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.