Before transitioning any Work Order Templates to a Preventative Maintenance Template (PM Template), assess your existing templates. This guide helps you identify suitable PM Template candidates step by step.
Step 1: Inventory Work Order Templates
Navigate to Work Orders in the left-hand nav and select Work Order Templates.
For each of your current templates, make a note of:
Template Name
Whether it is currently on a schedule
What it’s used for
Step 2: Categorize into Groups
Decide where each template belongs based on these three groups:
Preventative Maintenance: These are recurring, scheduled tasks like inspections, servicing, changing filters, and grounds work.
These are candidates for PM Templates.
Requests/Quick-Submit: These are one-off work orders submitted by staff as needed.
Keep in Work Order Templates.
IT or Non-Facilities: These are tasks managed by IT or those not related to facilities maintenance.
Keep in Work Order Templates.
Step 3: Assess PM Template Candidates
For every template identified as a PM Template candidate, check these three details:
Custom Field Values: Does the template pre-fill custom field values required at creation? If yes, keep in Work Order Templates.
Targeting: Is the template focused on locations, assets, or both? PM Templates requires you to choose one, so select the most suitable option.
Schedule: Note the current cadence. PM Templates offers daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly options.
If you have a task that occurs quarterly, set it to “Every 3 months.”
Step 4: Rebuild in PM Templates
Start with the clear candidates - those without custom field dependencies. Rebuild these in Preventative Maintenance Templates using the simple step-by-step workflow. Additionally, take this opportunity to review each schedule and simplify where possible.
Step 5: Retire Original Work Order Template
Once you have the new PM template set up and working, go back to the original Work Order Template and pause the schedule. This prevents you from getting double the work orders.
You don't have to delete the original - keeping it ‘Paused’ gives you a backup and a reference.
Best Practice: Rename the paused template with a note like “— Migrated” so you can easily tell it apart from active templates.