Scheduling Work Orders

This page covers the day-to-day act of getting work onto the schedule and keeping it there: the Unscheduled queue, drag-to-schedule, rescheduling, and conflict resolution. For the views you do this in, see Schedule Views.

The Unscheduled panel

The right-hand queue lists work orders that have routing operations but aren't yet on the schedule — specifically Pending, Issued, and In Progress work orders, ordered by due date.

Each card shows:

Work order number
Item (or BOM name)
Quantity (units)
Priority — High (red), Medium (yellow), Low (gray)
Due date — red if past due, orange if due within 3 days, green otherwise

Working the queue

Search — filter the queue by work order.
Quick-create (+) — create a new work order without leaving the board.
Quick-edit — open a card's inline editor to change quantity, priority, and due date.
Drag to schedule — drag a card onto the timeline to place it.

Scheduling by drag-and-drop

Drag an unscheduled work order onto a work center (Resource Gantt) or an hour slot (Calendar). The work order is forward-scheduled from the drop point: its operations are placed in routing sequence, each fitted into the next available slot on its work center within working hours.

On success you get a confirmation; if the placement raises issues, the conflicts summary appears (see below) — you can still keep what was scheduled.

Rescheduling

Drag an already-scheduled operation to a new time or work center.

Cascade (default on) — dependent operations move with it so the routing stays in order. You'll see how many dependent operations were also rescheduled.
Use the operation popover (click a bar) for precise reschedule controls instead of free dragging.
Locked operations (orange) can't be moved.

Forward vs backward scheduling

Forward — start as soon as possible from an earliest start date (used by drag-to-schedule). Best when you want to finish early or fill capacity now.
Backward — finish by the due date, scheduling operations as late as possible. Best for just-in-time completion.

In both cases the scheduler respects each work center's shift/working-hours calendar, so operations never land outside available time.

Scheduling conflicts

When the scheduler can't satisfy a request cleanly, a Scheduling Conflicts summary lists what went wrong. Conflict types:

Capacity Exceeded — the work center is over its available capacity in that window.
Due Date Violation — the schedule pushes completion past the work order's due date.
Earliest Start Violation — an operation would start before its allowed earliest start.
Work Center Not Assigned — a routing operation has no work center.
Work Center Not Found — the assigned work center doesn't exist.
No Operations — the work order has nothing to schedule.
Required Resource Unavailable — none of the operation's required machines, labor, tools, or other resources have an available combination.
No Capacity Setup — the work center has no usable shift or capacity window at all in the scheduling horizon (no shift configured, or fully blocked by holidays, downtime, or maintenance).
Operation Longer Than Shift — the operation needs more continuous time than the longest available shift window, so it can't fit even with nothing else scheduled.

Each conflict carries a suggestion and a View Work Order link so you can correct the routing, capacity, or dates and reschedule.

Status reference

Scheduling status — Unscheduled (in the queue) vs Scheduled (placed on the board).
Operation statuses — Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, Delayed, Locked.
Work-order (flow) statuses — Pending, Issued, In Progress, Complete.

Tips

Keep due dates and priorities accurate — both the queue order and conflict checks depend on them.
Schedule the bottleneck work center first, then fit other work around it (see Capacity, Bottlenecks & Batching).
Leave cascade enabled so a single move keeps the whole routing valid.
Fix the root cause of a conflict (capacity, calendar, missing work center) rather than forcing an overlapping placement.