Maintenance requests arrive everywhere and rarely with enough detail: no location, no photo, no sense of urgency. A coordinator then spends the day chasing information and re-typing it. These four steps create one front door, a complete request form and clear priority rules, with automation doing the copying and people doing the deciding.

Step 1 — Create one front door

Goal: Give every request the same starting point.

  1. Choose one intake: a short form, a shared inbox or a chat channel.
  2. Point every existing channel to it, and say so in signage and messages.
  3. Decide who watches the intake during working hours and after hours.
  4. Keep a direct emergency route for safety issues that never waits in a queue.

You finish with: One published intake and an emergency route.

Step 2 — Capture complete requests

Goal: Get the details needed to act the first time.

  1. Ask for location, what is wrong, a photo and how urgent it is.
  2. Have missing details requested automatically before the job is created.
  3. Use a fixed list of categories that match how work is assigned.
  4. Send the reporter a reference and an expected next step.

You finish with: Complete, categorized requests with a reference for each.

Step 3 — Set priority and routing rules

Goal: Send each job to the right person in the right order.

  1. Write priority levels with examples and target response times.
  2. Map each category and location to a technician, team or vendor.
  3. Draft the work order and suggested assignment automatically.
  4. A coordinator confirms priority and assignment before work starts.

You finish with: Written rules and coordinator-approved work orders.

Step 4 — Close the loop

Goal: Keep reporters informed and learn from the backlog.

  1. Update the reporter when the job is assigned and when it is done.
  2. Review overdue and repeat jobs every week.
  3. Track the most common categories and locations.
  4. Adjust rules, forms and preventive maintenance based on what you see.

You finish with: A weekly review and updated rules.

Common pitfalls

  • Several intakes running in parallel.
  • Safety issues waiting in a normal queue.
  • Requests created without location or photo.
  • Reporters never hearing what happened.

See it as a workflow

Facilities & operations

Facilities work order intake and dispatch

Turn maintenance requests from email, forms and chat into complete work orders, set a priority, and route each one to the right technician or vendor for approval.

See the workflow

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