What are Maintenance Plans and how do they automate work order creation?

Maintenance Plans automate the creation of recurring Work Orders for preventive maintenance on assets. Configuration:

1. Create a Maintenance Plan linked to one or more Assets or Accounts.
2. Associate a Work Type to define the type of work.
3. Set the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) and the maintenance window (suggested date range).
4. Define the generation method: auto-generate Work Orders on a schedule or generate on completion of the previous work order.
5. When the auto-generation trigger fires (via a scheduled job), Salesforce creates Work Order records with the associated Line Items and links them back to the Maintenance Plan and Asset. This ensures regular service intervals are never missed without manual intervention.