Facility Manager Handbook

If you run the day-to-day operations of a portfolio or a set of buildings, this is your guide. You'll do most of your work across Maintenance, Preventive Maintenance, Inspections, Assets, Vendors, Leases, and Inventory.

What your sidebar looks like

• Dashboard
• Property Management — Property Types, Portfolio, Amenities, Building Systems
• Operations — Maintenance, Preventive Maintenance, Inspections, Warranties, SLA Dashboard
• Resources — Vendors, Contracts, Inventory (Spare Parts, Purchase Requests, Warehouses, Stock, Reorder Alerts)
• Property Ops — Leases, Move-In, Move-Out, Occupancy, Key Register
• Documents — Document Library
• Portfolio — Portfolio, Properties, Buildings, Floors, Zones, Units

You won't see Admin, Settings, or the Resident Portal. If you need something there, ask a Tenant Admin.

Your dashboard

What you see first:

• Open Work Orders — count and trend
• SLA Compliance — % of WOs meeting response and resolution targets this month
• Occupancy Rate — overall portfolio occupancy with per-building breakdown
• Pending Approvals — triage queue: work requests, move-ins, purchase requests
• Overdue Inspections — count with a click-through to the list
• 6-month work-order trend — open vs. completed
• Monthly SLA performance bar chart
• Recent activity feed

The dashboard auto-refreshes every 60 seconds. You don't have to reload.

Running the maintenance queue

Reactive work — from request to closed

The full lifecycle of a reactive work order, end-to-end:

1. A resident submits a work request via Sidebar > Resident Portal > My Requests > New Request (or staff submit on their behalf).
2. You triage it: open Sidebar > Operations > Maintenance > Work Requests, review, then click Approve & Convert to Work Order (or Reject with a reason).
3. The new work order lands in Operations > Maintenance with status Open or Draft.
4. Click the WO to open its detail page. Assign a technician in the Assignment panel — they'll get a notification.
5. Set the priority (Emergency / Urgent / High / Medium / Low). This determines the SLA targets.
6. The technician acknowledges, then updates status. You can also drive status yourself from the top-right action buttons:

Every state change prompts you for notes. Those notes land in the Status Timeline at the bottom of the WO detail page — the permanent record of who did what and when.

Tip: Prefer the Kanban view? Click the toggle at the top-right of the Maintenance list to switch between Table and Kanban. Drag a card to move it between columns.

SLA timers

Every priority tier has a response target and a resolution target — two independent clocks.

The actual minute values are configurable per tenant — these are the ArkanPM defaults. Ask your Tenant Admin if your organization has tuned them.

Clocks pause automatically when:

• The WO moves to On Hold
• Outside configured business hours (if business-hours mode is on for that priority)

Breach appears as a red Breached badge on the WO detail page and on the Kanban card. The SLA Dashboard at Operations > SLA Dashboard shows compliance across the whole portfolio.

Escalation

When an SLA breaches or a WO goes stale, the escalation engine kicks in automatically:

• Level 1: Alerts the assigned technician and a backup.
• Level 2: Notifies the building manager.
• Level 3: Notifies facility management leadership.

You can see escalation events on the WO detail page under Escalation History. Your Tenant Admin configures the rules (triggers, timing, recipients) in Sidebar > Settings > Escalation Rules.

Preventive maintenance

Building a PM schedule

1. Go to Sidebar > Operations > Preventive Maintenance.
2. Click New PM Schedule.
3. Select the Asset this schedule covers.
4. Pick a Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annual, Annual, or Custom interval. You can also pick Meter-based (triggers after N operating hours or usage counts) or Condition-based (triggers when an asset's condition drops below a threshold).
5. Link a Template — templates carry the checklist, typical parts, and estimated labor.
6. Set a Lead time (how many days before due the WO should be auto-generated).
7. Click Save. The PM generator background processor picks it up and creates the upcoming work orders on schedule.

You can pause a schedule if a building is closed, and resume it later. The schedule keeps a history of every generated WO so you can audit PM discipline.

PM templates

Templates live at Sidebar > Operations > Preventive Maintenance > Templates. Each template has:

• A name (e.g., "Quarterly HVAC filter change")
• A checklist of items with response types: checkbox, text, number, photo, select
• Estimated parts pulled from your inventory catalog
• Estimated labor hours

Duplicate a template to create variants. Edit one and existing schedules linked to it continue to use the updated version for future generations.

Inspections

Scheduling an inspection

1. Sidebar > Operations > Inspections opens the templates list.
2. Click Schedule Inspection.
3. Pick a template, building (or floor/unit/asset for finer scope), scheduled date, due date, and optionally add notes.
4. Click Schedule Inspection. It lands on the scheduled inspections list with status Scheduled.

Recurring inspections use an RRULE — ask the template owner to configure recurrence when the template is created. Each occurrence is spawned automatically.

Executing an inspection

1. Assigned inspector opens Sidebar > Operations > Inspections > Scheduled.
2. Clicks the inspection, then Start Inspection.
3. Works through each item — each accepts pass/fail, rating (1–5), text, number, photo, or multi-select.
4. On any failed item, ArkanPM can auto-create a follow-up work order (configured in the template).
5. When done, inspector clicks Submit Report. It moves to Submitted.
6. You review it in Inspections > Reports. Click Approve or Reject with notes.

Compliance certificates (fire safety, health, building code, accessibility, environmental) live in Sidebar > Operations > Compliance. Each has an issue date, expiry date, issuing authority, and certificate number. Automated expiry monitoring will flag anything getting close to expiry 30 days out — ask your Tenant Admin to tune that window if needed.

Assets

Finding an asset fast

Sidebar > Assets opens the registry. Three ways to find something:

• Search — hit the search bar and type the name, tag, or serial number.
• Filter — by building, category, condition, criticality, or status.
• QR/barcode scan — in the field, a technician scans the tag on the equipment and the browser jumps straight to the asset detail page.

The asset detail page

Tabs across the top of the asset page:

• Overview — core details, condition (0–100), criticality, warranty status, depreciation value.
• Documents — manuals, warranties, purchase orders, inspection reports, photos.
• Maintenance History — every WO ever linked to this asset.
• Warranty — manufacturer / extended / service-contract records.
• Meter Readings — if metered, all readings over time.
• Transfers — moves between locations with approval trails.

Bulk CSV import

For large data loads, Assets > Import CSV. Download the template, fill it out, upload. ArkanPM validates each row and shows a full error report before committing — nothing imports if anything is wrong. Once clean, click Commit Import.

Vendors and contracts

Onboarding a new vendor

1. Sidebar > Resources > Vendors > New Vendor.
2. Fill out: name, category (HVAC, plumbing, security, cleaning, etc.), tax ID, insurance details, license details.
3. Add one or more contacts with roles (Account Manager, Field Supervisor, Finance, etc.).
4. Upload required documents to the document vault (trade license, insurance certificate, VAT certificate, references). Every document has an expiry date that's automatically monitored.
5. Set the status to Pending Approval. A Tenant Admin approves it to move it to Active.

Scoring vendor performance

Every WO assigned to a vendor gets a rating when it closes:

• Quality (1–5 stars)
• Timeliness (1–5 stars)
• Communication (1–5 stars)
• Professionalism (1–5 stars)

Those feed four rolling averages per vendor:

• SLA Compliance (%)
• Quality score (5-star)
• Timeliness score (5-star)
• Overall score (5-star)

Visual bars on the vendor page are color-coded: green ≥ 90%, orange ≥ 70%, red < 70%. You can filter the vendor list by score to find underperformers fast.

Service contracts

Contracts live at Sidebar > Resources > Contracts. Each has:

• Start / end dates
• Notice period
• Auto-renew flag
• SLA terms with penalty clauses
• Buildings in scope
• Associated vendor

The contract expiry monitor (another background processor) flags contracts getting close to expiry at configurable windows (default 90 days).

Inventory

Spare parts catalog

Sidebar > Resources > Inventory > Spare Parts is your parts catalog. Each part has:

• Part number, description, unit of measure
• Unit cost
• Manufacturer, model
• Critical flag (for stock-out-sensitive parts)
• Multi-supplier records (each supplier has their own part number and lead time)

Stock levels

A part's stock level has color coding across all views:

• 🟢 Green — healthy (above reorder point)
• 🟡 Orange — at reorder point
• 🔴 Red — at or below minimum (or out of stock)

Stock lives in warehouses (Inventory > Warehouses) — you can have many. Transfers between warehouses are logged in the ledger.

Reorder alerts

Inventory > Reorder Alerts lists parts that have crossed their reorder point. Click Create Purchase Request from an alert to kick off procurement with the right supplier pre-selected.

Purchase requests

Workflow: Draft → Submitted → Approved → Ordered → Received. Approval routing is configurable per tenant. Each received delivery updates stock levels automatically.

Leases, move-in, move-out

Creating and activating a lease

1. Sidebar > Property Ops > Leases > Create Lease.
2. Pick a unit and a resident.
3. Set lease type (Residential / Commercial / Short-term).
4. Dates: start and end.
5. Financials: monthly rent, security deposit, payment frequency (monthly / quarterly / annual), optional rent escalation (%).
6. Click Create Lease — it lands in Draft status with an auto-generated lease number (LS-2025-00001).
7. Upload the signed lease document to the lease page.
8. Click Activate. The lease moves to Active. The 90-day expiry monitor will flag it when it's within 90 days of end date.

Move-in wizard

Sidebar > Property Ops > Move-In is a 5-step guided flow:

1. Lease selection — pick the lease.
2. Checklist — go room-by-room, condition each area (Excellent / Good / Fair / Poor), attach photos for anything below Good.
3. Key handover — log each key type (unit, mailbox, access card, parking remote, fob) with quantity, condition, and a digital signature from the resident.
4. Meter readings — electricity, water, gas. Attach a photo of each meter face.
5. Review & Complete — confirm everything and click Complete Move-In. The record becomes permanent and exports as a PDF the resident co-signs.

Move-out wizard

Same pattern, 7 steps instead of 5 — it compares current condition against move-in records, calculates damage charges, and computes the deposit refund automatically:

1. Lease selection
2. Condition comparison (side-by-side with move-in photos)
3. Damage assessment
4. Deposit calculation
5. Key return
6. Final meter readings
7. Review & Complete Move-Out

The final screen shows the deposit refund amount. Export the PDF, email it, or print it.

Occupancy and key register

• Property Ops > Occupancy gives you real-time occupancy by building with 12-month trend charts.
• Property Ops > Key Register is a searchable log of every physical key handed out.

Documents

Sidebar > Documents > Document Library is your cross-entity file cabinet. Features:

• Hierarchical categories (nest as deep as you need).
• Every file is attachable to one or more entities — a property, building, asset, work order, lease, vendor.
• Full versioning — upload a new version, the old one stays archived.
• Retention policies auto-archive or purge per category.
• Full-text search across titles (GIN-indexed in the database — fast).
• Access audit trail — every view, download, edit logged with user, IP, timestamp.

Upload with the Upload Document button top-right. Drag-and-drop also works.

Notifications and the bell

The bell icon top-right shows unread notifications. Click it for the dropdown; click View all for the full page.

Your preferences at Header > Avatar > My Profile > Notifications:

• Per-channel toggles (in-app, email, SMS, push)
• Quiet hours — silence non-critical notifications during evenings/weekends
• Emergency override — always notify for Emergency-priority events regardless of quiet hours

ArkanPM deduplicates events inside a 5-minute window so a flurry of related changes doesn't spam you.

What to look at on the dashboard every morning

1. Open Work Orders — anything in Emergency or Urgent that isn't assigned yet?
2. SLA Compliance — trending down? Open the SLA Dashboard to see which priority tier is missing.
3. Overdue Inspections — any certificates about to expire?
4. Reorder Alerts — any critical parts red?
5. Upcoming Lease Expirations — any renewals coming that need your attention?
6. Pending Approvals — anything waiting on you?

Related handbooks:

• Technician Handbook → for the technician side of the work-order flow
• Inspector Handbook → for inspection deep-dive
• Admin Handbook → for role and escalation-rule configuration