Confirmation text is good but do you use the object part, damage and cause codes as well?
SAP data type its separate to notification and order. When you need to analyze time to repair, you must collect the time in Order that you have used, If you need to analyze failure or time to failure or time between failure, you must collect malfunction start and end in Notification and also failure information as Josh said. Please look each tab page in Notification and proper configuration to support you.
I am fine with using the codes in both the order and notification and have had categories set up for these by asset type. These can give good breakdown analysis information, Failure modes and metrics( MTBF, MTTR etc..) However, my query is more for the actual text entered by the craftsman detailing what he has actually done to resolve the issue. This is to be used for handover reports and historical records. This allows more information regarding what was done to resolve the issues or to what point an investigation has been reached. Does best practice show this should be entered in the notification or against the work order time confirmation text?
In the WO confirmation text I think better so that the craftsmen don't have to click any extra steps.
We prefer the notification long text as the official location of the detailed descriptions of all the work activities. This gives us a clean place to denote all observations and pass on information either to the next shift... or to the reliability groups when they review.. the same day or 6 months later. We utilize CATS for time entry and the configuration that the craftsmen use for entering time has been modified to include the notification for the job to which they are posting time. Therefore, when they are entering time...they simply click on the notification and finish filling out the details.. then they can continue putting in time or go to the next notification. We also have a custom transaction that queries the notifications and prints a log type output for passing on information to improve communications throughout the plant.
We used notification long text for some recommendations from engineers also, but if you need to follow up after the task has been done, I suggest using the tab page "Task" that provides you to input what activity to accomplish or what the follow-up task that you might follow. For the confirmation text, we use it for any variance from a plan that input from the technician and provide good information for the planner to revise for the next plan.