Building maintenance software

My family has a building which we asked a real estate agent to manage for us. There are around 65 items in the common area that we need to maintain (e.g. fire safety equipment, lift, pumps, garage door, etc). Some items require weekly inspection or servicing and some require monthly, quarterly or yearly maintenance. In addition we need to keep track of outstanding issues or defects in the building.

I am looking for a software that can assist in maintaining these items. I hope the software can:

1. Send a reminder email to the agent and myself for up-coming maintenance work.
2. Send a reminder email to the agent and myself for overdue maintenance work.
3. Keep track of any outstanding issues or defects and send an email if the issue is not resolved by the scheduled date.
4. Provide a dashboard to easily see any outstanding issues or overdue maintenance work. It can be accessed by myself over the internet.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks Simon. I have just looked at some of them and they may work to a certain extent (although it seems they won't send email reminders), or should I look for cloud based CMMS (computerised maintenance management system) ?

 

You can do all this in Google sheets if you use excel at all it'll be familiar, plus a lot of web goodness like automated emails and reminders.

Have a look here

2.1 Tutorial - Standard Reminder - Google Apps Script Examples

Happy to help you out if you need a template example.

 

Thank @Dan Wood . The system will be maintained by the agent, so I need a system that is simple for them to use. I found UpKeep CMMS Software by UpKeep CMMS | Try Free which will probably meet the requirement but it seems there is no email reminder.

 

Getting an agent to use additional software is a challenge unless you are paying them additional fees for facilities management.

 

Yes, I am paying them additional fees for maintaining the common area, but the software they are using is not cloud based and I don't know if they have done all the maintenance as suggested by the builder.

 

Internal or external they can just mark it off anyway, sounds like you don't trust them?

Get the invoices from the PM...

 

Being cloud-based is not the be all and end all. Meetings, phone calls, photos and reports will cover off more than you will pick up from software (IMHO).

Any system is only as good as the infromation which has been uploaded to it so I would rather stand by the report than by what is entered (there are lax facilities managers out there who would rather do the work than talk to a computer).

 

They do provide a quarterly report but I want something that I can check anytime. They are doing good work in managing the tenants but this may be the first time they manage the common areas hence I want to have a more transparent system.

 

Don't micromanage, it's not good for your health.

Theygive you quarterly reports, if you can do a quarterly inspection of the common areas to make sure they're doing their job.

They're a "manager" for a reason, trust them to some degree at least. Otherwise it's pretty pointless hiring them at all...

 

Most of the works covered under an FM contract with the managing agent is sub-contracted. They will have contracts in place with a fire services contractor (eg to inspect and provide certification on a 6 monthly basis, sprinkler systems will require more frequent maintenance), building lifts will require another specialist contractor on board and depending on the type of contract that you have (comprehensive or breakdown service) will depend on what services that they provide.

As per @Dan Wood - don't micro manage, you have selected them on the basis that they have the ability to do the job and this should be reviewed on a regular basis for compliance/customer satisfaction etc.

Is this the first building they have ever managed or do they do this for all of their commercial clients?

We were using this system over 20 years ago when we were one of the first members of FMA. The cloud wasn't even a consideration at the time.

 

@Dan Wood I will only check the items that are overdue for inspection / servicing. I probably only do this for the first 1 to 2 years. Some items such as lift and fire safety need to be inspected on time to meet the legislative requirement.

 

@Scott No Mates I think this is the first time they manage a building of this size.

 

@FireDragon - How big is it?

These items are all contract items - they would have put a contract in place for the works and are generally reactive on any other items as they arise.

 

@Scott No Mates it's a 55 units mixed use building.

 

Not that big a building. Without thinking too hard there should be the following items in the building:

• Fire services maintenance contract covering all items listed on the AFSS from council
• Fire doors/shutters
• Exit/Emergency lighting
• FHR/Hose Reels - booster
• Extinguisher
• Fire control panel with 2 x 3G phone services to the system to dial the fire brigade
• Smoke spill system (possibly)
• Stair pressurisation (possibly)
• EWIS
• Fire rated dampers
• Sprinklers/Drenchers
• Fire isolated corridors & passages/fire stairs
• AFSS on display
• Back-up generator (possibly)

Mixed use tenancies are required to provide their own certification to the building manager

Lift system

• Workcover Registration
• Lift maintenance contract in place
• 2 x 3G phone services to the system to dial the lift monitoring company
  
• Lift blankets

Cleaning contract
Ad-hoc lighting maintenance (foyers/stairways/exterior/carpark etc)
Testing of switchboards/Services (eg stormwater/sullage pumps)
Roller shutter/security system/cameras
Building maintenance (10 year plan to cover the maintenance of structural elements and appearance of the building eg painting, repairs of damage to tiles, foyer refurbishment, lift car/controller upgrades, shopfronts and plenty more matters)

 

@Scott No Mates yes, I have all these covered in the handover document. However, I found they sometimes don't call the corresponding contractor to do the inspection / service and hence I want a system so that I can monitor the overdue items (at least for the first one or two years).

 

Then they're not doing their job, find someone with experience.

 

Why wait that long to pull them into line? There are fines which apply to the building owner (not the manager).