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Fast2Task Fast2Task Support

Setting Up a Work Order

Setup is where you define what’s being made and how. Everything here lives on the Setup tab. Until setup is finished and the work order approved, the sourcing and production tabs stay locked; the Planning section shows Setup Required until it’s ready.

Work order details

Start with the basics:

  • Name and description: what this run is
  • Status: where the work order is up to
  • Due date: when it needs to be done. +7 days and +10 days set it quickly.
  • Options: Allow steps out of order and Use stock pick lists, defaulting from your account settings

When the work order was set up from a BOM, Open Bill of Materials in the section heading opens that BOM in a new tab.

Choose your setup path

The How would you like to set up this work order? prompt offers two routes:

Select from BOM

The Apply BOM dialog lets you check what a BOM will produce before you commit to it:

  1. Pick the Bill of Materials.
  2. Set the BOM multiplier: the number of BOM batches to make. Scaled materials and labour are multiplied by this value; fixed quantities stay the same.
  3. Review the preview: the expected outputs, the number of steps, and (under Preview material and labour totals) every material and task with its total for this work order. A warning appears if the BOM is missing steps or outputs, which you’d need to add before approving.
  4. Choose Apply BOM.

Fast2Task copies in:

  • Steps, in order, with their instructions and expected durations
  • Tasks, equipment, materials and by-products on each step
  • Outputs with expected quantities
  • The work order’s name, and a description from the BOM’s outputs when it has output details

Variable quantities scale with the multiplier; fixed quantities don’t, so a one-off machine setup task stays at 1 whether you make 5 or 500. The fixed/variable mode is set on the BOM per item.

Once applied, every quantity and task duration on the work order is a total for this work order, with the BOM’s fixed and per-batch rules already worked out. Applying only updates the plan on screen: Save the work order to keep it.

Changing the BOM

The From BOM row in Planning shows the BOM in use and its multiplier. Apply / change BOM reopens the dialog to pick a different BOM or multiplier. Applying replaces the current steps and outputs, including any manual edits, so the dialog warns you first.

A BOM can only be changed while nothing has happened on the work order yet. Once time has been logged, materials sourced or consumed, a step completed or output recorded, the button is disabled.

Build manually

Choose Build Manually, define your output products, and click Add First Step to build the run by hand. You can switch to a BOM at any point before things get going (Use a BOM instead).

Anatomy of a step

Each step is one stage of the work, and can carry:

  • Tasks: the labour, covering what’s done, expected quantity (usually hours), and which employee taxonomies are qualified to do it. Time is tracked against tasks during production.
  • Equipment: assets or machines the step needs, with quantities.
  • Products: the materials consumed, with required quantities and costs.
  • Dynamic Products: materials chosen at production time by taxonomy rather than fixed up front. Define the fixed taxonomies (what it must be) and the variable ones (chosen later), for example “any 2L tin of paint, colour picked per job”.
  • By-products: secondary outputs the step produces alongside the main product.

Each item shows its cost, quantity and mode (fixed or variable) in the step table.

Outputs

The Expected Outputs section lists what the work order produces: each output product with its expected quantity (a total for the whole work order) and unit of measure. Outputs from a BOM are scaled by the multiplier; you can also add outputs directly. Changing an output’s expected quantity doesn’t rescale the steps. Actual production is recorded later, on the Production tab.

Approve

A work order needs at least one step, and at least one output with a positive expected quantity, before it can be approved; the Planning section tells you what’s missing. When the plan is right, click Approve. This marks the plan as signed off and unlocks Material Sourcing and Production. Need to change the plan after approval? Use Force Edit, which is deliberately a little harder to reach, because changing the recipe mid-run has consequences for sourcing and costing.

Next step

With setup approved, source the materials: Sourcing Materials.