How do you manage your maintenance?
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

I'm a former Tesla construction &amp; maintenance manager that now runs a software company in San Francisco focused on facilities maintenance.

I understand many of the folks on this forum are on the broker/asset management side of house, but figured I'd ask the question anyhow.

We're looking to better understand how folks are managing their contractor sourcing and facility maintenance, particularly people responsible for larger portfolios with multiple sites to manage. If you're using software, we'd love to understand what you like / don't like about it.
[{"id": "ea72ksw", "text": "Are you trying to do some sort of \u201csmart\u201d maintenance management program that helps keep maintenance items organized while highlighting items that could be improved upon and even suggest ways to save money.\n\nOr.\n\nAre you trying to be a GC and have a stable of subs, costs, and boots on ground across the country to actually bid jobs. \n\nOr neither.  Maybe explain more. ", "replies": [{"id": "ea8x4jv", "text": "More the former than the latter. We're working on software to help folks source their initial base of contractors, then manage the ongoing maintenance activity, including work order management, asset management, invoicing, etc. So less the IFM approach and more a suite of software to make doing it yourself easy.", "replies": [{"id": "ea9s9jy", "text": "So basically a property management program that is meant to replace a property manager.  I dunno.. most people that use a property manager don\u2019t use them because they don\u2019t have enough time to do it themselves, they use a third party property manager because he has a solid competency in managing that sort of property.  There is a convenience component and there is a skill component.  About the only people I could see that would be interested in this are 1-4 unit SFR owners.  Everyone else can and should just use a property manager unless they have some sort of skill set for it. ", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ea7ogkl", "text": "To help answer your question I suggest you look at some of the large third party national facility maintenance companies like Divisions, Facility Source (recently purchased by CBRE), Brickman, etc. they all seem to have proprietary maintenance software including gps-enabled apps for their subs to use while servicing their contracts. \nI own a facility maintenance company that serves Oklahoma and parts of surrounding states and we sub for many of those third party companies. I bet I have 6 or more apps on my phone for the different companies that require we clock in/out, upload pictures, etc when servicing their sites.  Most of them also have web portals for more detailed job descriptions, assigning jobs, submitting estimates, invoices, sending RFPs, etc. some are easier to use than others, but there is most definitely room for improvement.  \nFeel free to PM me if you want to talk about it further. ", "replies": [{"id": "ea8xetc", "text": "That's a great tip, Genetics. We've look pretty closely at the other tools out there (Corrigo, SMS Assist, Service Insight, Service Channel etc.). I bet it is super annoying to have so many apps that your techs need to work with. Would definitely like to chat with you about this. Sending you a PM.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ea8pwbk", "text": "Like the others, Im not sure what exactly you are asking, however, I manage and run large shopping centers with subs, vendors etc.  I currently use  an Ariel property management ([Videoms.com](https://Videoms.com)) vendor.  Each week they send me a drone video of the property that has flown a pre-determined flight pattern (that I determined) that covers every inch of the property (parking lot, roofs, trees, facades, elevations, sprinklers, light standards, signs etc).  This provides me with a video record of the entire property each week.  My vendors all know I use it and since using it, my vendors are more attentive to the properties because they know I have a video record of their work.  When I receive the video, I watch it on one screen and have my email open on the other screen.  If I see something that needs attention, I screen shot the frame, make notes on the screen shot, and send it via email to the correct vendor/sub.  Instead of going to the property each week, I now only go approximately once every 6 weeks.  So far, in 33 years of property management, nothing has been this economical and efficient.  My properties are all NNN so the cost of the service is past through CAMs.  It usually works out to less than $0.1 p/s/f.  Hope this helps.", "replies": [{"id": "ea8y556", "text": "That's a pretty cool use case for drones in property management. I'm curious how you sourced the contractors and manage the work orders and payment once you've identified an issue from one of the flyovers. I've heard other folks with large portfolios complain that managing everything on a spreadsheet has become a challenge for them.", "replies": [{"id": "ea930e8", "text": "If the problem requires a work order, it is emailed to me for approval.  Once the work has been completed (most of the work I can see from the video but not all) I will forward the work order to accounting for payment.  Accounting issues payment.  The email invoice/work orders/screen shots/videos are stored.  We try to keep things as simple as possible (KISS).  The use of the video as a \"record keeper\" combined with the screen shots makes it easy to go back and look things up.  Its not always clear when a vendor writes out a work order.  Each vendor/sub and the vendors employees have different ways of \"explaining the work\" in written form.  With the video and screen shots, its a visual record of what needed to get done.  If its not done correctly or on time, I have a video record to prove it to the vendor/sub. The same company that does the aerial property management videos for me specializes in commercial real estate.  So they are knowledgeable on what is needed by the CRE industry.  ", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]