Having the ability to track warranty information at a property/unit level allows you to keep on top of finances, and ensure that you are not instructing jobs to your network when they should be covered by specific warranty contractors. To assist with this situation, Fixflo has the ability to note warranty information at a property/unit level, allowing you to enter warranty start and finish dates, as well as specify the warranty contractor for said property/unit. While this is most beneficial for BTR/PRS schemes that are newly built, it can also be utilised by agencies on Block or Lettings products.
Please note, the warranty feature is a module that needs to be switched on by the Fixflo team. Please contact your Sales Executive/Onboarding Manager for more assistance. If you are already a Fixflo user, please reach out to our support team.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Importing warranty data
In order for your warranty information to interface in Fixflo, you will need to import the data against its associated unit or property.
With this import, there are only two required fields, plus one optional field with regards to warranty information. However, these will depend on the type of Fixflo instance you have.
Block and BTR/PRS:
- UnitWarrantyStartDate - this should be in the format DD/MM/YYYY
- UnitWarrantyEndDate - this should be in the format DD/MM/YYYY
Lettings:
- PropertyWarrantyStartDate - this should be in the format DD/MM/YYYY
- PropertyWarrantyEndDate - this should be in the format DD/MM/YYYY
Alongside the above, you also have the opportunity to link a warranty contractor (optional). This should be done using ContractorCompanyName.
In order for the warranty information to link to the correct unit/property, you will also need to provide the relevant property/unit information. If this already exists in Fixflo, please export this and paste the details into the relevant columns of our templates.
The relevant templates to import the warranty data can be found at the bottom of this article. Once you have populated the template, please follow our guide here as to how to upload data files to Fixflo.
Should you have any further questions regarding importing the relevant warranty data, please reach out to your CSM or our support team.
Warranty workflows
When a property is in its warranty period, the workflows offered on Fixflo will be slightly different. This allows you/your property managers to immediately see that the property in question is still in warranty, and gives you the option of instructing straight to your warranty contractor.
As well as importing warranty information, agent users with the permission of 'Can edit units/properties' are able to manually enter warranty information if required. To do this, they can simply select the Unit/Property profile via the 'Properties' section, and click into the 'Warranty' tab of the relevant profile:
Here, the user can enter the relevant warranty information with regards to start and end date, as well as provide a warranty contractor if they wish.
For those using the Fixflo asset warranty feature, when an active warranty (asset/block/property etc) is in place, Fixflo will prompt you to review the active warranties present, and also highlight whether multiple are in place (ie on both the building and the linked asset):
This allows you to ensure you are aware of the relevant warranties, and instruct the job to the warranty contractor if required.
Depending on the information provided here, there are two workflows that can occur if the property is in warranty and an issue is raised:
A warranty contractor is specified
If a contractor is specified on the warranty tab and an issue is raised while the property is in warranty, the agent user is immediately notified that the property is under warranty. They have the option to 'Instruct to warranty contractor' within the Next steps tab of the issue, which if clicked will allow the user to provide any instruction notes/details prior to assigned the works straight to the warranty contractor:
From here, works can be completed as necessary.
A warranty contractor is not specified
If no contractor is provided on the warranty tab, the PM is simply provided with the date on which the property is under warranty until. From here, they can decide on the relevant workflow that they'd like to use as required:
Please note that warranty information is never provided to the reporting party.
Once a property/unit warranty period ends, the information will stay on the warranty tab within Fixflo for reference only. Any maintenance issues raised after this date will not highlight that the property used to be in warranty.
Warranties and Co-pilot
The Co-pilot tool allows you to automate certain elements of Fixflo. When warranty information is added against certain blocks/units/buildings, you have the ability to automate works raised against the relevant to auto-assign to the warranty contractor.
If you're new to the Co-pilot feature, please click here to review our guides and videos on how it works
When creating a new rule, simply use the filter of 'Under warranty', and select the warranty type if applicable (you may have both unit/property and block warranties in place):
You'd next want to include the relevant property/properties into the rule. With this, it's recommended that you group by warranty contractor, as this is not automatically selected. As such, in the example below I have specifically selected the property profiles under warranty with my contractor 'West':
If all of your warranty properties are managed by the same contractor, then there is no need to add the properties into the filter. The rule will only be hit if the warranty period is active.
When you're ready, add the 'Action' to instruct to the relevant warranty contractor profile. In the instruction notes, it's recommended that you inform them that the property is still under warranty, and therefore no costs should be involved:
Your rule is now in place! Do note that as soon as a property warranty period ends, it will no long hit this rule and will therefore skip to the next rule! As such, it's important that the ordering of your rules are correct; do refer to our video guides above for more assistance with this.
Warranties and multiple dashboards
Fixflo has a paid additional module that allows agencies to have more than one dashboard. Alongside this, agencies can create their own dashboard panels using saved searches, enabling them to tailor dashboards to specific needs. Please do refer to our guide here for more information on multiple dashboards.
When it comes to warranties, there are a few different dashboard panels and saved searches you may want to consider using to assist in tracking, monitoring and analysing both issues and units/properties:
- Open issues under warranty
- Open issues with the warranty period ending next month / this quarter
- Blocks/Properties/Units with warranty periods ending this year
- Blocks/Properties/Units with warranty periods ending this quarter
- Month on month tracking of issues raised at properties under warranty
- Closed issues with warranty periods in the last year tracking month on month