About Jobs: Projects and Work Orders

The SolarNexus software application is a comprehensive set of tools for contracting firms to manage their day to day work. This article provides a high level overview of jobs, the primary entities that SolarNexus uses to accomplish this management.

What is a "project" and what is a "work order"?

"Jobs" is the generic term for the entities that you process through SolarNexus. Jobs is a generic word to refer to projects or work orders, which are more specific types of jobs.

• A "project" is a job that originates with your sales team, and is almost always for new systems. 
• A "work order" is any job that originates within your company's operations and service departments, rather than within your sales department. These are mostly customer service and support jobs, but also includes jobs sold by third parties such as installations sold by partner sales organizations or where you install as a subcontractor. Work orders are essentially "simplified" projects without a formal sales process.

Prior to June of 2020, SolarNexus only handled projects. Projects and work orders are both managed using the same set of SolarNexus features historically used for managing projects (milestones, status, tags, etc).

 

Examples of Projects		Examples of Work Orders
New PV systems for new customers Addition of an energy storage system to an existing customer's PV system		Diagnose and repair PV system (e.g. replace defective equipment, repair a roof leak) Add critter guard to an existing PV system (an enhancement) Design, permit, and install of a PV system sold by an another company's sales team (subcontract or outside sales for your company)

 

When a project is created, it is typically referred to as a lead, which is simply an unqualified project. Some people refer to a qualified lead as an opportunity, which ideally becomes a sold project. Regardless of the particular stage of the process, SolarNexus considers them all projects. Think of a project as a virtual “manila folder” containing all the information about a potential job (lead or opportunity) or an in-process job (project). Every project has a customer and can contain the following types of information:

• Customer, and his/her motivations and goals
• Site location, and its attributes
• Energy service(s) (electric, natural gas, propane, heating oil) and historic consumption of each
• Detailed site survey data, including photos and drawings
• One or more solutions, each of which can contain:
  • Systems
  • Price (defined by either a gross price input OR by a set of detailed cost items)
  • An analysis of energy and financial benefits
  • Sales documents (proposals, contracts, interconnection and rebate forms)

Learn more about Creating Leads and Defining Solutions.

Work orders are essentially simplified versions of projects. Specifically, work orders differ from projects in the following ways:

1. Sales Process: Projects have a formal sales process with ability to define multiple possible customer solutions, only one of which can be sold. Work orders do not go through the formal sales process and are limited to a single customer solution. Projects are shown on the "Sales" screen until the "sold" milestone has been completed, at which time they move automatically to the "Installs" screen.  Work orders, however, are managed exclusively via the "Installs" screen. The tasks screen shows work pertaining to both.
2. Energy and Economic Analysis: Projects provide energy and financial analysis of proposed customer solutions by having inputs for customer's current energy use, and doing utility bill projections to assess financial benefits of proposed solutions. Work orders do not provide energy bill analysis.

Note: Its possible for some jobs to "blur" the line of what's a project and what's a work order. For example, is adding panels to an existing PV system for an existing customer work order or a project? It depends on how your particular company handles that case. Use the standard project process if it handled by the sales team through the sales process, otherwise use a work order process.

 

The graphic below shows the entities included with each type of job:

 

All jobs are composed of various parts, each described below.

Data Fields

• Support fulfilling the work
• Displayed and edited on the "Job" screen
• Organized into Field Sections. Field Sections:
  • Group related data fields together
  • Can be added to job processes
  • Can be minimized for phases of job processes
  • Can change display order during different phases of job processes
  • If possible, make field sections  generic so they can be used on multiple job processes
    • Try to have each field reside in only one Field Section
    • If a field resides in more than one section, think of moving it to its own section
• Available for use in reports
• Available for use in milestone relevance rules

 

Energy Use

The Energy Use tab defines the customer's current electric energy service and use. It can also optionally have a secondary energy service and use (for example, natural gas, propane, heating oil). Only Project jobs have Energy Use.

 

Site

All jobs have a Site (refers to the Job's Site). The site contains definitions of key attributes of the current job site, including array areas (roof or ground areas where arrays may be installed), electric panels, and equipment installation locations. All jobs have the Site tab.

 

Solution(s)

A solution is a definition of the work that your company is attempting to sell, or in process of installing for a customer. Solutions are composed of the following elements:

• Services - the specific set of services you will provide to the customer. Each service includes its own specific text and product items
• Price - Your retail price for the solution to the customer
• Analysis - Scenarios for how the customer will pay, and energy/financial analysis results (for projects)
• Docs - Generation of proposals, contracts, change orders, forms, etc for this solution

Projects can have multiple solutions defined for the sales process but only one may be sold. All work orders have one, and only one solution.

How to Define Solutions

 

Job Processes

Every job created in SolarNexus is processed through a defined process. Each job process defines:

• The milestones required to complete the job, grouped into phases
• The assignment of tasks to your staff during the process to ensure completion of the job's work

ALL projects are processed by the same job process. However, you may have multiple work order processes defined. ONLY project jobs must go through formal sales milestones.

SolarNexus manages each staff member's task list across many instances of job processes to help each staff member properly prioritize his or her work, and ensure that your company can deliver exceptional customer service.

ALL SolarNexus company accounts have their own copy of the standard project process. To support ongoing customer support operations, your company may choose to add a variety of work order processes. To simplify proper setup of job processes, SolarNexus provides a number of pre-defined job process definitions that can be copied into your account and customized as needed. Click here to learn more about the job processes that SolarNexus provides.

Job Relationships

Jobs can be related. A single customer may have multiple jobs. Each job may be at the same, or at different job site addresses. See the images below showing examples.

Originating Jobs are typically projects. An originating job may have multiple service work orders that pertain to that job. The example below shows a single customer with two projects. One of which has a couple of service work orders.

New customers may come into the system via a work order, rather than a project. For example, when a third party sold the job and you are just installing it, or when a customer has a system installed by another contractor that is in need of repair. A work order without an originating job may have its own set of work order(s). A work order with an originating job MAY NOT be an originating job, and cannot have its own work orders. 

SolarNexus maintains the relationships between all the jobs you may do for a customer. The screenshot below shows an example of a single customer's jobs. All jobs are organized by site address. Work orders are displayed in relation to its originating job.