Preventive Maintenance
A Maintenance Schedule is a recurring plan that defines what maintenance to do, when it's next due, and whether the system should automatically create a maintenance event when it comes due. A schedule fires repeatedly over the life of the asset; each firing creates a maintenance event that captures the actual work done.
This page covers the planned, recurring side of maintenance. For unplanned breakdowns and logging the work itself, see Maintenance Events.
Where it lives
Open the Maintenance Hub's PM Schedule tab and select + New PM Plan. Any schedule due within 7 days also appears on the Equipment Hub's "Today's PM Schedule" widget with a one-click Mark Done. Viewing requires the view-maintenance permission; creating, editing, or marking done requires edit-maintenance.
The PM form
Basics
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | A human-readable label — "Weekly Press Inspection," "200hr Filter Change." |
| Description | Free text summarizing the task; the detailed steps live in Tasks, below. |
| Asset | The asset this schedule applies to. Required. |
| Assigned to | The operator or technician responsible. Optional — this is who gets notified when the schedule is due. |
How it triggers
A schedule type picks one of three ways to decide when the next maintenance is due.
Calendar — recurs on a fixed time cadence. Set an interval and a unit (days, weeks, or months), and a next-due date that rolls forward automatically by that interval each time the schedule is completed. Example: "Weekly Press Inspection" set to 1 week — after each completed event, the next one is due 7 days later.
Runtime Hours — recurs based on the asset's total operating hours instead of the calendar. Set an interval (hours between services, e.g. 500) and the absolute hour reading that triggers the next event. Example: a 500-hour oil change on an asset currently at 1,023 hours would trigger at 1,500 hours, and advance to 2,000 after that service. Today, operating hours are entered manually by operators or maintenance staff, so a runtime-based schedule is only as accurate as those readings.
Cycle Count — the same idea as Runtime Hours, but counted in production cycles instead of running time. Use this when wear tracks more closely with shots, sheets, or strokes than with wall-clock hours.
Tasks (checklist)
An optional list of steps for the technician to work through — each with an order, a label ("Inspect belt tension," "Replace filter A"), a checkbox, and a place for notes. The checklist is copied onto each generated maintenance event, so a technician's checked boxes belong to that one occurrence — editing the schedule's checklist later doesn't change events already in progress or completed.
Use a checklist for procedures with multiple steps; skip it for a simple one-step "go inspect the thing" schedule.
Auto-generate events
When this is on, the system automatically creates a scheduled maintenance event once a schedule comes due within the next 7 days. When it's off, the schedule still shows up as an alert, but someone has to manually create the event.
Most teams leave this on — it turns the reminder into a real task on the maintenance events list instead of just an alert that can be dismissed and forgotten.
One-click Mark Done
For routine maintenance, the full event-logging form is more than you need. The "Today's PM Schedule" widget on the Equipment Hub gives each due schedule a Mark Done shortcut with just optional notes and a Save button. Saving records the maintenance as complete, links the cost to the asset's history, and advances the schedule to its next due date — all in one step, and the Equipment Hub updates immediately.
For anything more involved — root-cause notes, parts used, real downtime to record — use the full maintenance event form instead; see Maintenance Events.
Background checks
Once a day, the system scans all schedules: anything due within the next 7 days raises a "maintenance due" alert, anything already past due raises "maintenance overdue," and if auto-generate is on, a scheduled event is created. Separately, every few minutes the system recomputes each asset's and work center's status — that's unrelated to preventive maintenance directly, but it's why status changes made during maintenance show up on the hub quickly.
These alerts appear in the Equipment Hub's alerts feed, and notify the person assigned to the schedule when one is set.
Example: a starter set for a press line
| Schedule | Asset | Type | Interval | Auto-generate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily startup checklist | Heidelberg Press 1 | Calendar | 1 day | Yes |
| Weekly press inspection | Heidelberg Press 1 | Calendar | 1 week | Yes |
| 500hr oil change | Heidelberg Press 1 | Runtime Hours | 500 hrs | Yes |
| 2000hr full service | Heidelberg Press 1 | Runtime Hours | 2000 hrs | Yes |
| Monthly belt inspection | Folder Unit 7 | Calendar | 1 month | Yes |
Add a task checklist to the longer, less routine services (full service); skip one for a simple daily startup check.
Common problems
The next-due date didn't update after Mark Done. The save may have failed silently — try again, and if it keeps failing, refresh the page first.
An auto-generated event has no checklist. The schedule was created without one. Add tasks to the schedule and save — future events will include them; past events keep whatever checklist they were created with.
"Maintenance due" alerts never fire. Check that the schedule is marked active. If auto-generate is on, the event may have already been created earlier and the alert only fires once per due window.
A runtime-hours schedule doesn't fire. The asset's operating-hours reading hasn't reached the trigger point yet — check that it's being updated regularly.
Mark Done isn't offered for an overdue schedule. The schedule has been marked inactive.
Related
- Maintenance Events — what happens when a schedule fires, or when unplanned work occurs
- Asset Management — where an asset's operating hours are recorded
- Equipment Hub — the Today's PM Schedule widget
- Spare Parts — link the parts a maintenance task will consume