We use filemaker to create work orders.  We input due dates between 5-7 days.  When we do not finish a job in time we have to manually open the work order and change the due date and print the new work order.  Could this be automated for instance:  If the the work order is not closed out and it's 5 pm filemaker will automatically adjust the time to the next business day and print a new work order?

Why not use a status along with a due date? A status like "Open" and "Closed", for instance will allow you to filter only open jobs. You can then sort based on due date (the jobs that are due soonest should go on the top, which means any overdue will automatically be at the very top) and with conditional formatting you can highlight the ones that are due today (make them yellow) and any that are overdue can be made orange (or red if you prefer).

When a job is finished, you simply set the status to closed. This also means that your original due date doesn't change and you can create reports of how many jobs don't complete on time. That is, if you record the date/time you close a job as well.

Olger's approach is pretty much what we use for our work orders, although we don't hide closed work orders, we sort by status first and then due date...Changing a due date seems to make the purpose of setting one a bit pointless... but you could print via a script that checks the due date first and resets it if necessary

I created the report that shows the open and closed many years ago.  It's just that we now have so many orders that we are unable to finish them all in the time frame.  Our ISO procedure currently requires us to change the due date if an order can not be completed on time.  We count the revised dates on our production numbers but we are still required to change the date.  Sometime our production manager misses the revision.  When this happens we are not following our procedure.  I was wanting to make it automatic if it's possible.  If I tried the print script that would also make us do it manually but I guess it wouldn't miss any.  Any other ideas on the completely automatic method.

Hmmm...

Here is an method:

1) Define a few new fields:
past_due_date_history - text field
past_due_last - (calculation, date result) = If(IsEmpty(past_due_date_history), "", GetAsDate(RightWords(past_due_date_history, 1))

You can use these fields for auditing purposes.

2) Schedule a defined script that runs once a day (maybe schedule it on the server). It will do the following:

  1) Find All past due WorkOrders where the due_date need to be adjusted

  2) Push the current due_date to the "past_due_date_history" field via replace:
      Replace[no dialog, "past_due_date_history", If(IsEmpty(past_due_date_history), due_date , past_due_date_history & ¶ & due_date) ]

3) Adjust the due_date for that found set accordingly using the REPLACE script step.

4) With past_due_last looked and new due_date adjusted and same found set still in place, generate an EMAIL to responsible parties with a summary of WorkOrders that have are to be adjusted. (you could, also, store this in the DB in a table if you need to - if an email audit trail is not enough)

Hope this helps!
 

If(IsEmpty(past_due_date_history), due_date , past_due_date_history & ¶ & due_date) 

You may be interested in List():

List ( past_due_date_history ; due_date )

Thanks for the suggestions.  This will be a difficult one.  I will keep you posted.