How the Work Flows Glossary · Field Operations

The Business and the Market

Branch, region, brand: the layers of an org tree; a branch owns a territory, its technicians and routes, and is the unit most work is run and reported by (The Field Operations Business; the general shape is in Tenant Hierarchies).
Dead time: paid time that is neither driving to work nor doing it: loading, waiting, paperwork (The Field Operations Business).
Enterprise field service: field service built on a general business platform (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, ServiceNow, Oracle, SAP, IFS) and extended per customer (The Software Landscape).
Franchisor, franchisee: the brand owner and the separate business that operates under its brand, prices and software; who may see and keep whose data is set by the franchise agreement and disclosed in Item 11 of the disclosure document (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
FSM (field service management): software that runs the customer, scheduling, technician and billing side of a field business (The Software Landscape).
Horizontal SMB platform: a field service product for small businesses across many trades, such as Jobber or Housecall Pro (The Software Landscape).
Multi-location roll-up: reporting summed from branches or franchisees up the org tree, each number kept under the org unit and business date it was recorded with (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
Org unit: one node of the org tree (org_units: a brand, region or branch), carrying the time zone that sets the branch's business date for billing and generation runs (The Core Data Model).
Route density: how many customers sit close together on a route; the economics of recurring service are mostly density (The Field Operations Business).
Royalty report: the franchisor's periodic fee computed as a percentage of each franchisee's gross or net sales as its agreement defines them, closed and stamped like a commission run (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
Staff member: an employee or contractor who logs in or does the work (staff_members); a worker is always a staff member, never a people row (The Core Data Model).
System of record: the one system whose copy of a record wins when systems disagree (The Software Landscape).
Vertical platform: a product built for one trade's rules, such as FieldRoutes or PestPac for pest control, or Skimmer for pools (The Software Landscape).

Customers, Properties and Agreements

Account, customer: the party that pays (accounts), kept separate from the place served and the people involved (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Add-on: a product sold alongside a plan and priced on its own (Service Agreements & Plans).
Agreement: the contract for a plan version at a property (agreements); vendors say membership, maintenance plan, subscription or service agreement (Service Agreements & Plans).
Agreement states: draft, out for signature, signed (cancellation window open, not billable), active, paused, on hold, terminated, fulfilled (a one-time agreement whose work and term are done); or void (never signed) and cancelled (ended before it became active) (Service Agreements & Plans).
Allowance: a number of included visits an agreement grants, used on request rather than on a schedule (Recurring Schedules).
Amendment: a change to a live agreement recorded as a new terms version, such as an add-on joining mid-term, effective on its first added visit and prorated by day (One-Time Services & Upsells).
Asset, equipment: a serviced thing at a property (a furnace, a backflow assembly, a pool pump, bait stations) with its own history, serial number and warranty terms (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Cancelled versus terminated: an agreement that ends before it ever became active (including in the cooling-off window) is cancelled and emits agreement.cancelled; ending an active agreement is terminated, with a churn type and a reason, and emits agreement.terminated (Service Agreements & Plans).
CASS: the USPS certification for address-matching software (Addresses & Geocoding).
Contact role: what a person may do for an account or property: pay, approve work, receive reports, grant site access (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Geocode: coordinates for an address, with a precision that matters (rooftop, parcel, street, postal code) (Addresses & Geocoding).
Hold (agreement): the company stopping service on an agreement (on_hold) for non-payment or a dispute; no new visits or charges while collection continues. The status is the current state, driven by dated suspension intervals the generator reads. FieldRoutes separates its hold from a freeze, which ends the subscription and maps to terminated. Not the same as a held visit or a work order's hold reason (Service Agreements & Plans).
Initial service: the first visit, usually longer and priced separately from recurring ones (Service Agreements & Plans).
Membership: the trade suites' name for an agreement, usually a maintenance plan with tune-ups and member pricing (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
One-time agreement: an agreement of kind one_time for one-time work that needs signed terms (authorizations, a cancellation window, a guarantee, a contract with deposits or permits); it never owns recurrences and ends fulfilled (One-Time Services & Upsells).
Pause: the customer asking to stop service for a while (travel, a pool drained for repairs) without ending the agreement (paused); a seasonal plan's planned off-season is the recurrence's season, not a pause, and the agreement stays active, recorded as a dated suspension interval so a future pause is honored (Service Agreements & Plans).
Person: a customer-side human (people), a contact linked to accounts and properties through contact roles; staff are staff members (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Plan, plan version: the product sold, versioned so each agreement keeps the terms it was signed under (Service Agreements & Plans; the pattern is in Effective Dating & History).
Property, location, site: the place where the work happens (properties), with its own service point, time zone, access notes, hazards and assets (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Property key: a data vendor's stable identifier for a parcel or address, stored beside your own ID to join enrichment data (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Renewal: extending an agreement's term, automatically or as a new sale; regulated where it's automatic (Service Agreements & Plans).
Service point: the spot a technician drives to, stored as the property's location; a technician's pin outranks any vendor rooftop (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Versioned terms: an agreement as a stable identity whose terms (lines, prices, frequency) change as immutable versions, so history shows what applied when (Service Agreements & Plans).
Warranty, guarantee: a promise about future outcomes: a company's (a renewable termite warranty, a re-service guarantee) lives on the agreement; a manufacturer's lives on the asset (Service Agreements & Plans).

Repair, Install and Commercial Work

Assignment of benefits (AOB): a homeowner signing insurance proceeds over to a contractor; Florida voided it for residential policies issued on or after January 1, 2023 (Insurance Claims Work).
Bona fide emergency: a buyer-initiated "bona fide immediate personal emergency," where the buyer waives the cooling-off right in a dated, signed statement in their own handwriting; a technician's checkbox never qualifies (Consumer Protection).
Callback, recall, re-service: a return to fix work that didn't hold, modeled as a new work order with source = 'callback' and callback_of_work_order_id set when it's booked, usually at no charge. A part that wasn't on the truck is a hold, not a callback; repair trades say callback or recall, recurring trades say re-service (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Change order: a signed amendment to a sold estimate that changes price, scope or schedule, and moves the job's budget and contract value when approved (Installs and Projects).
Connected device, device alert: a sensor or controller on an asset (a thermostat, a pump, a rodent trap) whose alerts are deduplicated and triaged into work orders, CSR tasks or remote fixes, under access the owner granted (Connected Equipment and Remote Monitoring).
Debounce window: the period in which repeated alerts from one device are parented under the first instead of opening new work (Connected Equipment and Remote Monitoring).
Deficiency: a problem found on a planned or inspection visit, recorded per asset with a severity, and often turned into a quote (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Diagnostic fee, trip charge: what the customer pays for the visit and the diagnosis, whether or not they buy the repair; waived, credited or charged by rule (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Estimate, quote: a priced proposal (estimates) linked to the work order it would fill, with options and snapshotted lines; approving an option copies its lines onto the work order (The Core Data Model; options and approvals are in Pricing & Sales Rules).
Flat rate: one price per task (labor, typical parts and markup), approved before work starts; the usual pricing for residential repair (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Hold reason (work order): why an open work order is waiting (part_needed, approval_needed, permit_needed) after a visit did what it could; the visit itself is completed (The Core Data Model).
Home warranty, residential service company: a contract company that both dispatches a covered repair to a contractor and pays for it after authorization, while the homeowner pays a service call fee (Home Warranty Companies).
Not-to-exceed (NTE): a commercial client's spending cap on a work order; crossing it needs a recorded approval (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
On call: availability outside regular hours; it lets a technician be sent without counting as bookable capacity (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Personal property: movable goods, as opposed to the home itself; the Cooling-Off Rule's repair exclusion covers only buyer-initiated repair of the buyer's personal property (Consumer Protection).
Preventive maintenance, planned maintenance: scheduled work per asset (tune-ups, inspections, filter changes), driven by a calendar, a condition or usage (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Progress billing: deposits, progress payments and a final invoice against one project, often from a schedule of values with retainage (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Purchase order (PO): a commercial client's authorization number, carried on the work order, without which the invoice won't be paid; also the order to a supplier for a special-order part (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Recoverable depreciation: the part of a replacement-cost insurance payment the carrier withholds until the repair is finished and invoiced (Insurance Claims Work).
Service type: the catalog of what work orders perform (service_types): a quarterly pest service, a drain clearing, a furnace install. Vendors' work types add a default duration and required skills (The Core Data Model).
SLA clock: a response or resolution target on a work order (the response clock and the resolution clock), counted on a calendar in the property's zone and rebuilt from start, pause, resume and breach events (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Subcontractor: another company that performs work for this one, booked as a contractor resource, paid per job and gated on its own license, insurance and bond (Subcontractors and Inbound Work Orders).
Supplement: a request to the insurance carrier to add items the adjuster's estimate missed, approved before the work is done (Insurance Claims Work).
Third-party payer: an account other than the customer that pays some of a work order (a home warranty company, an insurer, a facilities client, a lender), with its own reference and authorization (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Time and materials (T&M): labor by the hour at a rate set by when it happens, plus parts at cost plus markup (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Trade service call fee: the homeowner's share of a home warranty job, owed per service request, with the rest of the invoice going to the warranty company; not the same as a diagnostic fee, which the customer pays the contractor directly (Home Warranty Companies).
Warranty claim: a request to a manufacturer, distributor or claim processor to pay for a covered part or labor, tracked as a receivable with a submit-by date, evidence and states (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Work order network: a facilities client's system for dispatching contractors, such as ServiceChannel or CorrigoPro, with check-in, NTE and invoicing on the client's side (Subcontractors and Inbound Work Orders).
Work order: the work to be done (work_orders), from an occurrence, a request, a sale or a callback; vendors also call it a job or ticket. One work order can take several visits (The Field Operations Business).
Xactimate: Verisk's estimating software, in whose line items most US property insurance claims are priced and supplemented (Insurance Claims Work).

Last-Mile Delivery

Attendance: whether someone must be present for the work: required, preferred or not_required. Unattended work can drop its arrival window, which is the largest density lever in routing (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Cost per stop, cost per delivery: route cost divided by stops attempted, versus by deliveries completed; the gap is what failed attempts cost (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Delivery instruction: a standing instruction on the property (safe place, gate code) or a one-off on the order, applied in a fixed precedence; access codes are secrets (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
First, middle and last mile: shipper to warehouse, warehouse to hub or depot, and depot to door (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
First-attempt delivery rate: the share of deliveries completed on the first attempt (Operating Metrics).
Handoff: how a delivery left the driver: to the recipient, to a third party, a safe place, a mailbox, a locker or a garage (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Pickup-and-delivery pair: two linked stops where the delivery can't happen before its pickup (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Shipper, consignee: who pays for the delivery, and who receives it at the site (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Undeliverable action: what happens after the last failed attempt (return to sender, hold at a pickup point, dispose), decided when the order is created (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).

The Business and the Market

Branch, region, brand: the layers of an org tree; a branch owns a territory, its technicians and routes, and is the unit most work is run and reported by (The Field Operations Business; the general shape is in Tenant Hierarchies).
Dead time: paid time that is neither driving to work nor doing it: loading, waiting, paperwork (The Field Operations Business).
Enterprise field service: field service built on a general business platform (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, ServiceNow, Oracle, SAP, IFS) and extended per customer (The Software Landscape).
Franchisor, franchisee: the brand owner and the separate business that operates under its brand, prices and software; who may see and keep whose data is set by the franchise agreement and disclosed in Item 11 of the disclosure document (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
FSM (field service management): software that runs the customer, scheduling, technician and billing side of a field business (The Software Landscape).
Horizontal SMB platform: a field service product for small businesses across many trades, such as Jobber or Housecall Pro (The Software Landscape).
Multi-location roll-up: reporting summed from branches or franchisees up the org tree, each number kept under the org unit and business date it was recorded with (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
Org unit: one node of the org tree (org_units: a brand, region or branch), carrying the time zone that sets the branch's business date for billing and generation runs (The Core Data Model).
Route density: how many customers sit close together on a route; the economics of recurring service are mostly density (The Field Operations Business).
Royalty report: the franchisor's periodic fee computed as a percentage of each franchisee's gross or net sales as its agreement defines them, closed and stamped like a commission run (Branches, Regions and the Org Chart).
Staff member: an employee or contractor who logs in or does the work (staff_members); a worker is always a staff member, never a people row (The Core Data Model).
System of record: the one system whose copy of a record wins when systems disagree (The Software Landscape).
Vertical platform: a product built for one trade's rules, such as FieldRoutes or PestPac for pest control, or Skimmer for pools (The Software Landscape).

Customers, Properties and Agreements

Account, customer: the party that pays (accounts), kept separate from the place served and the people involved (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Add-on: a product sold alongside a plan and priced on its own (Service Agreements & Plans).
Agreement: the contract for a plan version at a property (agreements); vendors say membership, maintenance plan, subscription or service agreement (Service Agreements & Plans).
Agreement states: draft, out for signature, signed (cancellation window open, not billable), active, paused, on hold, terminated, fulfilled (a one-time agreement whose work and term are done); or void (never signed) and cancelled (ended before it became active) (Service Agreements & Plans).
Allowance: a number of included visits an agreement grants, used on request rather than on a schedule (Recurring Schedules).
Amendment: a change to a live agreement recorded as a new terms version, such as an add-on joining mid-term, effective on its first added visit and prorated by day (One-Time Services & Upsells).
Asset, equipment: a serviced thing at a property (a furnace, a backflow assembly, a pool pump, bait stations) with its own history, serial number and warranty terms (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Cancelled versus terminated: an agreement that ends before it ever became active (including in the cooling-off window) is cancelled and emits agreement.cancelled; ending an active agreement is terminated, with a churn type and a reason, and emits agreement.terminated (Service Agreements & Plans).
CASS: the USPS certification for address-matching software (Addresses & Geocoding).
Contact role: what a person may do for an account or property: pay, approve work, receive reports, grant site access (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Geocode: coordinates for an address, with a precision that matters (rooftop, parcel, street, postal code) (Addresses & Geocoding).
Hold (agreement): the company stopping service on an agreement (on_hold) for non-payment or a dispute; no new visits or charges while collection continues. The status is the current state, driven by dated suspension intervals the generator reads. FieldRoutes separates its hold from a freeze, which ends the subscription and maps to terminated. Not the same as a held visit or a work order's hold reason (Service Agreements & Plans).
Initial service: the first visit, usually longer and priced separately from recurring ones (Service Agreements & Plans).
Membership: the trade suites' name for an agreement, usually a maintenance plan with tune-ups and member pricing (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
One-time agreement: an agreement of kind one_time for one-time work that needs signed terms (authorizations, a cancellation window, a guarantee, a contract with deposits or permits); it never owns recurrences and ends fulfilled (One-Time Services & Upsells).
Pause: the customer asking to stop service for a while (travel, a pool drained for repairs) without ending the agreement (paused); a seasonal plan's planned off-season is the recurrence's season, not a pause, and the agreement stays active, recorded as a dated suspension interval so a future pause is honored (Service Agreements & Plans).
Person: a customer-side human (people), a contact linked to accounts and properties through contact roles; staff are staff members (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Plan, plan version: the product sold, versioned so each agreement keeps the terms it was signed under (Service Agreements & Plans; the pattern is in Effective Dating & History).
Property, location, site: the place where the work happens (properties), with its own service point, time zone, access notes, hazards and assets (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Property key: a data vendor's stable identifier for a parcel or address, stored beside your own ID to join enrichment data (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Renewal: extending an agreement's term, automatically or as a new sale; regulated where it's automatic (Service Agreements & Plans).
Service point: the spot a technician drives to, stored as the property's location; a technician's pin outranks any vendor rooftop (Customers, Accounts & Properties).
Versioned terms: an agreement as a stable identity whose terms (lines, prices, frequency) change as immutable versions, so history shows what applied when (Service Agreements & Plans).
Warranty, guarantee: a promise about future outcomes: a company's (a renewable termite warranty, a re-service guarantee) lives on the agreement; a manufacturer's lives on the asset (Service Agreements & Plans).

Repair, Install and Commercial Work

Assignment of benefits (AOB): a homeowner signing insurance proceeds over to a contractor; Florida voided it for residential policies issued on or after January 1, 2023 (Insurance Claims Work).
Bona fide emergency: a buyer-initiated "bona fide immediate personal emergency," where the buyer waives the cooling-off right in a dated, signed statement in their own handwriting; a technician's checkbox never qualifies (Consumer Protection).
Callback, recall, re-service: a return to fix work that didn't hold, modeled as a new work order with source = 'callback' and callback_of_work_order_id set when it's booked, usually at no charge. A part that wasn't on the truck is a hold, not a callback; repair trades say callback or recall, recurring trades say re-service (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Change order: a signed amendment to a sold estimate that changes price, scope or schedule, and moves the job's budget and contract value when approved (Installs and Projects).
Connected device, device alert: a sensor or controller on an asset (a thermostat, a pump, a rodent trap) whose alerts are deduplicated and triaged into work orders, CSR tasks or remote fixes, under access the owner granted (Connected Equipment and Remote Monitoring).
Debounce window: the period in which repeated alerts from one device are parented under the first instead of opening new work (Connected Equipment and Remote Monitoring).
Deficiency: a problem found on a planned or inspection visit, recorded per asset with a severity, and often turned into a quote (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Diagnostic fee, trip charge: what the customer pays for the visit and the diagnosis, whether or not they buy the repair; waived, credited or charged by rule (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Estimate, quote: a priced proposal (estimates) linked to the work order it would fill, with options and snapshotted lines; approving an option copies its lines onto the work order (The Core Data Model; options and approvals are in Pricing & Sales Rules).
Flat rate: one price per task (labor, typical parts and markup), approved before work starts; the usual pricing for residential repair (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Hold reason (work order): why an open work order is waiting (part_needed, approval_needed, permit_needed) after a visit did what it could; the visit itself is completed (The Core Data Model).
Home warranty, residential service company: a contract company that both dispatches a covered repair to a contractor and pays for it after authorization, while the homeowner pays a service call fee (Home Warranty Companies).
Not-to-exceed (NTE): a commercial client's spending cap on a work order; crossing it needs a recorded approval (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
On call: availability outside regular hours; it lets a technician be sent without counting as bookable capacity (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Personal property: movable goods, as opposed to the home itself; the Cooling-Off Rule's repair exclusion covers only buyer-initiated repair of the buyer's personal property (Consumer Protection).
Preventive maintenance, planned maintenance: scheduled work per asset (tune-ups, inspections, filter changes), driven by a calendar, a condition or usage (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Progress billing: deposits, progress payments and a final invoice against one project, often from a schedule of values with retainage (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Purchase order (PO): a commercial client's authorization number, carried on the work order, without which the invoice won't be paid; also the order to a supplier for a special-order part (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Recoverable depreciation: the part of a replacement-cost insurance payment the carrier withholds until the repair is finished and invoiced (Insurance Claims Work).
Service type: the catalog of what work orders perform (service_types): a quarterly pest service, a drain clearing, a furnace install. Vendors' work types add a default duration and required skills (The Core Data Model).
SLA clock: a response or resolution target on a work order (the response clock and the resolution clock), counted on a calendar in the property's zone and rebuilt from start, pause, resume and breach events (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Subcontractor: another company that performs work for this one, booked as a contractor resource, paid per job and gated on its own license, insurance and bond (Subcontractors and Inbound Work Orders).
Supplement: a request to the insurance carrier to add items the adjuster's estimate missed, approved before the work is done (Insurance Claims Work).
Third-party payer: an account other than the customer that pays some of a work order (a home warranty company, an insurer, a facilities client, a lender), with its own reference and authorization (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Time and materials (T&M): labor by the hour at a rate set by when it happens, plus parts at cost plus markup (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Trade service call fee: the homeowner's share of a home warranty job, owed per service request, with the rest of the invoice going to the warranty company; not the same as a diagnostic fee, which the customer pays the contractor directly (Home Warranty Companies).
Warranty claim: a request to a manufacturer, distributor or claim processor to pay for a covered part or labor, tracked as a receivable with a submit-by date, evidence and states (Repair, Install & Commercial Work).
Work order network: a facilities client's system for dispatching contractors, such as ServiceChannel or CorrigoPro, with check-in, NTE and invoicing on the client's side (Subcontractors and Inbound Work Orders).
Work order: the work to be done (work_orders), from an occurrence, a request, a sale or a callback; vendors also call it a job or ticket. One work order can take several visits (The Field Operations Business).
Xactimate: Verisk's estimating software, in whose line items most US property insurance claims are priced and supplemented (Insurance Claims Work).

Last-Mile Delivery

Attendance: whether someone must be present for the work: required, preferred or not_required. Unattended work can drop its arrival window, which is the largest density lever in routing (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Cost per stop, cost per delivery: route cost divided by stops attempted, versus by deliveries completed; the gap is what failed attempts cost (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Delivery instruction: a standing instruction on the property (safe place, gate code) or a one-off on the order, applied in a fixed precedence; access codes are secrets (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
First, middle and last mile: shipper to warehouse, warehouse to hub or depot, and depot to door (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
First-attempt delivery rate: the share of deliveries completed on the first attempt (Operating Metrics).
Handoff: how a delivery left the driver: to the recipient, to a third party, a safe place, a mailbox, a locker or a garage (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Pickup-and-delivery pair: two linked stops where the delivery can't happen before its pickup (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Shipper, consignee: who pays for the delivery, and who receives it at the site (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).
Undeliverable action: what happens after the last failed attempt (return to sender, hold at a pickup point, dispose), decided when the order is created (Last-Mile Delivery & Distribution).