Facilities & buildings quickstart

Go from an empty organization to a working maintenance operation: sites, buildings, assets, a work order, and your first PM schedule.

This guide walks a facilities team through first setup. Total time: about 30 minutes with sample data, longer if you import a full register. You need the Administrator role for the settings steps.

1. Create your locations

Navigate to Locations and build the physical hierarchy top-down:

1. Add a site - the campus, plant, or property.
2. Add buildings to the site.
3. Add locations (rooms, floors, zones) to each building.

You don't need every room on day one. Start with the buildings and add locations as work orders demand precision.

2. Check the classification tree

Open Systems. AssetLab ships with a Uniformat-style tree of system classes and groups (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, …). Most building-focused teams keep the default - but if your organization thinks in departments rather than building systems, pick your hierarchy model before creating assets. Reclassifying later is possible but tedious.

3. Add your first assets

Go to Assets → New asset. The minimum useful record:

• Name - how your team refers to it ("RTU-2 Gym Roof")
• Location - site, building, and (optionally) location
• System - class, group, and system
• Asset type - pick from the catalog or create one

Worth adding when you have it: installation year, expected useful life, replacement cost, manufacturer, model, and serial number. These drive lifecycle forecasting and the replacement planner.

Have a spreadsheet already? Skip manual entry and use the import wizard.

4. Raise your first work order

Go to Work Orders → New:

1. Pick the asset (or a location for non-asset work).
2. Give it a title, priority, and due date.
3. Assign it to a technician.

Work orders move through statuses to completion; completing one prompts for actual hours and costs, which land against the asset's cost history automatically. Details: Work orders.

5. Schedule preventive maintenance

Open Maintenance and create a PM schedule for something you service on a rhythm - a monthly generator run, a quarterly filter change:

1. Pick the asset(s) or location(s) the PM covers.
2. Set the frequency - time-based, or meter-based from recorded readings.
3. Optionally attach a form template so each generated work order carries an inspection checklist.

From then on AssetLab generates the work orders - nobody has to remember the schedule.

6. Invite your team

Under Settings → Users, invite teammates and assign roles:

• Technicians → Staff
• Supervisors who approve and report → Manager
• Building occupants who only report problems → Requester

Requesters land in a simplified portal where they can submit and track work requests - nothing else.

Where to go next

• Condition assessments - start capturing condition to unlock FCI.
• Dashboards - the executive view of everything above.
• QR codes - print labels so technicians scan straight to the asset.
• Connect your AI assistant - create records conversationally instead of clicking.