Since none of the real pros have jumped in yet, I will see if I can get you a little closer.
It sounds from explanation you are just looking for a method to follow the status of a work order. You can do this many ways and get pretty fancy, however for the sake of simplicity I will use separate elements to track dates rather then just one that could be used with a history element to handle all dates.
I will presume you have a database that has an element
for a unique work order number
a element to hold status
a date element for date entered
a date element for date assigned
a date element for needs to be completed date
a date element to track the completed date
an element for who entered task
an element for who task was assigned to
an element for who assigned task
a description element that describes the task
a command button to merge letters or run reports
and numerous other elements to contain data such as materials needed or costing or ? anything else desired.
When a work order is received it would be entered into the database. When the task description element is exited on a new record a unique work order number would be generated for the work order . The @date would be slugged into the date entered element and from the user id the person entering order would be slugged into person entered task element and the status automatically assigned to 20.
At this point the person that is responsible for assigning the tasks would log in and either retrieve all the status 20 or run a report that would show all status 20 sorted by needs to be completed date. That person would then retrieve record and assign the task.
The work order assigned to element if only a few employees with little turn over, can be just a combo box with the employee names pre entered in the choices to select from or if lots of people and lots of turn over it can create a pop-up choice menu from a separate employee database. When exiting element it can update assigned date element with @date, change status element to 30, using user id assign name to who assigned element.
Then using wordmerge or report print the work order out to give to employee.
The employee can login and update the status of the project based on your companies procedures.
Each time management wants to see workorder status they can either retrieve the records and look them over or push a button that runs a report that shows all outstanding orders with how many days till completion date sorted by whatever with as much detail as needed. The report prints to screen in html so it can be viewed or printed.
Once the status hits 99 for complete the date completed field can be filled with @date the cost element can be updated, and all needed data collected.
Management can then run history reports that shows how many days it took to complete tasks by employee or vendor or type of job.
With a little thought and effort many things could be added. You can get a little fancier and scan or fax the original document that the work order was created from into the computer and have a button that displays the original document from the work order when needed. You can use Bar codes and bar code guns to track the work order progress fairly easily.
The sky is the limit and everything I just explained in my example is quite doable in a short time without being very complicated with Sesame.
I hope this helps a little.