Maintenance & Repairs: Workflows in PlanRadar

Overview

This article walks through the maintenance process from Maintenance & Repairs: Overview in the order it happens: set up the asset register in the office, set up the recurring maintenance, carry out planned maintenance and repairs on site, and report to the owner.

The example is the facility management team running three office buildings with four external maintenance contractors and two in-house technicians, one project per building, and a QR code label on every asset. The steps assume you know how the individual features work. Each step links to the feature article.

Access & Permissions

Set Up the Register (Office, Webapp)

Create the Lists

• Asset type: Air handling unit, Boiler, Pump, Chiller, Lift, Fire alarm panel, Emergency light, Distribution board.
• Maintenance type: Service, Inspection, Statutory test, Reading.
• Repair category: Heating, Ventilation, Plumbing, Electrical, Doors and windows, Lift, Other.

Create the Asset Form

Create a form named Asset. Keep attachments and plan position enabled. Enable the numbering sequence with a prefix such as AS, so that assets get a running number that can be written on the asset label.

Create the Maintenance Form

Create a form named Maintenance in Forms and Lists > Forms with + Create a new form. Add predefined fields such as Status and Parent ticket from Add a predefined field, and the custom fields from Create a field. Read more in Create & Edit Forms. Click a field to set its properties, for example to make it mandatory or to assign the Maintenance type list. Read more in Edit Field Properties.

Enable the Recurring activity form setting, so that tickets with this form can repeat. Add the Parent ticket field, so that each maintenance ticket sits under its asset.

Give subcontractors edit permission for Service report. Read more in Create & Edit Forms, Field Types, Edit Form Settings and Edit Field Permissions.

Create the Repair Form

Create a form named Repair with Title, Repair category, Assignee, Priority, Due date, Status, a Description long text field, a Photo after repair attachment field that subcontractors can edit, and the Parent ticket field for repairs on an asset.

Roles and Users

• Facility manager: an in-house user with a role that has tickets Create, View all tickets, Edit all tickets that the user can view.
• In-house technicians: in-house users with the same role, in a group named Technicians.
• Contractors: subcontractor users, one group per contractor company, for example HVAC Ltd. Read more in Create & Manage Groups.
• Owner or asset manager: a watcher.

Set Up Each Building Project

1. Create one project per building: click Projects, click + Add new project, enter the building's name as the project name and click Save. Read more in Create & Edit a Project.
2. Upload one plan per floor, plus the roof and the plant rooms. Read more in Upload Plans in the Webapp.
3. Add the three forms to the project. Read more in Manage Forms of a Project.
4. Add the contractor groups, the Technicians group and the owner's watcher. Read more in Manage Groups of a Project.
5. Create the asset tickets. For more than a few dozen assets, import them from your existing asset list. The import puts each ticket on its plan or folder through the Location column, but does not set the pin position. Read more in Import & Update Tickets.
6. Set the plan position of each asset ticket. Read more in Set, Change or Delete the Plan Position of a Ticket.

Link the QR Codes

Order QR code labels with the information PlanRadar provides, through your customer success manager. Then, on site, with the mobile app:

1. Enable the QR code feature once in the app settings.
2. Open the asset ticket.
3. Open the More menu, then tap Link to QR code.
4. Scan the label on the asset.

Each ticket can be linked to one QR code. Several tickets can be linked to the same QR code, so the asset's label can also open its maintenance and repair tickets: scanning it then shows a list to choose from. Read more in Use QR Codes to Link & Open Tickets.

Set Up the Recurring Maintenance (Office, Webapp)

Create one Maintenance ticket per asset and recurring task, as a sub-ticket of the asset.

1. Create a ticket with the Maintenance form at the asset's position on the plan. Read more in Create a Ticket.
2. Fill in the title, for example "AHU 2, quarterly filter change", the maintenance type and the contractor group as assignee.
3. In Parent ticket, select the asset ticket, for example "AHU 2, roof plant room". Read more in Use Sub-Tickets.
4. Save the ticket.
5. Click Configure repeat timing.
6. Select the Enable repetition checkbox.
7. Select Monthly and select the Repeat on weekday checkbox.
8. In the drop-downs, choose the first Monday of the month. Enter 3 as the number of months and 07:00 as the time.
9. Optional: select Add note and write the reference to the maintenance standard or contract. The note is only visible to users who can set repetitions.
10. Click Save.

At each interval the ticket's status is set back to Open, and the task appears again in every list of open tickets. Nothing else on the ticket changes: the due date stays as it is, and the fields keep the values of the last visit until the next visit changes them. Read more in Set a Repetition Date for Tickets.

For an asset with many recurring tasks, for example a lift with a monthly service and an annual statutory test, create one Maintenance ticket per task with its own repetition.

Carry Out Planned Maintenance (Site, Mobile App)

The contractor, or the in-house technician, sees the open Maintenance tickets assigned to their group.

1. Go to the asset and scan its QR code with the PlanRadar app or the phone's camera.
2. Choose the Maintenance ticket from the list.
3. Set the status to In Progress.
4. Do the work.
5. In-house technicians: tick the checklist items and enter the Reading. Contractors: upload the service report and a photo into Service report.
6. Write a comment if something was found that needs a repair, for example "Bearing noise on fan motor, replacement recommended".
7. Set the status to Resolved.

If the visit finds a fault, the facility manager creates a Repair ticket under the asset as described in Report and Fix a Repair below.

Plant rooms often have no signal. Keep working. The app syncs later. Read more in Working Offline.

Check and Close

1. Filter for Resolved Maintenance tickets. Read more in Filter Tickets.
2. Check the service report, the checklist and the reading.
3. Set the status to Closed. Only in-house users can do this.

The ticket stays Closed until the next interval reopens it. Each visit's status changes, comments, readings and attachments are recorded in the ticket journal with user and time, so the history of the asset's maintenance is in one place. Read more in Track Activity on a Ticket in the Journal.

Report and Fix a Repair

Report (Caretaker, Technician or Facility Manager)

1. Tap the position of the fault on the plan and choose the Repair form. If the fault is on an asset, tap Add parent ticket in the Parent ticket field and select the asset ticket, so the repair appears under the asset.
2. Take a photo of the fault.
3. Fill in the fields:
   Title: "Door closer broken, fire door stair B, level 2".
   Repair category: Doors and windows.
   Priority: High.
   Assignee: the responsible contractor group.
   Due date: according to the response time for the priority.
   Description: what is wrong. Dictate it if your hands are full. Read more in Fill Ticket Fields with Voice.
4. Save. The contractor's group is notified by email and push notification.

Fix (Contractor)

1. Open the ticket and set the status to In Progress.
2. Fix the fault.
3. Upload a photo of the result into Photo after repair.
4. Set the status to Resolved.

If the repair needs a part that has to be ordered, write a comment with the expected date and set the status to Feedback. The facility manager sets a new due date. Read more in Set Status & Progress of a Ticket.

Check and Close (Facility Manager)

Check the photo or the repair on site and set the status to Closed, or set it back to In Progress with a comment.

Report to the Owner (Office, Webapp)

Monthly

1. Filter each building for Maintenance and Repair tickets that are not Closed, and for Repair tickets that are Overdue by at least 1 day. A Maintenance ticket that is still Open after its interval is the overdue task, because the repetition does not move the due date.
2. Send each contractor a ticket report as PDF with their open and overdue tickets. Read more in Create a Ticket Report (PDF).
3. Send the owner a ticket report of the month's closed tickets, including the journal where the owner needs to see when each task was done. Read more in Ticket Reports.

Across Buildings

Statistics on an account board show the current state across all buildings: open repairs per category, per contractor and per building, and Maintenance tickets per status. For readings, a chart can show the sum, mean, minimum or maximum of the current Reading values. Read more in Statistics.

For an Audit

When an auditor or insurer asks for proof that an asset was maintained:

1. Open the asset ticket and its Maintenance and Repair sub-tickets.
2. Create a ticket report of these tickets with the journal, the service reports and the photos. In the ticket report template, set Journal to Include activity log and comments, and add Service report and Photo after repair as attributes, so their photos are included. To include PDF service reports, also select Include only ticket documents. Read more in Create Basic Ticket Report Templates.
3. Export the tickets to Excel if the auditor wants a list. Read more in Export Tickets to Excel in the Webapp.