IMHO, the Epicor maintenance module is a joke. We ditched it altogether and switched to a separate CMMS (UpKeep). Are you stuck with using Epicor, or do you have the option to switch to a different system?
Unfortunately, what you are seeing is how it works. There really isn’t a great way to streamline the process of making the maintenance job and managing it.
For logging time to the jobs, I would take a look at Office MES. It’s a simplified version of the production MES that allows you to clock into an operation on a job and then clock out when you stop or complete it. As long as the right job is selected, the time is logged by the user and to the operation(s) that they clock in to.
Additionally, if you have access to BAQ or have an IT team that can for you, it would be easy enough to create an updateable dashboard that would allow you to monitor the job status and log time, etc. to an operation on the maintenance job.