Work orders and configurable workflows
Elections are a thousand tasks under a hard deadline. NxtAssets turns that pile into planned, assigned, and enforceable work — so nothing falls through the cracks and no critical step gets skipped.
Work orders — the planning layer
A work order in NxtAssets is a structured job assignment: what needs to be done, where, when, and by whom. Work orders can cover:
- Preparing voting machines — firmware update, logic & accuracy testing, cleaning, sealing.
- Packing supply kits — ballots, forms, signage, ADA equipment.
- Delivering equipment to a polling site, or retrieving it after an event.
- Servicing or repairing a piece of equipment that malfunctioned.
- Inventory audits and preventative maintenance.
Each work order lists the specific assets involved — ten voting machines, five ballot scanners, twelve supply boxes — by serial number or tag. When staff scan items out for delivery, the system checks them against the work order so the correct units are loaded.
Checklists and step-by-step execution
Each work order can carry a checklist of steps. "Prepare Voting Machine for Deployment" might be: diagnostic test, clean the scanner, apply fresh tamper seal, record the seal serial number, pack the machine. As staff complete steps in the NxtAssets app, the system logs who did what and when.
Where the order of steps matters, the system enforces it. Step 3 cannot be skipped to reach step 5. Miss a step and the work order stays incomplete — a red flag for the supervisor. That "never miss a step" discipline matters when the consequence of a skipped step is a voting machine arriving at a poll without a seal.
Flexible workflows — configurable without code
Work orders handle individual tasks; workflows define the broader process those tasks flow through. NxtAssets models workflows as state machines — "Ready for Delivery → In Transit → Delivered → Confirmed Received" — with configurable rules at each transition.
No two jurisdictions run elections exactly the same way. One county might require a supervisor sign-off before equipment leaves the warehouse. Another might need an extra witness signature at poll-site handoff. Both can be expressed through the workflow editor — without writing code, and without waiting for a software release.
When chain-of-custody and seal-application steps are baked into the workflow, compliance isn't an audit finding after the fact. It's the only way the work order can be marked complete. The platform itself is the guide and the gatekeeper.
Real-time status
Dashboards show every work order's current state: Open, In Progress, Completed. As election day approaches, managers can see how many polling-place deliveries are confirmed and how far along the prep tasks are ("95% of ballot scanners have passed L&A testing"). Slippage is visible immediately, so resources can be reallocated.