Check the contract’s status and history before making changes. Ending, archiving and deleting a contract serve different purposes. Archiving stops the creation of future tasks and invoices and prevents normal editing of the contract, but keeps it available for viewing.

Opening a contract and required permissions

In the browser’s main menu, open Customers → Contracts. Select Datatable if another view is open. Find the contract, for example by using the search in the Name column, and open it by clicking its name.

The contract feature requires Field service management to be enabled in the service. Viewing a contract and its history requires read permission for contracts, archiving requires edit permission, and deleting requires delete permission. A manager user’s permissions depend on their role’s contract permissions.

Editing may also be blocked if you lack access to the contract’s maintenance targets, the responsible parties in its task settings, or the Spots in its billing rows. If the warehouse feature is enabled, lacking read permission for products linked to the contract may also prevent editing. The form displays a notice about missing permissions. Ask an administrator to check your permissions if necessary.

What does the contract’s status mean?

On the Basic info tab, check Status, Contract start date and Contract end date. The standard validity statuses are determined by these dates according to the service’s time zone:

  • Waiting for start date: the start date is in the future.
  • Active: the start date has been reached and no end date has been set.
  • Waiting for end date: the start date has been reached and the end date is today or later. A fixed-term contract is therefore still valid in this status.
  • Ended: the end date has passed. The end date is still part of the contract period: for example, a contract ending on 31 October changes to Ended on 1 November.

The status is checked when saving and automatically during background processing at midnight. Archived and Deleted from system remain unchanged as the dates change. Statuses determined by dates are not selected manually in the Status field; in addition to the current status, you can select archiving there.

Ending does not lock the contract in the same way as archiving. An archived contract cannot be returned to normal editing or reactivated by changing its dates.

Examining the history

  1. Open the contract’s History tab. By default, events from the last month are retrieved, with the newest first.
  2. Extend the time range above the table to three or six months, or select No time limits, apply all. For a custom range, select Filter by specific time range and set both a start and an end date in the Date range field. The search includes events from the entirety of each selected day.
  3. Expand an event row using the arrow before its text. Then expand the Event target row to see changes to individual fields.
  4. Compare the Changed field, Old value and New value columns. Also check the event’s date and user information.

In addition to the contract’s basic information, the history includes events concerning the contract value, task settings, maintenance target links, default resourcing, product and category links, billing rows, and created tasks and contract invoices. A single save may appear as an event with several separate target changes beneath it. Automatic processing may also produce events.

You can narrow down the table using column filters. Only this target on a target row shows events for that target. Change the time range to retrieve the history again and clear the table’s filters. Clicking a target’s name can open its current details if the target is still available and you have sufficient permissions; the link does not restore a historical version.

The history is not a complete list of all data fields. For example, technical update information is omitted, and a deletion event may not include a comparison of old and new values. A missing row alone does not prove that no change was made: check the time range, filters and current details.

Archiving a contract

Review outstanding tasks and invoices before archiving. On the contract’s Tasks and Contract invoices tabs, check what has already been created and what still needs to be handled. Also check Maintenance targets and task settings and Billing settings so that you know which future activity you are stopping. If the task view reports missing permissions, ask a user with the required permissions to also check the tasks hidden from you.

  1. Open the Status selection on the Basic info tab and select Archived.
  2. Read the warning that the contract can no longer be edited, and confirm your selection. This confirmation only applies to the selection in the form; it does not yet save the archiving. Cancelling the confirmation restores the previous selection.
  3. Press Save at the bottom of the form. If saving fails, resolve the reported error before considering the archiving complete.
  4. After saving successfully, check that the status in the contract list is Archived. Reopen the contract and verify the saved status and, if necessary, the status change in its history.

Archiving clears the contract’s next invoice creation date and the next task creation dates for the contract and its task settings. Automatic creation of future items stops. The contract’s settings and the tasks and invoices already linked to it remain.

Archiving does not mark work as completed, change its responsibilities or completion details, or mark invoices as processed or paid. Previous task and invoice details and their history are not removed when archiving. Handle outstanding work and invoices separately. The same clearing of future creation dates occurs when the contract ends or changes to deleted status.

If you only want to stop creation for a particular task setting or change billing, check the separate instructions: maintenance targets and recurring tasks and contract billing and price changes. Processing contract invoices is covered in contract classification and billing information.

How does deleting differ from archiving?

Start deletion using the trash icon on the contract’s row in the contract list. Read the effects of deletion shown in the confirmation before accepting.

  • If the contract has associated tasks or contract invoices, its status is set to Deleted from system. The contract record and its associated previous tasks and invoices remain. Their statuses are not changed.
  • If there are no tasks or contract invoices, the contract is permanently deleted. Its task settings, billing rows, saved contract values and contract attachments are also deleted.

A contract marked as deleted disappears from the normal Contracts list and cannot be opened using the normal contract form or its History tab. This differs from an archived contract, which remains available for viewing. An archived contract can also be deleted if you have delete permission. Check the list to verify that deletion succeeded; a row disappearing is not enough to confirm archiving.

Contract summary on Android and iOS

Open the Spot’s details and press Show contract alongside the customer information. The summary shows the contracts’ names, statuses, and Contract start date: and Contract end date: details. The rows do not open contract editing or history; use the browser for those. There is a separate mobile browsing guide for finding a Spot.

On Android, the button requires customer information on the Spot and at least one associated contract. On iOS, the button’s visibility is set based on the contract list, but the customer row containing it is hidden if the Spot has no customer. A missing customer can therefore prevent the button from appearing on either platform.

A contract is associated with a Spot when the Spot is a maintenance target in the contract’s task settings or appears in the contract’s billing rows. Having the same customer alone is not enough. If the summary is missing, check these links and the Spot’s customer information.

The summary search is not limited to currently valid contracts. It may also show an ended, archived or deleted contract if the link remains. The mobile app displays the status as received, so instead of a Finnish status label, you may see, for example, archived (Archived), ended (Ended) or deleted (Deleted from system). Verify the outcome of archiving from the saved contract in the browser.