Create locations and areas to better manage your workflow
Locations serve three important purposes in Tikkit.
The first is to help you keep track of where work needs to be done. Over time, as you build up an extensive work history, this location data can help you better understand patterns of operational issues in your facilities. Does one particular set of locations have a particular problem with temperature control? That’s useful to know.
The second is to allow you to adjust the types of requests that are handled in different places. For example, most buildings needs to deal with lighting issues, but only multi-story buildings would be concerned with elevator maintenance. The types of requests handled can be customized for each location.
The third is to limit what people can see to just the items that are relevant to them. If you have a staff member who is on-site in one building only, he may not want to see issues from other buildings. And your tenants in Suite 201 should only be able to file requests related to their own office space. Locations help users of the system avoid information overload.
Locations and areas
In Tikkit, locations generally refer to large spaces like buildings. But often it is useful to also be able to designate smaller sub-locations, such as apartments, offices, classrooms, floors, lobbies, etc. Tikkit refers to these sub-locations as areas.
You don’t have to create areas if you don’t want to, but they are there if you need them.
Common areas vs. private areas
If you do add an area to a location, you can designate whether it is a common area or not. Common areas are places that all occupants have access to and file requests for. Private areas are ones that occupants have to be specifically associated with in order to file a request.
For example, imagine an office building that has two suites (Suite A and Suite B) and a lobby, which is a common area. If Bob the Tenant is associated with Suite A, then Bob will be able to file requests for both Suite A and the lobby (because the lobby is a common area), but not for Suite B, which is private.
Managing locations
To manage locations:
- Go the the settings page (click on the gear icon in the upper right:
) - Click on Locations on the left-hand menu
)You will see a list of your current locations.
Creating new locations
From the locations settings page, click “Add location” in the upper right. You can then fill out a set of required and optional fields:
- Name (required). This is the name of the locations that is displayed in forms when users create requests. Some locations have unique names (e.g., Empire State Building), but if not you can use the address.
- Street address (required). Every location has to have an address. If you are setting up a location that doesn’t have a postal address (like a parking lot), just use an address for a nearby location.
- City (required.
- State (required).
- ZIP code (required).
- Emergency phone. The emergency phone number is displayed to occupants who file a request with priority critical. It provides an alternative means of getting in touch in the event of an emergency.
- Photo. Tikkit includes an attractive occupant help center that you can customize with a photo. If you don’t provide a photo, Tikkit automatically grabs a satellite photo of your location, which you can replace whenever you want with a more appropriate image.
After filling out these fields, click “Create location”. Your location has now been created, and you can customize it further by adding areas and request types.
Warning: to use locations, you need to add staff!
Once you’ve created a location, it’s ready to use, but it won’t show up in Tikkit until you add some staff. Remember: staff members can only see locations that they have been added to – and that goes for you too! Make sure to add the location to your list if you want to have access to it.
Adding and managing areas
Navigate to the location you want to update, and click on the “Areas” tab. Adding, editing, and deleting areas is easy:
- To add an area: Simply type the area’s name into the field. If the area is a common space, check the common space checkbox. Then press the return key or the add button to create the area.
- To edit existing areas: Click the small pencil icon next to each area. You can edit both the area name and whether it is a common space. Then press update or cancel.
- To delete an area: Click the x icon next the area you wish to delete.
- To re-order areas: Click the three horizontal bars next to the name of the area you wish to reorder. While holding the mouse button down, drag the area to a new position. Release the mouse button to update the order.
Managing request types
Adding a request type
Click on the “Request types” tab. You can see complete list of request types at the bottom of the page. To add one, simply hover over it. It will turn blue. Click to add it to the location.
Removing a request type
At the top of the page is a list of request types associated with the location. To remove one, hover over it. It will turn red. Click to remove it.
If there are any open requests that have the request type you are about to remove, you will see a warning message. It’s OK to remove a request type even if there are open requests; any existing requests won’t be affected. Removing a request type just means that you won’t be able to make any new requests of that type.
Editing and creating new request types
What if the request type you want doesn’t exist? No problem, you can create your own.