Workflows

Work Orders & Dispatch

the process of turning a maintenance request into a work order, assigning a vendor or technician, and closing it out with proof

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The job in one minute

What it produces

A work order for every request, whether it came by portal, email, text or after-hours call, with category, priority, due-by time, an assigned tech or vendor, and closing photos.

Who owns it

The maintenance supervisor assigns techs and closes work. The property manager decides charge-backs and overages. The vendor manager keeps the rotation and not-to-exceed amounts.

How often

All day, every day. The Atlas plans 12 to 50 hours a day for intake and for dispatch. Hours are planning estimates.

Why it hurts

A request is rarely one clean record. The form says "plumbing"; the text says water is coming through the kitchen light. Two neighbors report the same leak an hour apart. The after-hours voicemail sits uncoded until morning.

Dispatch is worse: scope by phone, acceptance in someone's inbox, completion photos stuck in a text thread. And the clock is legal. Several states and HUD set repair deadlines from 24 hours to 30 days, and older buildings bring lead-safe work rules.

Systems it touches

  • Yardi Voyager
  • RealPage
  • MRI
  • AppFolio
  • Entrata
  • Buildium
  • Mobile work order apps
  • Vendor portals
  • Leak sensors and building systems
  • Answering service
  • SMS
  • Outlook
  • Excel
  • SharePoint

12 steps · 6 actions · 4 decisions · 2 human reviews

The workflow, step by step

Action Decision Human review Select a step in the flowchart to jump to it.

  1. Action · Inbox

    Collect requests from the queue, the maintenance inbox and the after-hours log with channel and time.

  2. Decision · Agent

    Duplicate test: same or adjacent unit, same category, open in the last 48 hours links instead of creating.

  3. Action · Agent

    Read text and photos into category, location, symptom, entry permission and pets.

  4. Decision · Agent

    Set priority and due-by from the rules table by state, program and category; "gas smell" and "no heat" go to the emergency branch.

  5. Human review · Emergencies and

    Emergencies and low-confidence calls go to the on-call coordinator.

  6. Action · Agent

    Create the work order with all fields and attachments.

  7. Decision · Agent

    In-house or vendor, by trade, schedule, not-to-exceed, warranty and year built.

  8. Action · Agent

    Dispatch with scope, access notes and not-to-exceed; record the time.

  9. Decision · Agent

    No acceptance in the window? Move to the next vendor in the rotation.

  10. Action · Agent

    Send the resident the appointment window; escalate open work at 75 percent of the clock.

  11. Action · Agent

    On completion, read notes and photos and confirm an after photo exists.

  12. Human review · Property manager

    Any charge-back waits for the property manager; then close and notify the resident.

✓ Done

Rules vs judgment

An emergency never waits in a queue for business hours. Unanswered reviews climb the on-call chain.

  1. Exact rule

    • Repair clocks by state and category
    • Due-by times and escalation
    • Duplicate window and unit adjacency
    • Vendor rotation and lead-safe thresholds

  2. The model reads

    • "Light fixture dripping" to a category
    • Photos: stain versus active leak
    • Voicemail transcripts with slang
    • "Needs part" hidden in vendor notes

  3. A person decides

    • Emergencies and safety instructions
    • Charge-backs to residents
    • Spend above the not-to-exceed
    • Habitability disputes

When it stops

  • A vendor goes silent

    The rotation moves on and the non-response is logged.

  • A vendor is on a coverage hold

    Dispatch skips them and logs why.

  • A retry after a timeout

    The vendor record is checked first so nobody is booked twice.

  • A sensor alarms with no resident report

    A request is created with device, location and time.

  • Completion comes in with no after photo

    The work order stays open.

  • The unit has a move-out pending

    The work is coordinated with the turn.

What you end up with

Response times you can trust, because every request is timestamped at arrival and every closure carries proof. Vendors get clear scope and limits, residents get appointment windows, and AP gets work orders that invoices can match.

Invoices for this work are matched in Vendor Invoices & COI.

Questions

Can the agent take after-hours calls?

It codes the transcript, creates the work order and pages the on-call person within the minute. It never decides a gas smell can wait until morning.

How does it know which buildings fall under the lead rule?

From a property table with year built and the thresholds as rules. The model only reads whether the work disturbs paint.

Does the agent message residents itself?

Through the platform, from approved templates: acknowledgment, appointment window, completion. Anything else goes to the coordinator.

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