Service and maintenance: step by step from maintenance schedule to work order
Do you place appliances that need regular maintenance, such as boilers, heat pumps or air conditioners? Then let Robaws schedule that maintenance for you. Based on a maintenance schedule on the installation, Robaws itself creates the maintenance services and the orders, each time a number of days before the maintenance is due. In this article you go through the complete flow, step by step: from the settings to the work order.
Navigate quickly to:
- step 1: setting up the statuses
- step 2: creating a maintenance service template
- step 3: putting the maintenance schedule on the installation
- step 4: Robaws creates the maintenance services and orders
- step 5: scheduling the order
- step 6: carrying out and invoicing the maintenance
Step 1: setting up the statuses
Every maintenance service gets a status. You create your statuses via Settings > Maintenance > Statuses. There you also choose the Default status: the status that every new maintenance service gets.
Every status belongs to a fixed category. The category determines what Robaws does with the maintenance service:
Category | What it does |
|---|---|
Active, To do | The maintenance has not been completed yet. |
Done | The maintenance has been carried out. You can no longer change the forms of the maintenance service. If Sync next execution with actual completion is switched on in the template, Robaws calculates the next execution from the date on which the maintenance actually took place. |
Not done | The maintenance has not been carried out. You can no longer change the forms. |
For example, create the statuses 'To be scheduled' (To do), 'Carried out' (Done) and 'Customer not at home' (Not done).
Step 2: creating a maintenance service template
In a maintenance service template you record how often a maintenance recurs and how Robaws creates it. For example, create a template 'Annual heat pump maintenance'. You create your templates via Settings > General > Master data > Maintenance service templates.
Field | Explanation |
|---|---|
Name | The name of the maintenance. You choose this name as the type of maintenance on the installation, and it becomes the title of the order. |
Recurring period | How often the maintenance recurs, for example every year or every six months. |
Sync next execution with actual completion | If this is switched off, the next execution moves forward by one period each time, regardless of when the maintenance actually took place. If this is switched on, Robaws calculates from the date in Executed on, as soon as the maintenance service gets a status with the Done category. Example: an annual maintenance scheduled on 1 March, carried out on 15 April. If it is switched on, the next maintenance becomes 15 April next year instead of 1 March. |
Combining strategy | May this maintenance service be put on one order together with other maintenance services? Choose Always, Only with the same template or Never. See Step 4. |
Estimated duration | Roughly how long the maintenance takes. This field is purely informative. |
Days in advance for creating maintenance task | How many days before the next execution Robaws creates the maintenance service and the order. By default this is 30 days. |
Order template | The order template with which Robaws creates the order for this maintenance. You choose from the templates of the Maintenance type. |
In the template you also add what belongs to every maintenance. Robaws copies this to every new maintenance service:
- Items: the items you use during the maintenance, for example a filter or a maintenance kit.
- Forms: for example a checklist that the technician fills in. You only see this if you work with forms.
- Documents and Tasks.
Step 3: putting the maintenance schedule on the installation
On the installation file you record in the Maintenance schedule block which maintenance is needed. Every line consists of a Type of maintenance (a maintenance service template) and the date of the Next execution. A line ends up on the installation in three ways:
- Via the item. On an item of the Installation type, in the Maintenance block, add the maintenance service templates that belong to that appliance. Every installation with this item takes them over automatically, with the first recurrence after today as the next execution. That way you set it up once for all your appliances of that type.
- Via a template. On the installation, click Add line, choose a maintenance service template and click Add.
- Via a schedule of your own. On the installation, click Add line and choose Custom.... Robaws then opens a new schedule that only applies to this installation. Fill in the fields as in step 2.
Step 4: Robaws creates the maintenance services and orders
Every night Robaws checks which maintenance will be needed soon. If the Next execution of a line falls within the days in advance of the template, then:
- Robaws creates a maintenance service, with the items, forms, documents and tasks of the template and the default status from step 1;
- the Next execution on the installation moves forward by one period;
- Robaws puts the maintenance service on an order of the Maintenance type, with the customer, the project, the address and the subscription of the installation.
Don't want to wait until the next night? Then click the Create maintenances action button (spanner) in the overview of your installations or of your maintenance services.
Several maintenance services on one order
If there are several installations at the same customer, their maintenance services end up on one order if the installations have the same project, the same customer and the same address, and the templates use the same order template. The Combining strategy of the template refines this:
- Always: the maintenance service may be combined with any other maintenance service that meets those conditions.
- Only with the same template: the maintenance service is only combined with maintenance services of the same template.
- Never: the maintenance service always gets an order of its own.
If an installation has no project, no customer and no address, every maintenance service gets an order of its own.
Step 5: scheduling the order
Robaws does not put the order in the dayplanning itself. Schedule the order in the dayplanning for the technician who carries out the maintenance. The date of that planning item appears on the maintenance service as Planned execution.
Step 6: carrying out and invoicing the maintenance
You fill in the maintenance in one of two ways:
- On site in Wappy. The technician opens the work order of the order, fills in the maintenance service and sends the work order. The maintenance service is then immediately on that work order. See Wappy | Filling in a maintenance service on site.
- In Robaws. You fill in the maintenance service yourself and then put it on a work order with the Add work order action button. See Maintenance services | General
Via the work order you invoice the maintenance to your customer. You find all your maintenance services in the Maintenance services module, and also via the Overview block on the installation, the order and the work order.
Updated on: 20/10/2026
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