Facility management: proving it was done

In facility work the job itself is rarely disputed. What gets disputed is whether it is on record. Without a record, a completed inspection is worth exactly the same as a forgotten one.

What usually happens

  • Each building has its binder of paper reports, and half of them are missing.
  • Periodic inspections live in a spreadsheet that only the person who built it understands.
  • When the client or the insurer asks for the history, someone rebuilds it by hand over a weekend.
  • Requests from building occupants arrive by email, by phone and in the corridor, and nobody knows which are still open.
  • The contractor who services the elevators says the visit happened; there is nothing to show it did.

How it works with onCMMS

  • One preventive plan per installation, with its frequency and lead time, generating the work orders by itself. A plan can cover several assets across several buildings and creates one order per asset.
  • Every order with a mandatory checklist: until every required item is ticked, the order cannot be completed.
  • A PDF report signed by the technician and by the person receiving the work, with photos and time spent. That is what you hand to the auditor.
  • Complete history per asset and per installation, two clicks away.
  • Building occupants report by QR code without an account, and their requests land in the same place as everything else.
  • A working calendar per company: a PM due on a weekend or a holiday moves to the next working day instead of going overdue on a Saturday.
Preventive maintenance plans for building installations in onCMMS
The PM plans: what is due and what is running late.

Example setup: an FM company with six client buildings

A facility services company looks after six office buildings for three clients. Each building is a site; floors and plant rooms are locations. Assets are the installations: elevators, air handling units, chillers, booster pumps, generator, fire detection, sprinklers and extinguishers, access control. The company has two supervisors and eight technicians, and some specialist work goes to contractors.

  1. The supervisor sets up plans: monthly fire detection check, quarterly HVAC filters, yearly generator load test, each with a checklist template whose critical items are mandatory.
  2. Every Monday the technicians see the week's generated orders on their phones, grouped by building.
  3. A receptionist in building 3 scans the QR code on a jammed automatic door and reports it with a photo. The supervisor converts it to an order the same morning.
  4. The sprinkler inspection is sent to the specialist contractor as a PDF from the order; when they finish, the supervisor closes the order with their report attached.
  5. At the end of the month, each client gets its export: every order in its buildings, with dates, technicians, checklists and signatures. Nothing is rebuilt by hand.

Typical installations

Elevators and escalators, HVAC and chillers, booster and sump pumps, generators and UPS, fire systems (detection, sprinklers, hose reels, extinguishers), electrical switchboards, automatic doors and access control, lighting, roofs and drainage.

Can one plan cover several buildings?

Yes. A plan can include several assets, and it generates one work order per asset with its own checklist, so each building ends up with its own report.

Does it work as an audit record?

The reports carry what was done, by whom, when, how long it took, against which checklist, and the signatures. It is the same content as a paper report, but complete and impossible to lose. It complements, and does not replace, any statutory certificates that must come from a licensed inspector.

Can each client see only their own buildings?

A requester sees only the requests they created. If a client needs a full view of their buildings, the practical route today is a periodic CSV export filtered by site, or a separate company workspace per client under one invoice (Enterprise).

We invoice clients for the work. Does onCMMS do the invoicing?

No. It records time and labor cost per order, which you can export as CSV, but it does not issue invoices or quotes.

Screenshots show the current interface, which is in Spanish. An English interface is on the roadmap; read where it stands.

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Keep reading

Manufacturing and workshops: every stop costs money Maintenance software for plants and workshops: history per machine, repair times recorded on the floor, PM by calendar or running hours, and MTTR on corrective work. Preventive maintenance that does not depend on anyone remembering Schedule recurring inspections per asset and frequency. onCMMS generates the work orders on the day they are due, with checklist and technician, on working days only. Work orders with evidence, not good intentions Create, assign and track work orders with checklists, time tracking, photos and on-screen signatures. Closing one produces a signed PDF report of the work done.

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