Maintenance request intake and auto-routing queue
Problem
A broken door handle gets reported to whoever is nearby: a text to the facilities manager's personal phone, a mention to the venue operations director in the corridor, a shout across the plant room during an event changeover. None of it lands in a queue. The maintenance supervisor works from memory and whatever he wrote on the back of a delivery note. The estates coordinator keeps her own notebook of things people have mentioned, and it is the only record that exists, readable only by her. Three weeks later the same coach asks why the handle is still broken, and nobody can say who was supposed to fix it, when it was promised, or whether it was ever passed on. The requests that get missed are rarely the big ones. They are the ones nobody thought worth writing down.
Product idea
A shared intake form anyone on site can reach from a phone: what is wrong, where (picked from a fixed location list, not typed freehand), an optional photo, who is reporting it. Submission creates a queued item rather than a message to a person. Routing rules match category and location to a named trade or contractor group automatically, so a plumbing issue in one stand goes to the right group without anyone deciding that by hand. If nobody acknowledges it within a set window, it escalates to a second named contact. The requester gets a status link showing the request move from logged to acknowledged to done, without texting anyone to ask. It deliberately does not manage the repair itself: once assigned, the trade takes it into whatever system they already use to do the work.
Who it is for
Facilities managers, maintenance supervisors and estates coordinators who currently field requests by phone and text, sponsored by the facilities manager who is tired of being the single point of memory for every reported fault.
Possible first version
A web form covering fault description, a fixed location and category picker, optional photo and reporter contact, backed by a routing rules table mapping category and location to a named assignee or group. An acknowledgement timer escalates unacknowledged requests to a second contact after a configured interval. Requesters get a status link showing logged, acknowledged, assigned and done, and a daily digest goes to the facilities manager. Version one has no integration with the existing maintenance or work-order system: once assigned, the request is handed off by email or export, and the trade continues the repair in whatever system they already use.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Facilities manager, Maintenance supervisor, Estates coordinator, Venue operations director
- Relevant to
- Venue & stadium operator, Professional club, Collegiate athletics, Academy & youth
- Systems in play
- Messaging apps, Maintenance and work-order systems, Service desk and ticketing tool
- Product framing
- Automate a workflow
Questions we get asked
Our maintenance supervisor already gets these by text. Won't people just keep texting him directly?
Probably, for a while. The fix is not asking people to change habits, it is making the form faster than texting: one link, no login, three fields and a photo. What changes behaviour is the escalation. Once a request logged through the form gets chased automatically and a text to a personal phone does not, people learn which channel actually gets a broken handle fixed. That takes weeks, not a launch announcement.
What do we need before this is worth switching on?
A location list, the areas or rooms people would pick from, and a routing table: which category of fault goes to which named person or group, and who the second contact is if nobody acknowledges it. Both can start rough, a dozen locations and three or four trade groups, and get refined once real requests start arriving. Without at least that, the form has nowhere to send anything.
Does this replace our maintenance and work-order system?
No. It sits in front of it. The work-order system is where the trade schedules, costs and closes the repair; this is where the request gets captured and pointed at the right person before that happens. Version one hands off by email or export rather than writing into your work-order system directly, so the intake problem can be solved without touching the system your maintenance team already relies on.
A request logged at midnight during an event. What happens to it?
It sits in the queue as logged, and the acknowledgement timer starts from whenever your routing rules say someone is actually on duty, not from the moment it was submitted. Escalation during an event should go to whoever is working it, not whoever normally owns that category, which means the routing table needs an on-duty override for matchday. That is a configuration decision your team makes, not something the tool decides on its own.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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