Maintenance & Repairs: Overview

About Maintenance & Repairs

Maintenance keeps an operational building working. It has two parts. Planned maintenance happens at fixed intervals whether anything is wrong or not: the quarterly filter change on an air handling unit, the monthly lift inspection, the annual check of the emergency lighting. Repairs happen when something breaks: a leaking tap, a door closer that no longer closes, a heating circuit that has gone cold.

Both need the same record: which asset, where it is, who is responsible, when it was last serviced, what was found and what was done. A building with a few hundred assets and five maintenance contractors produces thousands of these records a year. Kept on paper or in spreadsheets, they cannot answer the simplest question from the owner or an auditor: was this unit serviced on time, and by whom?

Maintenance starts where construction ends. Defects that the contractor still has to fix during the defects liability period are covered in Defect Management: Overview. The handover of the building and its documentation to the operator is covered in Handovers: Overview.

Where Maintenance & Repairs Are Required

• By law, for safety-relevant systems such as lifts, fire alarms, sprinklers, emergency lighting and pressure vessels, at intervals set by national regulations.
• By the manufacturer, as a condition of the warranty on plant and equipment.
• By the lease, where the landlord or the tenant has to keep the building in repair.
• By the insurer, who may ask for proof of maintenance after a claim.
• By the owner, who wants to know the condition of the assets and plan the budget for replacements.

Terminology

Whatever system and standard you follow, the record has to show the same things: which asset, which task, when it was due, when it was done, by whom, and what was found.

What PlanRadar Covers

In PlanRadar each asset is a ticket on the floor plan. The asset ticket carries the asset's data, its documents and photos, and a QR code or NFC tag on the asset itself opens the ticket on the phone. Planned maintenance tasks are tickets that reopen automatically at the interval you set. Repairs are tickets created when something is reported, assigned to the contractor with a priority and a due date. Every change is recorded in the ticket journal with user and time.

PlanRadar does not come with an asset catalogue or a maintenance schedule. You decide which assets you record, which tasks and intervals apply, and which contractor is responsible. The intervals come from the regulations, the manufacturer and your contracts. PlanRadar reminds, assigns and records.

PlanRadar covers the part of facility management that happens at the asset: finding it, doing the work, and proving the work was done.

Roles and Workflow

Roles

External contractors can work as subcontractor users, free of charge. They see only the tickets assigned to them or their group, can change status and progress, write comments and add photos and files. They cannot fill in text or number fields and cannot set a ticket to Closed. If a contractor has to record readings in fields, they need an in-house user. Read more in User Types.

Workflow

Two processes run side by side: planned maintenance on a fixed rhythm, and repairs whenever something is reported.

1. Set up. The facility manager creates the Asset, Maintenance and Repair forms, uploads one plan per floor, creates one asset ticket per asset, links a QR code to each, and creates the recurring maintenance tickets.
2. Planned maintenance. At each interval the maintenance ticket reopens. The contractor scans the asset's QR code, does the work, records the result and sets Resolved. The facility manager checks and closes.
3. Repairs. Whoever finds a fault creates a repair ticket, on the asset or on the plan, with a photo and a priority. The contractor fixes it and sets Resolved. The facility manager checks and closes.
4. Report. Every month the facility manager reviews overdue and open tickets per contractor and sends the owner the maintenance record.

Each stage is explained in Maintenance & Repairs: Workflows in PlanRadar.

The Example in These Articles

The facility management team of a property company runs three office buildings. Four external contractors maintain the building services: HVAC, lifts, electrical and fire alarm. Two in-house technicians take meter readings and do small repairs. Each building is one project. Every maintained asset has a QR code label that opens its ticket.

The example uses three forms: Asset, Maintenance and Repair. Where a decision could reasonably be made another way, a short note points out the alternative.

Planning Your Maintenance Setup

One Project per Building

Create one project per building or per site. Plans, assets and contractors belong to the building, and the owner usually wants the record per building. Forms and lists are created once on account level and assigned to every building project. Read more in Forms.

What Is the Asset Register?

One ticket per asset, with the Asset form, pinned on the floor plan where the asset is. The asset ticket is the register entry: type, manufacturer, model, serial number, installation date, warranty end date, the responsible contractor, and the manual and certificates as attachments.

• Keep the asset list to what is actually maintained. A register with every socket in it is never complete.
• Use an Asset type list so that assets can be filtered and counted: Air handling unit, Boiler, Pump, Lift, Fire alarm panel, Emergency light, Fire door.
• Create the asset tickets in bulk from an existing asset list in Excel. Read more in Import & Update Tickets.

How Does the Technician Find the Asset?

A plan position helps, but in a plant room with twelve pumps the technician needs to know which ticket is which. Link a QR code label on each asset to its ticket. Scanning it with the PlanRadar app or with the phone's camera opens the ticket. NFC tags work the same way and survive where labels get dirty or painted over.

QR codes and NFC tags are available on Pro and Enterprise plans. QR codes that work with PlanRadar must be ordered with information provided by PlanRadar. Contact your customer success manager. NFC tags are bought separately and must support NDEF with at least 100 bytes. Read more in Use QR Codes to Link & Open Tickets and Use NFC Tags to Link & Open Tickets.

How Is Planned Maintenance Repeated?

The two can be combined: a recurring maintenance ticket as the reminder, and a sub-ticket per visit for tasks where every visit needs its own record. Read more in Set a Repetition Date for Tickets and Use Sub-Tickets.

The repetition only sets the status back to Open, whatever the current status is. It does not change the due date, and the field values of the last visit stay in the ticket until the next visit changes them. The journal records each reopening. Do not rely on the due date of a recurring ticket to show what is overdue: an open Maintenance ticket is the reminder.

The repetition is configured per ticket, in the webapp or the Android app. It also works on a sub-ticket. The form needs the Recurring activity form setting. Read more in Edit Form Settings.

A sub-ticket cannot have sub-tickets of its own. With Maintenance and Repair tickets as sub-tickets of the asset ticket, the asset ticket is the only parent.

Who Records the Result?

This decides which fields go on the Maintenance form.

• External contractors as subcontractor users can set the status and progress, comment, and upload photos and files into attachment fields. Give them an attachment field for their service report. They cannot fill in number fields, so they cannot record readings.
• In-house technicians can fill in every field, including number fields for readings and checklist fields for the steps of the task.
• External contractors as in-house users can do the same, but need a paid licence.

In the example, contractors upload their service report and a photo, and the in-house technicians take the readings. Read more in Edit Field Permissions.

Readings and Measurements

Use a number or decimal field for every value you need to compare: meter readings, pressures, temperatures. Statistics can calculate the sum, the mean, the minimum and the maximum of a number field across tickets. They use the current value of each ticket, so a recurring ticket only contributes its latest reading. If you need the history of readings in charts, record each reading as its own sub-ticket. Read more in Statistics and Field Types.

Repairs: Priorities and Response Times

Map your contractors' response times onto the built-in Priority field and the due date. For example:

• High: fix within 24 hours.
• Normal: fix within 5 working days.
• Low: fix at the next planned visit.

The person reporting sets the priority and the due date. Repairs that are overdue can be filtered with Overdue by at least. Read more in Set a Due Date or Extension Date for a Ticket.

Use a Repair category list so repairs can be counted: Heating, Ventilation, Plumbing, Electrical, Doors and windows, Lift, Other.

What to Avoid

• A form per building. One set of forms, assigned to every building project.
• Asset type and contractor in the title instead of in a list. "AHU 2, HVAC Ltd" cannot be counted.
• Repairs without a link to the asset. When the same pump fails three times, you want to see it on the pump. Create the repair as a sub-ticket of the asset ticket where the repair concerns an asset.
• Letting the contractor close their own tickets. Resolved means the contractor says it is done. Closed means you checked.
• Readings in text fields. They cannot be calculated.
• QR codes ordered without PlanRadar's information. They will not open tickets.

AI Support for Maintenance & Repairs

An AI agent only ever creates a ticket, a comment or an email. It reacts to events in one project and does not run on a schedule, so it does not replace the repetition on maintenance tickets. Read more in Create & Manage Your AI Agents.

Steps to Manage Maintenance & Repairs in PlanRadar

Maintenance & Repairs: Workflows in PlanRadar explains each stage: set up the forms, the asset register and the QR codes, set up the recurring maintenance tickets, carry out planned maintenance and repairs on site, and report to the owner.

Additional Possibilities

• Work in plant rooms and basements without signal. The mobile app syncs when back online. Read more in Working Offline.
• Store manuals, certificates and service contracts in Documents, in a folder per asset type. Read more in Document Management.
• See open maintenance and repairs by due date in the calendar view. Read more in Tickets Calendar View.
• Send each contractor their open tickets as a PDF every month. Read more in Create a Ticket Report (PDF).
• Count open repairs per category, per contractor and per building in Statistics. Read more in Statistics.
• Use the fire safety register for fire doors, dampers and penetrations, which follows the same pattern with an inspection checklist. Read more in Fire Safety Management: Overview.