Work order behavior when technician removed from team?

Question

Hi everyone! We're going through some restructuring on our team and I'm trying to get ahead of any issues before they happen. We've got a technician who's transitioning out, and I need to understand what happens to their assigned work orders if we remove them from the team. Do those jobs just go unassigned? Do they stay attached to the removed tech and become invisible? And what about completed work orders — do we lose that history or does it stay attached to the job record?

Also wondering if there's a recommended process for this. Should we reassign everything BEFORE removing them, or can we remove and then bulk reassign after? We have about 15 open jobs and 30+ scheduled for next week that would need to move to other techs.

Thanks so much for any guidance! This is our first time having someone leave since we started using FieldPulse so I want to make sure we handle it right.

Priya Nair (Staff) · Accepted Answer

Hi Deja! Happy to help — this is a great question to ask before making changes.

Here's exactly what happens when you remove a technician:

Active/Scheduled Work Orders

The technician is removed from any assigned work orders
Those work orders become unassigned — they don't disappear and they're not deleted
You'll see them in the Dispatch Board with no technician assigned

Completed Work Orders

Historical data is preserved — the technician's name remains on completed jobs
Job history, photos, signatures, time logs all stay intact
Reports will still show the original assignee

Recommended Process

I'd suggest reassigning before removal if possible. Go to the Dispatch Board, filter by that technician, select multiple jobs, and use Bulk Reassign to move them to other team members. This keeps your schedule cleaner and avoids the 'unassigned' state.

If you need to remove first and reassign after, just filter for 'Unassigned' jobs in Dispatch and bulk assign from there — works the same way.

Does that cover what you needed? Let me know if you want help with the bulk reassign steps!

Gwen Albright · Answer

We've been through this twice now and I'll tell you what we learned the hard way — don't remove the tech until you've exported their schedule as a reference. Once they're gone from the system, you lose the easy 'view by technician' filter for those historical jobs, and if anything comes up with a customer about a job that was in progress, it's harder to track down.

Also worth noting: if you have any recurring work orders set up with that tech as the default assignee, removing them doesn't automatically update the template. You'll need to go into each recurring template and change the default technician or you'll keep generating unassigned jobs.