Just as you can for Sales Orders and Purchase Orders, now, in 9.2, you have the ability to use Activity Rules for Work Orders. Just as in other Order Types, Work Order Activity Rules force you to follow a defined process flow and prevent transactions that aren’t allowed based on the Activity Rules.

Processing Options in certain applications have allowed you to designate a Status where transactions are no longer allowed. You could get around this by manually changing the Work Order Status to a value where the transactions were allowed. Work Order Activity Rules will prevent you from changing to a Status that violated the Activity Rules.

You can also Freeze a Work Order to keep MRP Regenerations from creating Reschedule Messages. And you can Lock the Work Order Header, Parts List, and/or Routing at various steps in the Activity Rules.

Work Order Activity Rules are turned on in Manufacturing Constants here:

Activity Rules are setup to show an allowable default Next Status as well as any allowable optional Status. You can also decide which activities write to the Work Order Header, Parts List, and Routing Ledgers.

A Lock Flag can be set to define if a Work Order is Frozen to stop any MRP Action messages for the Work Order. In addition, the Lock Flag can be used to Lock a Work Order Header, Parts List, or Routing. This is the field help description and the Lock Code in the Order Activity Rules:

Want to see your question answered in the series, or just want to subscribe for alerts on future issues? Simply fill out the form below!