Getting the Most out of Service Request and Work Order Priority

Modified on Tue, 3 Mar at 12:48 AM

Introduction

Understanding your Maintenance Priorities might be one of the most critical aspects of keeping requestors happy and planning out what work needs to be done in what order. Recent enhancements have built upon the existing Priority field to help Maintenance users get one more important data point to help get their work done in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Focus on Priority

The Priority field has historically been available to Requestors and Facility Managers when entering the Service Request. Many clients chose to hide this field from the Requestors and allow the FMs to manage it.
The current approach to Priority streamlines things by keeping the field hidden from the basic requestors but allows for defaulting the Priority based on the Problem Code selected. The Facility Manager can manually change that depending on the specifics of the request.
The downstream Work Order screens and various reports have also been revamped to give greater focus on the Priority field.

Service Request

For example: The "Weak AC" Problem Code might default the Priority to Medium, but the "No AC" Problem Code defaults the Priority to High. And if this specific Request was for a high-profile user, maybe the FM would manually update the Priority to Urgent. You don't want the CEO sweating in their office, right?

The way the system is able to default the Priority here is by setting up the Category field in the Matrix to match the Priority lookup LOVs. Many clients were not getting a lot of benefit out of the Category field, so it was reused for this purpose instead of adding another field to the Matrix.
For clients who want to take advantage of the enhanced Priority functionality it is recommended to relabel the Category field to something like "Default Priority" instead.

If the data is set up, Priority will be populated for Service Requests submitted from Core/Mobile or created manually by the Facility Manager or Internal Maintenance team in Edge.

Additionally, several Reports and screens have been updated to display the Priority field, which will be explained throughout the rest of this article.

Facility Manager Service Request reports updated to include the Priority field:

Non Dispatched Service Requests (shown below)
My Open Service Requests

Maintenance Lead Service Request report updated to include the Priority field:

My Open Service Requests

Maintenance Technician Service Request report updated to include the Priority field:

My Open Service Requests

Work Order

The Priority field is mapped from the Service Request into the Work Order when the Request is Dispatched. The field is prominently displayed on all Work Order screens and many reports to help make sure Providers (External Vendors or Internal Maintenance team) know if one Work Order should be worked on before another.

Facility Manager Work Order reports updated to include the Priority field:

All Vendors Declined Work Orders
My Open Work Orders
Work Orders Past SLA
All Work Orders

External Vendor Work Orders

Work Order Vendor Work Order reports updated to include the Priority field:

Work Order Acceptance (shown below)
Open Work Orders
Work Orders Past SLA
All Work Orders
Active Work Orders (Report on the right half of the home page, shown below)

Vendor Technician Work Order Reports updated to include the Priority field:

My Assigned Work Orders
My Assigned Work Orders Past SLA
Active Work Orders (Report on the right half of the home page)

For External Work Orders, the next step is Vendor Acceptance. The Priority field was added to the Work Order Acceptance Report as well as the Work Order Acceptance screen.

Note: Changing the Priority of the Request does not have any impact on Acceptance Windows or SLAs.
In the case of higher priority tickets, it might be a good idea to call the Vendor directly and coordinate when dispatching the Request.

Once Accepted, the Work Order also shows in the Active Work Orders report on the Home Page

The Work Order screens are also updated to clearly display the Priority on the first 2 steps (Review and Visit/Repair)

Internal Maintenance Work Orders

Similar to External Vendor Work Orders, the Priority field will map from the Request into the Maintenance Work Order and display prominently to the Maintenance Lead/Maintenance Technician responsible for scheduling and completing the work.

Maintenance Lead Work Order reports updated to include the Priority field:

Unassigned Work Orders (shown below)
Open Demand Work Orders
My Dispatched Work Orders
All Work Orders
Work Order Assignment Utility (shown below)
- Unassigned Work Orders
- Assigned Open Work Orders

Maintenance Technician Work Order reports updated to include the Priority field:

My Open Demand Work Orders
Unassigned Work Orders
My Dispatched Work Orders
All Work Orders

For Internal Maintenance, the Maintenance Lead is assigned the Work Order and can view it immediately in the Unassigned Work Orders (below) or the Open Demand Work Orders reports:

The Maintenance Lead can also assign the Work Order to a technician, either directly on the Work Order, or by using the Work Order Assignment Utility (below), which also displays the Priority:

Lastly, the Internal Maintenance Work Order displays the Priority across the top banner.

Facility Manager Override

The FM has the ability to update the Priority on a Work Order after clicking Facility Manager Override.

This will make the Work Order editable and also display the Update Matrix/Priority button.

Clicking this button will display a popup that allows the FM to update the Matrix as well as the Priority

Note: The "Update Matrix/Priority" functionality will be available to the Facility Manager users in October

Data Setup Details

Facilities Admin Role has access to configure various list values/LOVs. Choose the Priority List from the Facilities Admin menu to configure/review the Priorities.

Note: Displaying the Priorities in a "logical" order requires setting up the Name values in alphabetic or numeric order. As displayed above, the Description is populated this way, as an example.
The Name field would need to be loaded this way to enforce the order that end users see in the dropdown field.

After the Priority List is set, the Facility Matrix needs to be configured to match the Name values in the Priority LOVs.

Facility Matrix Admin Role has access to review or upload a new Matrix file and update the Matrix Items. The Category (Level 8) in the Matrix needs to match the Priority List "Name" values. (As mentioned above, the Category label can be updated per client, as needed, if being used as "Default Priority")

As mentioned above, once the data is set up, Priority will be auto-populated based on the value loaded into "Level 8" in the Matrix for Service Requests submitted from Core/Mobile or created manually by the Facility Manager or Internal Maintenance team in Edge.

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