What it does
Built around how the work
actually arrives
WorkOrders starts with the email your customer sent, and follows the job through to a completed record you can invoice from.
One · getting in
Four ways for jobs to come in
Whichever you use, you get the same kind of work order, with the original message, the whole email thread and every attachment kept with it.
- Your own jobs.workorders.nz address
- Every company gets {you}@jobs.workorders.nz when it signs up, and it works straight away. No app password, no mailbox credentials, no DNS changes. Forward emails to it, or give it out as your address for maintenance requests.
- Any IMAP mailbox, including Gmail
- Enter the server, username and password, and WorkOrders checks the mailbox your customers already email. Once an email has become a job, it's moved to a folder called WorkOrders-Processed. Nothing is deleted. Gmail needs an app password instead of your usual password. Microsoft 365 and Outlook mailboxes can't be connected, so forward them to your jobs.workorders.nz address instead.
- The API
- For jobs that start in another system, like a building management system, a tenant portal or your own maintenance schedule. Send the request to the API and it becomes a work order like any other. Read the API reference
- Your customers, from your portal
- Switch it on and customers who have signed in to your portal can raise a request themselves, with what needs doing, where, and a photo or two. It arrives in your list marked as coming from the portal. To sign in, a customer needs a link emailed to an address already on your customer list, so someone they forward an email to can't raise a request.
Two · what happens to it
What happens next, in order
Each of these steps happens automatically. None of them waits for someone in the office to notice and do the next bit.
Extraction
WorkOrders fills in the job, and you can change it
Requests turn up with no subject line, a phone number in the middle of a sentence and the address buried in a paragraph. The AI reads the email and fills in what it can find: a plain summary, the site address and who's asking.
Attachments are described in words too, so you can find a photo of a
failed valve six months later instead of a file called
IMG_4471.jpeg.
Each of these goes into an ordinary field you can edit. None of it sends anything to the customer or assigns the job to anyone. If something's wrong, fix the field. The original email is right there to check against.
Urgency and status
Four statuses, and how urgency is set
A job moves through four statuses: new, assigned, ongoing and completed. Each one is a single tap in the app. There's also Deleted, for a request that turns out not to be a job, and an admin can delete a job at any stage.
Urgency is set from the wording of the message. "No hot water, tenant has a newborn" is more urgent than "when you get a chance", and that decides where the job sits on your team's list before anyone opens it.
Dispatch
The first technician to accept gets the job
A new job isn't assigned to anyone. It goes to the whole company at once and waits as unclaimed work.
The first technician to tap accept gets it and sets how long until they'll be on site. The job then leaves everyone else's list. If two people tap at the same moment, only one gets it. The other is told it's already gone, so you don't get two people turning up.
From then on it's theirs. Only they or an admin can mark it ongoing or completed, and the office can reassign it from the web app if plans change.
The first tap gets the job
WorkOrders
No hot water, both units
14 Rutland Street, Petone
Ana and Dave now see it as already assigned.
WorkOrders · now
New work order · high
No hot water, 14 Rutland St
Threading
Customer replies are added to the job
Status emails go out as a reply to the customer's own message, from your firm and with your sign-off. They get one when the job is picked up, one when the work starts and one when it's finished. Nobody has to write them.
When they reply, the reply is added to the work order. The job number is in the reply address, so even a quick reply from their phone reaches the right job without anyone forwarding it.
Three · the office
A dashboard that updates itself
When a technician takes a job, it shows up on the office dashboard without anyone refreshing the page, and the day's numbers and two-week trend update with it. The jobs list works differently. It stays still while you read it, and tells you when new work has come in.
Every number updated itself
Kingsley Plumbing & Gas
Welcome back, Mel
New
2
Assigned
5
Ongoing
2
Completed this week
12
Last 14 days
Raised Completed
Open jobs by technician
- Rangi Hemi 5
- Ana Reti 4
- Dave Marsh 2
- Mia Fenn 1
Every number is a link
Click any tile on the dashboard to see the jobs it counts. Click a technician's row to see the jobs they still have open.
The reports you run monthly, saved
The Reports page shows the figures for a period: how many jobs came in, how long until someone was attending, and the average time on site. Below them are your saved reports. Each one says in plain English what it filters and how many jobs match right now, and you can export it to CSV.
The week at a glance
The workload calendar has a row for each technician and a column for each day, with unassigned jobs along the top. You can see straight away if someone has eleven jobs on Tuesday and none on Thursday.
Four · the customer
A customer portal with no account to set up
The link is in every status email. A property manager opens it and sees their own jobs: what was asked for, how far it has got and what was done, in plain words instead of staff terms.
There's no comment box. Customers reply by email, and their replies are added to the job. They can add a photo to a job that's under way, like the leak three days later. If you switch it on, they can also raise a new request from the same page. To do that they sign in with a link emailed to an address you already hold, so someone they've forwarded an email to can't raise one.
It's on your own subdomain, {you}.workorders.nz, which matches the address customers already email. See a live demo portal.
WO-6R3XQ8
No hot water - 14 Rutland St, both units
This job is finished.
- Raised
- 12 Mar 2026, 7:38am
- Your technician
- Rangi
- Site
- 14 Rutland Street, Petone
- Completed
- 12 Mar 2026, 4:15pm
What was done
Element and thermostat replaced, cylinder refilled and tested. Hot water confirmed at both units before leaving.
Photos and files
cylinder-service-report.pdf
See all your work requests , and we'll email you a link.
Five · more than one company
Working with more than one company
Office staff, technicians and customers can all deal with more than one company on WorkOrders, and each company's work stays separate.
Staff
The same verified email can work for two employers. Once both are confirmed, a switcher appears in the sidebar. Each company has its own web address, so you can have both open in separate tabs, each with its own two-factor rules.
The field app
A technician can add a second company's account with the access code from that office, switch between them, and get notifications from both. Tapping a notification opens the right job in the right account.
Customers
A customer of several firms on WorkOrders asks for one link at workorders.nz and sees every firm's jobs together. When they raise a request, they choose which firm it's for. Each firm's own portal address still shows only that firm's jobs.
Everything in every plan
Every plan has every feature. The plans differ only in how many people can use them.
Email to work order
Your own jobs.workorders.nz address, or any IMAP mailbox including Gmail. Requests become work orders, with the original message, its thread and every attachment kept with them.
AI extraction
A plain-English summary, an urgency level, and the site and contact picked out of the message. You can edit all of them.
First-to-claim dispatch
A new job goes to the whole team at once. The first technician to tap accept gets it, and it drops off everyone else's list.
The field app
Today's jobs with their full details, including the photos and PDFs that came in with them. Status changes go straight to the office. On iPhone today, and Android is the next build.
See the field appAutomatic customer updates
Status emails go out as a reply to the customer's own message, from your firm and with your sign-off. Their replies are added to the job.
Attachment descriptions
Photos and PDFs that arrive with a job are described in words, so you can find a picture of a failed valve six months later.
No-account customer portal
Customers open it from the link in their status email to see their jobs and add photos, without emailing to ask. Switch it on and they can raise new requests there too.
Organisations, customers and sites
Each customer belongs to an organisation, and everyone there shares its sites. An address typed with different capitals, spacing or punctuation still matches the same site, and that site's job history is one click from the job.
Health and safety notes
A technician can add a health and safety note when completing a job, and it's emailed to your firm's health and safety address.
Saved reports
Save the reports you run every month under a name. Each one says in plain English what it filters and how many jobs match right now. Five are set up for you from day one.
CSV, in one click
Export any saved report to CSV for invoicing, payroll or a client who wants a summary of last quarter. Or set up a one-off report and export that.
The week at a glance
A row for each technician and a column for each day, with every job on it. See who had eleven jobs on Tuesday and none on Thursday, and what sat unassigned all Wednesday.
Time on site
Recorded when the job is completed. The app suggests a time based on when the technician said they'd arrive, and they confirm or adjust it. It shows as a column in the jobs list and as an average in Reports.
Contact details on hover
Hover over a person's name anywhere in the app to see their role, phone, email, timezone and how many open jobs they have.
Ask about this job
Ask the AI questions about a job, like what the customer actually asked for, or have it draft a reply. You decide whether to send it.
Roles, seats and 2FA
Three roles: owner, admin and technician. Technicians see their work, but not the reports with every customer's address in them. Every account can use two-factor and passkeys, and you can make two-factor compulsory for your admins or for everyone.
The real thing
Screenshots of the real app
The drawings further up are illustrations. These four are screenshots of the real web app, running with sample data. It's what you'll see when you start a trial.
Try it with your own inbox
Connect a mailbox during the trial and watch a week of real requests turn into jobs.