About this guide
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How to access this guide
Overview
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A brief introduction
Users - Types & Accounts
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An overview of the role of the Owner in Flow360
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An overview of the role of the client in Flow360
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An overview of the manager's role in Flow360
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An overview of the general user's role in Flow360
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Clarification of access rights and responsibilities for managers and surveyors based on client level preferences and allocated site personnel settings
Reference
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Navigation in Flow360
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Descriptions of the buttons you will encounter in Flow360 and what they do.
Licences
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Usage licence agreements and software licence.
Setting Up
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What are the basic requirements to getting Flow360 running?
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The different types of home in Flow360
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A quick guide to the various client level preferences
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Preference settings that apply to all users
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In addition to the standard user preferences (see Setting up Standard User Preferences) managers have a few other things they can set up on their Manager preferences card.
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Accessing and setting the print options preferences
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How to reset or change your password
Contacts
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A quick look at the contacts list and it's central role in Flow360
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Adding a new contact to Flow360
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How to log a request for a new user account
Entering Site Data
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Deciding on a hierarchical data structure for your site and resources
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Setting up new sites in Flow360 - who does it and how.
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Establishing a single or multiple clients on a site.
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Populating your sites with assets and their contents
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Adding basic condition, priority and maintenance due date information to Items and Components.
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Custom data can be added to a resource at any time. This lesson shows you how to add custom data to a resource as you add the resource itself.
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How to get totals for gross and net usable areas from child resource levels
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How to set up and manage managers and surveyors on sites
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Where to put all that extra information you want to maintain about your resources.
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Use the filters to find resources with specific types of custom data
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How to edit resource names and other information
Standard Tasks
Searching and finding
Filters - finding and refining what you see
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How to use the popup filter panel to refine the set of records you are viewing.
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Interpreting the filter status
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Setting and re-setting criteria, executing the filter.
NSR and User Tasks
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Adding your own composite and component tasks with costs breakdown, description and method to Flow360
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Creating a new user component element to add to a user composite task
Service provider remits
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What are service provider remits and how do they function within Flow360
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Setting the geographical areas that a service provider covers
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Setting the work types that a service provider provides
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Setting the cost remits for a service provider, including costplus and flexi-contract options.
Employees & Teams
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How to add an existing contact as an employee.
NOTES:
- Only employers can add contacts as employees. You may be an employer if you have a Client admin, Provider or Owner admin user account.
- If you cannot access the Employees tab on your Client/Owner/Provider Home page, please contact Flow360 admin for assistance - your current licence may not allow you to add employees.
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Employee teams can be set up by client admin users for their own in-house employee teams and by service providers for their own employee teams. Once a team is established and remits allocated to team members or to the team as a whole, works enquiries and orders can be issued for inidividual team members or for the team in general.
Orders that have been issued to a team can be re-assigned to an individual operative as required.
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Flow360 has the facility for time spent on actvities to be logged as timesheets against an employee record. Timesheets can also be linked directly to the works order item that they relate to.
In order for costs to be calculated, an employee must have an employee contract record in Flow360, with details of salary or at least an hourly rate and charge-out rate entered. If this is not available then the client default hourly rate for works (set up in the client preferences) will be used instead.
Timesheets can be added as follows:
- Timesheet records can be added by an employee from their own employee contract record;
- Timesheet records that relate directly to works items and orders can also be added by an employee directly on the works item record;
- Managers can add timesheet records that relate to works items or orders on behalf of other employees directly on the works item record - this is useful where a contractor or in-house member of the maintenance team is not accessing Flow360 directly themselves but it is still required that timesheet records are recorded in order to allow costs to be accurately calculated.
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Timesheets relating to a works order can be added either by the employee doing the work or the manager who issued the order.
To add timesheets to a works order, follow the steps in this lesson
Rates
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An explanation of how stored rates in Flow360 are used when issuing enquiries and orders and how to view them.
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How to target a specific rate for a task and for use in cost projections.
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Updating the rates attached to maintenance and other tasks when newer rates are available or to prioritise rates for a specific service provider in cost projections.
Reactive & Planned Tasks
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How to add maintenance or other tasks to a resource
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Setting up a new reactive maintenance task and sending out a direct order for immediate implementation.
NOTE: This example assumes that the required task does not already exist in the maintenance list for the relevant resource. If it does, then the first few steps (task allocation) can be ignored - simply start from the 'Start the Order' step.
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How to add the same task to multiple objects at once
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How to set up and interpret the warning colour flashes on the tasks list
Cost Centres & Finance
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How to set up a new cost center and budgets
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Setting default cost centres at client and individual site level
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How to change the cost centre that a particular task or works item is linked to.
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Checking on tasks and works cost centre allocations
Tenders, Enquiries and Works
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An overview of the different types of instructions that can be issued through Flow360
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Setting up and sending out a new tender enquiry, enquiry or order.
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A look at the process of raising and confirming a purchase order number to link to a Flow360 works order.
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Adding tasks to a new enquiry or order
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How to check messages and respond to a tender enquiry (service provider or contractor)
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Responding to a new works enquiry (srevice provider or contractor)
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Converting a returned enquiry into an order.
The issuing manager can confirm or cancel any returned enquiries. Confirmed enquiries are converted into new orders containing one or more of the items on the enquiry (the manager is able to cancel or confirm each item individually if necessary). If the manager cancels a returned enquiry then no new order is created and the enquiry status is clearly shown as cancelled.
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Starting a new order - setting start dates and updating progress on works items
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How to put a hold or action lock on a works order in progress
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How to release a Hold that has been applied to a Helpdesk issue, task or works order
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How to set up and interpret the warning colour flashes on the works list
Helpdesk
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Adding a new helpdesk issue
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How to review a newly logged Helpdesk request and send it on as a works instruction (simple route).
There are essentially 2 steps to this process:
1) review the message and the helpdesk issue itself and make any adjustments required to location/object and target time for completion
2) send the issue to a contractor or your internal workforce as an instruction -
The quick method for a Helpdesk manager to sign off a works order as completed
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How to print a works order (Web client)
IMPORTANT NOTE: You must ensure that popups are not blocked for this process to work!
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How to set up and interpret the warning colour flashes on the Helpdesk issues list
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Checking the status of helpdesk issues
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Changing the person currently in charge of a helpdesk issue.
Document storage and sharing
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How to upload and share documents
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Setting the Key doc flag
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How to link an existing document to another object in Flow360
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How to view and print documents stored with Flow360
Occupancies & Bookings
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An overview of occupancies (including tenancies) and resource bookings and options.
Inspections
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Meter readings are one of a number of different 'inspections' that can be attached to objects in Flow360. These include asbestos inspections, meter readings (manual and automated), water testing, stock and condition checks and so on.
Some of these can be added manually whilst others such as automated meter readings are submitted on-line by remote sensors or monitors.
NOTE: You should not attempt to mix automated and manual meter readings for the same meter!
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How kWhrs are calculated
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Viewing usage charts and target charts
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How to add an asbestos inspection record
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Confirming stock levels and / or condition of listed items.
Valuations
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Setting up standard depreciation for assets, entering manual valuations and calculating automatic depreciation values.
Reports
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A quick overview
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How to create and print one or more works orders on a single report
Communication
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Automatic message creation - sending and receiving messages through Flow360
Events
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An overview of events in Flow360
Categorisations
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Categorise your resources for easier location
Troubleshooting
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Sometimes it can appear that Flow360 has become unresponsive in your browser - this is what to do
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Follow these steps if you having trouble viewing pdf documents in your browser in Windows
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DWG files are plans (site and/ or buildings) from a Computer Aided Design (CAD) application.