Create a job

A job starts with its customer, then the work, the schedule and crew, and any safety documents or photos. Everything the crew and the office need on day one is set on this one screen, so you rarely have to open the job afterwards.

Before you start

• Only the owner, admins, dispatchers, office staff and site supervisors can create a job.
• Add the customer first if they are not already in ONYX1. The owner, admins, dispatchers and office staff can also add a new customer or a new site from this form. Site supervisors choose from the customers and sites that already exist.
• If Require the pre-work safety pack on new jobs is turned on in Settings → Security, you need the SSSP and rescue plan ready to upload before you can save. See Job safety documents and owner approval.

How the screen is laid out

On a laptop or desktop, every section is on screen at once and the page fits the window. The form scrolls inside its own panel, while the Ready check, the Will be card, Create job, Save draft and Cancel stay in view on the right. On a narrower tablet every section still shows, but those cards and buttons sit below the form.

On a phone, the form is three steps and then a review. Select Next: the work, Next: crew and safety and Next: check and create to move on. The left button at the top is Cancel on the first step and Back after that. The review lists what you have entered, with an Edit link for each part that takes you back to its step, and Create job is on the review step. The Go or Enter key on your phone's keyboard never creates the job before the review: it moves to the next step, the same as Next, or does nothing while a required safety pack is incomplete.

Create the job

1. Select New job at the top of the screen. On a phone it is the + button.
2. Under Customer and site, select the Customer. Select a Site, or leave No site. To add one on the spot, choose + Add a new site… (this needs a customer selected first).
3. Add a Site contact name and Site contact mobile if there is someone to ask for on site.
4. If you are the owner or an admin, you can enter the customer's Customer PO. Other roles do not see this field. The owner or an admin can add the PO on the job instead.
5. If Site reports are turned on for your business and your role can see customer contacts, Send site reports to lists the customer's contacts. Until you select a name, the job follows the customer's own report settings. Select names to choose exactly who gets this job's reports, or select Use the customer’s settings to go back.
6. Under The work, enter the Job title.
7. If you are the owner, an admin, a dispatcher or office staff, From quote appears once you have chosen a customer. It lists that customer's accepted quotes that are not yet linked to a job. Choosing one links it to the job and fills in the title and Scope of works if you have left them blank. It never overwrites what you typed. If the customer has no accepted quotes, the field says so and stays switched off. Site supervisors do not see From quote.
8. Set the Priority (Low, Medium or High) and, if you use them, a Work category. Add a Description and a Scope of works if you want the crew to see what work is planned. The crew reads the scope of works, so write it for them.
9. Under Schedule and crew, set a Start date, a Start time and, for multi-day work, a Finish date. The start time is available once you have set a start date. A finish date needs a start date and cannot be before it: the Ready check flags it, and ONYX1 refuses the save. This is the date the crew is on it, not a deadline: the dashboard, the crew's field day, the calendar and the Planner all key off it. The start time is 7:30 am unless you change it. Set a Due date if there is a deadline.
10. Tick who is on the job under Crew. Once you have set a start date, anyone already booked on another job on those days shows busy with the days. This is a hint, and you can still add them.
11. Choose a Team leader from the crew you ticked (the field is switched off until you tick someone). The team leader runs the site reports. Set a Follow-up date if you want a reminder to check in after the job.
12. Under Photos from the site visit, add up to three photos if you have them already, for example a reference photo from the customer. ONYX1 checks each file's image bytes, not only its filename or MIME label, before adding it.
13. Select Create job.

The Ready check and Will be

The Ready check lists what the job has and what it is missing, as you fill the form in. Items such as Customer needed, Job title needed, Team leader isn’t on the crew, Finish date needs a start or Finish is before the start are problems: select Create job and ONYX1 refuses the save with a message, keeping everything you entered. Other items, such as No scope yet or No crew yet, are reminders: you can still create the job and add them later. Only a required safety pack switches Create job off until it is complete.

Will be shows the status the job will land in and a one-line summary, for example "3 crew, 10 to 12 Nov · reports follow the customer’s settings". While the Ready check lists a problem, Will be says Can’t create yet instead. A job with a start date moves to Scheduled, except in two cases:

• Safety document approval is on, and the SSSP and rescue plan are not both added and approved. The job stays in New with its dates saved. The Ready check says SSSP still needed, Rescue plan still needed or Waiting for owner approval. If you are the owner and add both documents, they are approved as you create the job. See Job safety documents and owner approval.
• Require the pre-work safety pack on new jobs is on and the job has no accepted quote. A job cannot be booked until it has an accepted quote, so ONYX1 creates it in New without its start and finish dates, and the Job created notice says so. The Ready check says No accepted quote, and Will be shows "no date yet". Choose a quote under From quote (owner, admin, dispatcher and office staff) before you create the job. Or create it now, then link an accepted quote and set the dates on the job.

Save a draft, and what is kept on this device

On a laptop or desktop, Save draft saves what you have entered as a draft job in Jobs, Drafts, with its own job number, such as JOB-0158. It keeps the customer, site, site contact, job title, scope, Description, the photos you added, your Follow-up date and your Start and Finish dates, which become the draft's rough dates, not a booking. The crew, safety documents and the rest are chosen when you turn the draft into a job. You must select a customer first. Only the owner, admins, dispatchers and office staff can save a draft. A phone has no Save draft button on this form. See Capture a draft job after a site visit to capture one on site, and to turn a draft into a job.

Separately, ONYX1 keeps a recovery copy of the form on this device only, a moment after you stop typing, in case the page closes before you finish. On a laptop or desktop, the time it was last kept shows at the top right (Autosaved). If you leave and come back, the form shows Restored what you were typing from the time it was kept, with your entries back in place. Select Start again to clear it and begin with a blank form.

The recovery copy is cleared when you create the job, save a draft or select Cancel. A refused save does not clear it. It does not keep photos or safety documents you had added, and the safety confirmations (SSSP created? and Rescue plan in place?) come back unticked: add and confirm those again. It belongs to you, on this device, so it does not appear on another computer or phone.

Make it recurring

Tick Make this a recurring job under The work and choose how often it Repeats (Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, Quarterly, 6-monthly or Yearly). The job you are creating becomes the first occurrence; ONYX1 saves a template and creates the next one automatically each period, from the due date if you set one, otherwise from today. The template copies only the customer, site, title and description, not the crew, PO number or quote link. See Recurring jobs to manage or generate templates directly.

The pre-work safety pack

When Require the pre-work safety pack on new jobs is on, a Pre-work safety pack (required) section appears under Safety pack and photos. You must tick SSSP created? and upload the SSSP PDF, tick Rescue plan in place? and upload the rescue plan PDF, and answer WorkSafe notification submitted? before Create job is enabled. See Job safety documents and owner approval for what happens to these documents afterwards.

When the pack is off but owner approval of safety documents is on, the same section offers optional SSSP and Rescue plan uploads. You can create the job without them, and it stays in New until the owner approves both. If you are the owner and add both, they are approved as you create the job.

If something goes wrong

• Enter a job title. The title is required.
• Pick a customer. The customer is required.
• Add a start date, or clear the finish date. / The finish date must be on or after the start date. A finish date needs a start, and cannot come before it.
• The team leader must be one of the assigned crew. Tick them under Crew, or choose another leader.
• The SSSP upload didn't complete. Upload the PDF again. / The rescue-plan upload didn't complete. Upload the PDF again. The file didn't finish uploading before you saved. Upload it again.
• You’re offline. Connect to create this job. Creating a job needs a signal. The job was not created. Everything you entered stays in the form, including photos and safety documents you added. Select Create job again once you have a signal.
• Couldn’t load this customer’s contacts and quotes. ONYX1 could not fetch them, for example because the signal dropped, so Send site reports to and From quote are missing. Select Try again.

A missing customer or title is refused when you select Create job, with the message beside the button. On a phone the message shows on the review step: select Edit next to that part, fix it, and come back to the review. A refused save keeps everything you entered, so fix the one problem and select Create job again. The message goes away as soon as you change something in the form.

What happens next

When the job is created, ONYX1 takes you to the Jobs hub's List view.

Some things are saved after the job exists. If one of them cannot be saved, the job is still created and ONYX1 opens the job page instead. A Job created notice lists each thing that was left out, one per line, with the reason: for example the customer PO, the quote link, the team leader, or start and finish dates that were not saved. The notice stays until you close it, so you can fix each one on the job page. A photo that could not be saved on the device also opens the job, with a Photo not saved notice that lists each file and its reason, so you can add it there. A photo that was refused before you saved, for example because it is the wrong type or over the limit of three, is explained on the form instead. If a photo is refused later, while it uploads, see Work without signal.

From the job page you can change its status, reschedule it, or reassign crew: see Job statuses and Schedule jobs and assign crew. To see it alongside every other job, open The Jobs hub and its views.