To backfill actuals for earlier steps in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, accept the prior work centers prompt, which stamps each missing earlier step with its planned values tagged as system auto-filled. It is a stopgap for the case where an upstream step genuinely ran but nobody logged it in time. The honest default is to cancel and log the real values, and to reserve the backfill for real catch-up you intend to review.
This is the prompt that stops people the first time they log actuals or start a job out of sequence. The wider logging flow is in how to log actual hours and pieces.
Before You Start
| Prerequisite | Why |
|---|---|
| You know whether the earlier step actually ran | It is the only question that decides accept versus cancel |
| You can reach the real numbers, or you cannot | If you can, logging them beats backfilling them |
| You understand the badge stays until reviewed | Auto-filled days are a to-do list, not a finished record |
Why the Prompt Fires
The prompt appears when you set an actual start or log hours on a step while an earlier operation on the same job has no actuals recorded. It is the prior-step gate, and it exists to stop a step three from quietly showing progress while step two shows nothing. That situation is either a legitimate catch-up (the earlier step ran, nobody logged it) or a genuine problem (the earlier step has not run, or the job is on the wrong machine). The prompt forces the choice to be made on purpose.
A related variant fires when earlier days of the same operation are empty rather than earlier steps. That one is covered in how to enter actual hours for yesterday.
Step 1: Decide Accept or Cancel
One question settles it: did the earlier step actually run?
| Situation | Action |
|---|---|
| The earlier step ran, nobody logged it | OK (accept the backfill), then review later |
| You can still find out what really happened | Cancel, log the real values |
| The earlier step has not run at all | Cancel, this is an out-of-sequence start to investigate |
Step 2: If You Accept, Know What Gets Written
Accepting stamps each missing earlier step with:
- actual start equal to planned start,
- actual end equal to planned end,
- daily actual hours equal to planned hours.
Every backfilled value is tagged as system auto-filled and the writes land in the same save as your original edit, so the whole thing is one atomic action. The assumption is that each earlier step ran exactly as planned. That is fine as a placeholder and wrong the moment any earlier step ran long or short.
Step 3: If You Cancel, Log the Earlier Steps First
Cancel returns you without saving. Go log the earlier operations with their real hours and dates, in routing order, then come back to the step you were on. The gate never fires when you log in sequence, which is why logging step one before step two before step three is the habit that keeps every actual an honest fact rather than a system guess.
Step 4: Review the Auto-Filled Days
Every backfilled day wears an Auto-filled pill in the Source column of the daily grid. Treat the badge as a to-do list. When the real numbers surface, open the day, type the true value, and the badge clears as the day becomes user-entered. To find them across jobs, filter or scan for the auto-filled source so a supervisor can review and correct before the next reschedule reads those values as completed evidence.
What Changes When You Accept
| Surface | Effect |
|---|---|
| The earlier steps | Now carry actual start, end, and daily hours from plan |
| Provenance | Those values are tagged system auto-filled and badged in the grid |
| Your original edit | Saved in the same commit as the backfill |
| The next reschedule | Backfilled steps are treated as completed history and preserved verbatim |
| Job history | The backfill is recorded and reviewable |
That last-but-one row is the risk. A backfilled step is treated as real completed work by the engine, so an inaccurate backfill anchors the whole downstream plan to a date that never happened.
How to Check It Worked
Open the earlier steps in the Job View grid and confirm they now show actual dates with the Auto-filled pill in the Source column. Your original edit saved alongside them. Before the next reschedule, scan the auto-filled days against anything you know about how those steps really ran, and correct any that are clearly off. After correcting, the pill clears on the days you touched, which is the visible signal that a day has moved from guess to fact.
Common Mistakes
- Accepting the prompt as a reflex. Every accept that should have been a cancel plants a plausible-looking wrong date at the front of a job's history.
- Accepting an out-of-sequence start. If the earlier step has not run, the backfill is not a catch-up, it is a lie the schedule will believe.
- Never reviewing the auto-filled days. The badge is there so somebody comes back. If nobody does, the plan is scheduling against the routing estimate dressed up as reality.
- Correcting the wrong thing later. Edit the earlier step's own days to clear its badge. Editing a downstream step does nothing for the upstream guess.
Next Steps
The habit that avoids the prompt entirely is sequential entry, covered in how to enter actual hours for yesterday. When an anomaly report flags a step with a missing routing link after a bad backfill, how to run and read the anomaly report explains it. For the pattern-level view, read actuals logging mistakes.
Every task in this library is indexed on the EDGEBIC how-to hub. Bring a job with gaps in its early steps to a demo of EDGEBIC and we will work the prompt honestly on screen.
Expert Q&A: Deep Dive
Q: Our shop accepts the backfill every time because it is faster. What does that cost us?
A: It costs you the accuracy of every reschedule that runs against those jobs. Backfilled days assume each earlier step consumed exactly its planned hours on exactly its planned days. When a saw ran two hours long, the plan said it did not, and the mill downstream is now planned to start on a date that never happened. The backfill is a stopgap for the case where an earlier step ran and nobody logged it. Used as the default, it converts the plan into fake history and then reschedules against the fake history. The five minutes it saves at entry get spent later chasing why promise dates keep slipping. Reserve it for genuine catch-up, and review the auto-filled days when the real numbers surface.
Q: An operator hit the prompt at the terminal and is not sure what to tap. What is the rule?
A: One question decides it: did the earlier step actually run? If yes and nobody logged it, tap OK so the run can start and let a planner correct the auto-filled numbers later. If no, tap Cancel, because a step three that is running while step two shows nothing is either an out-of-sequence start or a job on the wrong machine, and both are conversations rather than taps. The prompt is the same handshake the planner sees, deliberately. It exists so that starting work out of order is a decision somebody makes on purpose, not something that slips through silently and shows up as a scheduling anomaly two days later.
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