Onboarding Amenities and Building Systems

Once your buildings exist, the next job is to populate them. ArkanPM treats amenities and building systems as separate registries because they serve different audiences — amenities drive resident bookings, while building systems drive preventive maintenance schedules.

Amenities

Amenities are bookable or non-bookable shared facilities. Typical examples: gyms, pools, meeting rooms, BBQ areas, party rooms, and parking bays.

Fields per amenity

• Name — public-facing label.
• Type — gym, pool, meeting room, lounge, parking, and so on.
• Capacity — the maximum attendees allowed.
• Bookable flag — whether residents can reserve it.
• Operating hours — opening and closing times per day.
• Rules — free-text guidelines surfaced to residents at booking time.
• Images — one or more hero images for the resident portal.

Booking controls

For bookable amenities, configure:

• Maximum advance booking days — how far ahead a resident can reserve.
• Maximum duration — the longest single booking allowed.
• Approval flow — whether bookings are auto-approved or require manager approval.

Bookings integrate with the Booking no-show handler background processor, which automatically marks reservations as no-shows when the check-in window expires.

Building Systems

Building systems are the physical infrastructure that keeps a building running. ArkanPM tracks six built-in categories:

1. HVAC — chillers, AHUs, FCUs, ducting.
2. Electrical — main switchboards, distribution panels, UPS, generators.
3. Plumbing — pumps, water tanks, booster sets.
4. Fire Safety — alarm panels, pumps, extinguishers, sprinklers.
5. Elevator — lifts, escalators, dumbwaiters.
6. Security — CCTV, access control, intrusion alarms.

Fields per system

• Code — a unique identifier inside the building.
• Category — one of the six above.
• Manufacturer — the original equipment maker.
• Model and serial number.
• Installation date.
• Service history — a timeline of service visits, parts replaced, and technicians involved.
• Next service date — the target date for the next preventive visit.

Why service history matters

Every service event you log on a system is later surfaced in:

• The asset maintenance history (if the system is also modeled as an asset).
• The preventive maintenance generator, which uses next service dates to create work orders automatically.
• The warranty expiry monitor, which notifies stakeholders before coverage lapses.

Step-by-step onboarding

1. Open a building and click Amenities → Add. Register each amenity with capacity, operating hours, and images.
2. Toggle the bookable flag for amenities you want residents to reserve. Set advance booking days and maximum duration.
3. Switch to the Systems tab and add each building system with manufacturer, model, serial, and installation date.
4. For critical systems, mark them as critical (see Asset Lifecycle Management) — this elevates their priority for spare parts stocking and maintenance.
5. For each system, schedule an initial preventive maintenance entry and set the next service date.

Common pitfalls

• Forgetting operating hours. Bookings outside hours are rejected, so residents end up confused. Always set hours, even if it is 24/7.
• Duplicate codes. Building system codes must be unique within a building. Prefix them with the category (for example, HVAC-AHU-01) to keep things tidy.
• Empty service history. Even a single "Commissioned on YYYY-MM-DD" entry gives preventive maintenance a baseline.

What next

Jump to Submitting and triaging work orders to see how amenities and systems feed into the maintenance engine.