Closing and reopening work orders

A work order's lifecycle ends when it is closed. Closing is a deliberate act — it converts an active job into a permanent audit record.

How to close a work order

1. Open the work order.
2. Confirm the fix description in the Resolution field. This is required.
3. Confirm at least one after-photo if your facility policy requires one.
4. Click Close.

MaintIQ stamps the close time, your user ID, and which SOP version (if any) was attached.

What closing does

• Locks the resolution and notes — further edits require Reopen.
• Records the close in History and in the assignee's completion count.
• Removes the work order from the open list and the dashboard's "open work orders" count.
• Fires any downstream automations (Stripe invoice generation for vendor work, notifications to the requester, etc.).

Reopening

If a fix did not hold or new information appears:

1. Open the closed work order from the Work orders → Closed tab or via search.
2. Click Reopen.
3. Enter a reason. The reason is mandatory and appears in History.

Reopening:

• Unlocks edit fields.
• Restores the work order to the open list.
• Starts a new SLA clock if the priority is P1 or P2 (the original SLA is preserved in History as "first response").

Reopens are a useful metric: a high reopen rate per technician usually points to a training need, not a competence problem.

Archive vs close

A few things to keep straight:

Related guides

• Updating status and notes
• Reading the history timeline
• Deleting and archiving items