---
title: "Quickstart: create and close your first work order"
description: "Run one maintenance job through Maintain end to end on the web: create a work order from the board with a title and a group, assign it to a technician, move it to In Progress, add a checklist item and tick it, complete it at Done, and sign it off at Approved. Create needs a title and a group and nothing else; every other field can be filled in later from the drawer."
category: "Start here"
source_url: "https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/quickstart/"
---
# Quickstart: create and close your first work order

One work order from request to closed, end to end.

This runs a single maintenance job through every step Maintain has: create it on the board, assign it, start it, tick a checklist item, complete it, and sign it off. Work on the web, at `/<organization>/maintenance`.

For what Maintain is, read [Overview: maintenance management](/docs/maintain/overview/). Getting your maintenance team onto the board is on [Give people access to Maintain](/docs/maintain/board-members/).

This is the happy path. Recurring work, parts and the other entry points are branches, linked where you pass them.

> **Info:**
> **Which machine should you use?**
>
> Do this on the machine that is actually broken, not a test asset. A work order against a real machine comes back when you filter the board by that machine, which is the payoff you are trying to demonstrate.

## 1. Create a work order
A *work order* is one maintenance job: a title, a machine, the people doing it, and what they need. It is the only object Maintain has.

1. Select **Maintain** in the top navigation. The board opens at `/<organization>/maintenance`.
2. Select the blue **+** above the board. The **New Maintenance Workorder** modal opens.
3. Type the problem into **Work order title**. Write what is wrong rather than what to do, so the technician can judge it: `Spindle coolant leak at the rear seal` tells them more than `Fix the mill`.
4. Select the **Group** chip and pick a group, for example `Hydraulics`. A *group* is a named, colored bucket for the kind of work. If your organization has none yet, type a name into **Group name...** in the same dropdown, pick a color, and create it there.
5. Select the **Asset** chip and pick the machine the work is on.
6. Select **Create**.

![The New Maintenance Workorder modal with a title typed, a row of property chips below it, and the Create button at the bottom right](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-01.webp)

*The New Maintenance Workorder modal, opened from the blue + above the board.*

**Create** stays grayed out until the work order has both a title and a group. Every other chip in that row is optional now and editable later from the drawer, so leave priority, due date and parts alone on this pass. Filling them in properly is [Create a maintenance work order](/docs/maintain/create-a-work-order/).

A green **Maintenance workorder created** toast confirms it and the new card appears on the board. A red **Failed to create workorder** means nothing was saved: the modal stays open with everything you typed, so retry **Create**.

## 2. Assign it
1. Select the new card on the board. It opens in a drawer beside the list, and the address gains `?selected_wo=` with the work order's id, so that link goes straight back to it.
2. In the drawer, select **Assignees**.
3. Pick a person or a team from the list. A toast naming the handle you added confirms it.

![The Assignees control in the work-order drawer with its dropdown open, listing people and teams with avatars](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-02.webp)

*The assignee picker in the work-order drawer, open over the list of people and teams.*

Add as many assignees as the job needs; select a name again to remove it. **Assign a person, not a team, when one named person owns the outcome.** A team assignment tells four people the work exists and none of them that it is theirs.

## 3. Start it
A *status* says where a work order is in its life. There are five: **Open**, **In Progress**, **On Hold**, **Done** and **Approved**. Everything created lands on **Open**.

Select **In Progress** in the status row at the top of the drawer. The row is five buttons, one per status; each shows only an icon until it is the live status, and then it widens to show its label. The board card updates as soon as you select it.

Two of those labels are not the status name. The first button reads **Not Started** when it is active, and the fourth reads **Completed**. The statuses are still **Open** and **Done**, which is what the board card, the status filter and the reports call them.

![A row of five status buttons at the top of the work-order drawer, with the In Progress button expanded and labeled](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-03.webp)

*The status row in the work-order drawer, with In Progress selected.*

Nothing forces the order: any status can follow any other. **On Hold** is for work that started and then stalled, waiting on a part or on the machine coming free. What each status means is on [Update, discuss, and close a work order](/docs/maintain/work-order-detail/).

## 4. Add a checklist item and tick it
A *checklist* is the list of small steps inside one work order, ticked off as the work happens.

1. In the drawer, open the **Checklist** section.
2. Type a step into **Add a task...**, for example `Isolate and lock out the machine`.
3. Select the blue **+** beside the field. A **Task added** toast confirms it.
4. Select the circle beside the item to tick it. The text strikes through and the green progress bar above the list fills.

![The Checklist section of the drawer with one item struck through and ticked, and a full green progress bar above it](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-04.webp)

*A checklist item, ticked, with the progress bar above it filled.*

**You do not need a checklist if the title already says the whole job.** Checklists earn their keep on work nobody should improvise: a lockout sequence, a PM route with eight lubrication points, an inspection somebody has to sign for.

## 5. Complete it
Select the fourth button in the status row, the check-circle. A **Task completed!** toast confirms it and the card moves on the board. The button widens and reads **Completed**; the status is **Done**.

![The status row in the drawer with the fourth button expanded and labeled Completed, a check-circle icon beside it](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-05.webp)

*The fourth status button, selected. It reads Completed; the status it sets is Done, and it closes the work order.*

**Done** is the transition that moves stock. If the work order lists parts it requires or creates, a dialog opens first and you confirm what was actually consumed and produced. Yours lists no parts, so it closes straight away. The parts path is [How work orders move stock](/docs/inventory/how-work-orders-move-stock/).

## 6. Approve it
Select **Approved**, the fifth button in the status row. This is the sign-off: the work is done and somebody has checked it.

![The status row in the drawer with the Approved button expanded and labeled, a stamp icon beside it](/images/maintain/mnt-qs-06.webp)

*The Approved button, the last status in the row, marked with a stamp icon.*

Stock already moved at **Done**, so **Approved** moves nothing further. Skip it if your team has no review step, and keep using **Done** as the end of the line.

## 7. What you just built
One work order, from a title somebody typed to a signed-off record. That record is the machine's maintenance history: filter the board by that asset and the job is there, with who did it, what they ticked off, and when it closed.

Three branches open from here:

- **The work came from the floor, not from you.** Operators report problems from a phone, from the job they are running, or from the board. See [Submit a maintenance request](/docs/maintain/submit-a-request/).
- **The work repeats.** A quarterly lubrication is a work order with a recurrence rule on it, not a separate object. See [Schedule preventive maintenance](/docs/maintain/preventive-maintenance/).
- **There is more than one of these now.** Group, filter and lay out the backlog across four views on [Organize work on the maintenance board](/docs/maintain/maintenance-board/).

## See also
- [Create a maintenance work order](/docs/maintain/create-a-work-order/)
- [Update, discuss, and close a work order](/docs/maintain/work-order-detail/)
- [Organize work on the maintenance board](/docs/maintain/maintenance-board/)
- [Work order fields and statuses](/docs/maintain/work-order-fields/)