Help Center

Managing Work

Work requests, work orders, breakdowns, inspections, preventive and daily maintenance, permits.

Work Requests

• Raise a work request in the appTell maintenance that a machine needs attention. They decide whether it becomes a work order, a breakdown, or needs no work.
• Let anyone report a problem without a loginVisitors, operators and subcontractors can report a fault from a machine's QR label or your company's public request page, then follow what happens to it.
• Triage work requestsRead the requests waiting for maintenance and decide each one, by turning it into a work order or a breakdown, or by closing it with a reason.

Work Orders

• Create a work orderRaise a job against a machine, say what needs doing, who does it and when, and whether it needs a work permit first.
• The work order page and its next-step buttonHow a work order page is laid out, what each status and progress step means, and why one large button always tells you what to do next.
• Record the work doneFill in the Work done section of a work order: what was done, who did it, the parts used, the time spent and photos of the finished job.
• Sign off a work orderCollect the signatures on the work record, finish the work order with Finish & sign off, and what Solmex checks before it lets you.
• Configure sign-off rolesDecide who signs the work record on your work orders, in what order the boxes appear, and which signatures are required before a job can be finished.
• Set and clear a blockerMark a work order as waiting for spare parts, a vendor, a permit or anything else that holds it up, so everyone can see why it is not moving.
• Close, cancel or reopen workClose a finished work order, cancel one that is not going ahead, and reopen a signed work record to correct it.
• Print a work orderDownload the one-page work order sheet to hand to a technician, and what it does and does not contain.
• The Work Orders listFind work orders with search, status, priority and Assigned to me filters, read the figures across the top, and understand the order the list is sorted in.
• Due for Service, Calendar and WorkloadThe other three tabs of the Work Orders page. See which services and inspections are due, plan them on dates, and check how much work lies ahead.
• Work orders that need a work permitMark a hazardous job as needing a permit, raise the permit from the work order, and how the permit shows on the page, the progress steps and the printed sheet.

Breakdowns

• Report a breakdownLog a machine that has stopped working, with what happened and a photo. The machine's status changes to Breakdown until the breakdown is resolved or cancelled.
• Work a breakdown through to repairRecord a diagnosis, raise a repair work order, flag what is holding the repair up and say when the machine should be back. Solmex tracks each stage for you.
• Resolve a breakdownMark a breakdown as repaired and the machine as back in service, either by closing its work order or by resolving it directly, and record the downtime.
• Cancel a breakdown logged in errorWithdraw a breakdown that should never have been logged, such as a wrong machine or a duplicate. It stops counting in every figure, and the record is kept with your reason.
• Breakdown codesClassify each breakdown by the kind of failure, and manage your company's own list of codes: add, rename, re-code, archive and restore.
• Correct a breakdown's reported dateFix the day a breakdown was reported when it was entered or imported with the wrong date. It has its own permission because every downtime figure is measured from that date.
• The Breakdowns list and the Breakdown Status ReportSee every machine that is down and why at a glance, and export it as an Excel register or as the printable Breakdown Status Report for management.
• Breakdown AnalysisMeasure how reliable your equipment is over a period: availability, time between failures, repair time, the causes and machines behind most downtime, and repeat failures.

Inspections

• Create inspection templatesBuild the checklist an inspector fills in, say how often it is due by calendar or by meter, and choose which equipment type it applies to.
• Carry out an inspectionStart an inspection, record where you found the machine, its meter reading, its operator and photos, answer the checklist, then sign and complete it.
• Log and follow up findingsRaise a finding for a fault found during an inspection, turn it into a work order, and close it once the repair has been checked.
• Manage finding categoriesChoose the list of categories an inspector picks from when logging a finding, and rename, remove or restore them.
• See which inspections are dueThe Due tab lists every machine whose inspection is overdue or coming up soon, worked out from its templates and its last completed inspection.
• Print the Inspection Report and Finding Action CardsDownload the signed Inspection Report for one inspection, or print open findings as large cards to pin on a workshop wall.
• Email a Daily Inspection ReportHave Solmex email managers a PDF of each day's inspections automatically, with the day's figures on the front page and every inspection in full behind it.
• Find and review inspectionsSearch the register of all inspections, see a machine's inspection history and open findings, and export the list to Excel.

Preventive Maintenance

• How preventive maintenance worksTemplates hold your service programme, each machine follows one template, and Solmex works out from the meters and the calendar which service is due next.
• Create and edit a PM templateBuild a service programme with intervals, triggers and tasks, then clone, edit or archive it. Explains why a service interval already in use cannot be removed.
• Assign PM templates to machinesPut a service programme onto many machines at once from the Assign tab, or onto one machine from its own page, and check what will change before you commit.
• How PM due dates are worked outServices follow the manufacturer's fixed milestones, so a late service never shifts the next one. Covers due soon and overdue, hours and kilometres judged separately, never serviced, and the projected due date.
• The Preventive Maintenance pageOne page for every machine's service programme. What the Dashboard, Status, History, Templates and Assign tabs show, and how to use their filters.
• Log a completed PMRecord a service as it is done, with the people, the checklist, the parts and fluids used and the meter reading. Parts leave stock and a PDF report is made.
• Record past servicesEnter services done before a machine was tracked in Solmex, from paper records or an old system, with the date, the service and the meter reading it was done at.
• Correct or withdraw a logged PMFix a service that was recorded wrongly, or withdraw one that never happened on this machine. Two different actions, because they say two different things.
• Import each machine's last PMTell Solmex where each machine is in its service cycle from one spreadsheet, and how an administrator edits one machine's imported last PM afterwards.

Daily Maintenance

• What daily maintenance isDaily Maintenance records the small, frequent jobs your crews do on every machine, such as greasing, filter cleaning and washing, and shows which machines are falling behind.
• Set up your job listName the daily jobs your crews do, set how often each is due, and choose how they appear on the dashboard.
• Record a day's workTick the daily jobs done on each machine on the Record tab and save them in one go, or log a single job from the machine's own page.
• See what is dueUse the Status tab to see, for every machine, when each daily job was last done and whether it is on time, due soon, overdue or never recorded.
• The Daily Maintenance dashboardSee whether your crews are keeping pace with each daily job, how many machines are on time or overdue, where the backlog is and which teams are doing the work.
• Daily Maintenance historyList every daily job done in a period, see which were on time and which were late, export the list, and withdraw an entry recorded by mistake.
• Set up maintenance teamsCreate the crews that carry out maintenance, with their lead, members, service vehicle and the Sublocations they cover, so work can be recorded and compared by team.
• Follow a team's routeSee where each maintenance team's service vehicle drove and stopped, which machines were nearby, and how the period compares with the one before, from the vehicle's GPS tracker.
• Import routine maintenance historyBring a paper logbook or an old spreadsheet into Solmex as daily maintenance records, one row per job, checked in full before anything is saved.

Work Permits

• What a work permit isA work permit authorises hazardous work, such as hot work or confined space entry, for a set time. This article explains the permit register and every status a permit moves through.
• Create a work permitRaise a work permit from the register or from a work order, choose what it covers, and fill in the work, the people and the precautions.
• Approve, sign and close a permitTake a work permit from submitted to closed: approve or reject it, record signatures, activate it when work starts, close it when work ends, and cancel or duplicate when plans change.
• Permit templatesSave the hazards, PPE, isolations and checklist you use for each kind of permit as a template, so new permits start from your company's standard instead of a blank form.
• Permit documents, printing and QR codesAttach risk assessments, method statements and photos to a work permit, print it or download it as a PDF with its QR code, and print a QR label for the work site.