Track the Date a Job State Changes

This Custom Process has been designed to automatically track the date a Job State changes in FYI, for example, from Planned to In Progress. This process can be scheduled to run automatically at regular intervals.

Once the Jobs are automatically updated with the dates, a new View can be created on the Job List with to display the dates the Job changed status. The list can then be exported to Excel as a CSV file if required.

This process is set up using a Planned Date custom field, to populate the field with the date that the job goes to Planned. When using this process, you can Copy the process, update the job state in the view and rename it. This allows you to track the date each time a job moves into any of your job states.

This custom automation has been created by the FYI team, ready to be imported to use in your practice. 

What's Included

This process will be set to run on a Schedule of the first day of each month.

When importing this automation the following items are included:

Custom Fields

The following Custom Fields and their associated details are used for these processes:

*This field can be used to be mapped to other Job State Tracking Custom Fields

Create Custom Field Definitions for each Job State date

A "Date" type Custom Field will need to be created to capture the date that each job changes to a different state.

While users can choose to update these dates manually, you can also create an automation process to update the field automatically. This automation process will be created in a step later in this article.

When creating the Custom Fields, ensure they have the following:

• An appropriate Name, for example, Planned Date. This should clearly indicate the purpose of the custom field.
• The Applies to must be ticked for "Job". You can also enable the field for Client if preferred.
• The Type of "Date" is selected.

Refer to Creating Custom Fields.

Create a View for each Job State

You'll now need to create a View for each Job State to be used by the automation. When the automation process runs, any jobs that match the view will be updated accordingly. For this example, we'll create a view for all jobs in the "Planned" state.

Refer to Sorting and Filtering Lists and Saving Changes to the View Layout, Modifying and Deleting Views for detailed instructions.

1. In FYI, click the Jobs menu to open the Jobs List.
    
2. Click the Filters tab and filter by one of the Job States, for example, Planned.
    
3. The Jobs List will refresh to show only the jobs that match that criteria.
   
4. Add or remove any additional columns as needed using the Columns tab, for example, the "Planned Date" custom field created in the previous step.
    
5. Use the View Tools to save the view
   
6. Save the list with Automations ticked (you can untick the List option if preferred since this view will be used by the Automation to update the Planned date).
   
7. Repeat for each Job State, for example, First Review, Completed, etc.

Create Jobs List with Job State Dates

Finally, you can create a View in the Jobs List with the columns displaying the dates of the Job State changes. This view can also be exported to CSV if required.

Refer to Sorting and Filtering Lists and Saving Changes to the View Layout, Modifying and Deleting Views for detailed instructions.

1. Add the Columns for each of the Custom Fields created earlier.
    
2. To limit the view to only Jobs where dates have been entered, create a Filter for the first Job State in the process, for example, Planned Date. Use the Relative Filter with the date Is Known. Any job without a Planned Date will be excluded from the view. 
   
3. Use the View Tools in the top-right corner to export the report to CSV if required.
   

Importing this Custom Automation 

Click here to download the file used to import this example Custom Process, ready for you to test and activate or customise to suit your practice (or download the file from the bottom of this article).

Note: If you are using Chrome as your browser, the link may not automatically download the zip file. You need to right-click on the download link above, select Copy link address and paste it into a new browser tab in the browser's URL field.

When you have downloaded the file you can import the Custom Process. Refer to Importing Custom Processes.

What's Next

Ensure you Review your Automation, Templates and Views. 

Templates can be located in your Knowledge workspace, you can review and personalise any imported templates, ensure that you set the Template Status to active when you've finalised your review and customisations.

Review and update the Process Controls and Process Steps for your Automation. Specific comments have been added to the steps where action is required. These will display in blue. 

After reviewing all items for your Automation, ensure you Test the Automation. When ready, set the Status of the Automation to Active. 

Download Files