How to set up a Location field

With Capture v1.42.4 and Designer & Manager v41.24, we have introduced a new field type: Location.

The location field allows you to directly enter and associated Plant Item or Functional Location against your work order as a field in the form. This could be helpful when entering work requests for an asset, or asset component you have set up in Obzervr (or coming through your ERP system).

This article will explore how to set up a location field and its features in Designer and how this can be used in Capture and viewed in Manager:

1. Setting up the Location field type in Designer
2. Location field type options in Designer
3. Creating Plant Item or Functional Location hierarchies
4. Using the Location field in Capture
5. Viewing the Location field in Manager

Let's begin!

Requirements:

1. Access to Work Templates and the Designer
2. The feature is enabled in the tenant, please reach out to support@obzervr.com to request this.
3. Locations (aka Plant Items, Functional Locations) are needed to be set up with the parent-child hierarchy

1. Setting up the Location field type in Designer

This feature is set up in the Work Template via Designer with the following steps:

1. Open the Work Template that needs updating and select/create the field that uses this feature
2. Change/apply the field Type as Location
3. Change/select the Filter for the location list
4. Click on Apply to save the settings
5. Save and Publish the Work Template as normal.

Figure 1: How to set up the Location field

2. Location field type options in Designer

The Location field type will require to have at least one Filter type to be selected. In the rest of the article we'll refer to "Assignment Points", you may know them as Plant Items or Functional Locations. The filters are as follows:

Figure 2: Filters for the Location field

• Assignment Points available to Team: the list in the location field will only have Assignment Points that are added to the Team of the user assigned (and/or associated) to the Work Order. 
• Current Work Order's Assignment Point and children: the list in the location field will only have Assignment Points that are children of the Assignment Point associated to the Work Order, including that Assignment Point.
• All Assignment Points in tenant: to show all the Assignment Points configured for the tenant.

Additional Restrictions by Assignment Point Type

🔒 Note: This capability requires a feature flag to be enabled. Please contact Obzervr Support at support@obzervr.com to request enabling this.

Users now have more control over Location field types in the work designer: they can restrict a locations available by an assignment point type(s). The Capture user will only be able to select location values that match the allowed types, streamlining user experience by eliminating unnecessary scrolling through long lists of locations to enhancing efficiency and user experience. This also prevents errors when integrating to external systems.

On Manager

When configuring forms on work Designer, the field input Location will now have additional options to restrict the locations available to be selected by the field operator by assignment point type(s).

Restrict assignment point type by clicking on the “Restrict by Assignment Point Type” toggle, and select one or more assignment point types in the dropdown below. To turn if off, click on the toggle again to remove the restriction. This will work in conjunction with the location filter, and both will be applied to the field if both are selected.

Your selections will be included when exporting and importing work templates.

On Capture

When users are selecting a location on a location type field, only the locations selected when the form was configured will be displayed. This includes the selected location types as well as the pre-existing assignment restrictions.

If location hierarchy is enabled, only the trees containing the relevant assignment types set will be shown.

3. Creating Assignment Point hierarchies

To create the parent-child hierarchies manually in the Manager, use the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Location page
2. Open a Location/Plant Item/Assignment Point
3. Select Parent Assignment Point - this is a list of Assignment Points that have been configured in your tenant, start typing part of the name to filter this list

Figure 3: Parent-Children location hierarchy

4. Click on Save.

As a result, the newly updated Location will be the child of the selected Parent Location.

A note for customers that are using custom-built Assignment Point hierarchies using Assignment Point attributes: we can help you easily transition to the new hierarchy through an automated process built specifically for this purpose. Please contact your account representative or reach out to support@obzervr.com.

4. Using the Location field in Capture

Once a Work Template has been configured using the Location field type and you have created a Work Order from this template, users can select the relevant Assignment Point in this Work Order. The list of Assignment Points will be filtered based on the option selected in Designer (see 2. Location field type options in Designer).

Figure 4: Example of showing the list of Current Work Order's Assignment Point and children

5. Viewing the Location field in Manager

Once a user has selected a value for a Location field and has synced in Capture, a supervisor (or equivalent user) will be able to see this value, as all other field values in the Work Order Edit page as well as in the Work Order Export and Work Order PDF.

Figure 5: Location field with captured value in measurement page (edit Work Order) 

Figure 6: Location field with the captured value in Work Order PDF

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