned to queues are visible in respective queue list views (typically there will be a queue for each organizational unit such as department or team — these need to be configured depending on particular organization needs/structure)
- Phases are logical grouping of tasks to provide customer feedback where the order is on a high level:
- They have no effect on scheduling
- A phase is completed when all tasks in the phase are completed
Template metrics and non-recurring charge planning
Each work order template has an automatically calculated duration and effort:
- Duration (expressed in days) is a total execution time based on task dependencies/critical path and individual task durations
- Effort (expressed in man-days) is a sum of individual task durations
Both duration and effort on templates are baseline values, actual values on work orders may be different depending on what happens during the execution, e.g., some tasks take longer than expected, etc.
Because work order templates are linked to (and shown on) product price book entries, it is possible to use this numbers for product charge planning.
