Tutorial 9: Maintenance Schedules

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One of the most powerful aspects of Custodian™ CMMS is its scheduling feature.  

The maintenance scheduler is used to generate maintenance events.

No – not weddings or graduations – sorry, these events are just boring ol’ scheduled tasks – things that need to be done. Events can be set to happen just once, or they can be set to recur as frequently as necessary.  

EVENTS Types:

EVENTS can be generated for either for an Asset, or for a Locale (Area/Site/Location). We call this distinction Event TYPES (see #3 below)

Example of an Asset-Event in Custodian CMMS
Example of an event generated by an ASSET-type schedule: A property management company can generate a schedule to change the air filter in a furnace every 3 months. This event is applied to an ASSET; i.e. the furnace.

Example of a Site Event in Custodian CMMS
Example of an event generated by a SITE-type schedule : A property management company can generate a schedule for cleaners to prep recycling for pickup. This event is assigned to a SITE; i.e. the Dartmouth Sportsplex.

You don’t create each Event individually. That would be far too time consuming. Instead, you create a schedule. It’s the schedule’s job to generate an unlimited number of events based on your settings..

So, lets get started by creating a new schedule:

1. Create a Maintenance Schedule

Screenshot of the New Maintenance Schedule page in Custodian CMMS
  1. In the left menu panel, select Maint.Schedules > Create New Schedule
    1. This is the Maintenance Schedule Details page.
  2. Enter a descriptive Name for your new schedule
  3. Select the Type of schedule; will it be applied to an Asset, or to an Area/Site/Location? For this example  – we will make a Site schedule.
  4. Provide the Details (Description) of the work to be completed. Be thorough – provide as much instruction as possible.
  5. Set the Start and End dates; for weekly or monthly schedules we recommend you schedule events no more than one year in advance. Scheduling too far into the future will create an unmanageable number of events.
  6. Set the PWM (Pre Maintenance Window). An event can only be marked as complete after the pre-maintenance window. For example, if the PMW is set to “3 days”, work on tat event cannot be started any earlier than 3-days before the due date.
  7. Set the frequency (Service Every), the Period unit, and the Maximum Repeats.
  8. Be sure to Click Save

You’ve just created a maintenance schedule. Come back to this screen anytime you want to view or edit the details of a particular schedule.

2. Apply the Schedule to an Asset or Locale (Area/Site/Location)

The next step is to apply this schedule to a specific Asset, Area, Site, or Location. In this example we chose SITE as our schedule Type – so we will continue and apply the schedule to a Site.

  1. In the left menu panel click Locations > View/Edit Sites
  2. View Illustration of "View Contact Details" button the details for the Site you want to schedule.
  3. In the Maintenance Schedules card (see image below), click +ADD SCHEDULES
  4. A modal will pop-up. Select the desired SCHEDULE from the drop down list and click +ADD
    • You can apply multiple schedules – but for this example we will only apply one.
    • Custodian™ CMMS will take a moment to generate all the events for this new Site Schedule.
  5.  Now, you will see that the Schedule has been applied to this Site. If you mistakenly applied this schedule – just click delete. This will un-apply the schedule and delete all related events that were created.
Screenshot of Site Details page showing position of Add-Schedule button

So far, you created a schedule and applied it to a site. In the background Custodian generated the actual events. Let’s take a look …

  1. In the left menu panel, click Issues/Events > View Events. This displays every event in your Custodian database.  
  2. By default, the earliest events are listed first. You can easily find the events you are looking for by typing a keyword in the search records field. You can search for any word to narrow down the list.

3. Assign Events to a User

Now – the final step – is to assign EVENTS to a user.  We recommend only assigning events in the near future – a few weeks or a month at a time – because employees’ schedules and availability may change. To assign events to a user:

  1. Click the event in the list (multi select by holding CTRL or SHIFT), and then click ASSIGN SELECTED in the card header.
  2.  A modal will pop up. Select a USER from the drop down list and click ASSIGN.

The assigned user will receive an email notification that an event has been assigned0 to them.

They can also see events assigned to them within Custodian™ CMMS; In the left menu panel, they click Issues/Events > Work Assigned to Me, then they click the EVENTS(n) tab in card header.