This article will assist administrators with creating a maintenance block for facilities at individual school sites.
What Is a Maintenance Block, and When Should It Be Used?
Maintenance blocks allow administrators to schedule maintenance tasks such as repairs or construction on given facilities through your administrator calendar. When a maintenance block is scheduled, availability is removed from the storefront so that renters are unable to request the facility during the blocked dates and times.
Please note that creating a maintenance block will not prevent administrators from creating an internal reservation for a facility, however it will show as a time conflict.
A maintenance block may be used to block out a day, or several days, for a task like polishing floors in the gym, or painting an area. Maintenance blocks may also be used for longer constructions tasks that can span several months.
Maintenance blocks should not be used for school closures or holidays. These types of limits should be configured into the set availability for your school or district.
Additionally, if a facility should not be made available to the public, either indefinitely or for an extended period of time, it may be marked as "Do Not Search". Facilities marked as “Do Not Search” will not be visible to renters on the storefront, but will still be available internally on the Administrator Calendar for administrators to use for internal reservations. This may include facilities such as a staff lounge, or staff parking.
Where can a Maintenance Block Be Created?
A maintenance block may be created from the administrator calendar, or from the maintenance blocks page under the reservations tab in the navigation bar. From the maintenance blocks page, you can also view a list of all current maintenance blocks at your site, edit or delete them, as well as notify a user of a maintenance block.
Creating a Maintenance Block From the Calendar
To create a maintenance block from your Calendar, first navigate to the calendar page and click the "+ Maintenance" button in the upper right corner, next to "+ Event".
A pop-out will appear for you to customize and create the maintenance block.
Name: Enter a name relevant to the maintenance being performed.
The maintenance block may be shown or hidden on your administrator calendar as a grey tile by checking the maintenance block box in the "Type" filter. The name you write here will appear as the title of this tile.
Organization: If you are a district administrator, you may choose the school site that the block should be placed at. If you are a school site administrator, this option will not be available to you as you will only be able to submit a maintenance block for your assigned site.
Please note that a maintenance block may only be created for one school site at a time. If a maintenance block is needed for the same facilities and/or dates for all school sites in your district, this may mean that an availability update may be required instead. For additional assistance in closing availability, please reach out to your account manager or Facilitron Support at (800) 272-2962 or support@facilitron.com.
Search Facility/Facility Drop-Down: Here you may type in the facility name to search for and select a facility to be added to the block, or you may choose it from the building/area drop-down.
Please note that selecting the checkbox next to a building or area will select all facilities in that building or area.
Start/End Date: Enter the beginning and end dates of the maintenance block.
All Day: This checkbox will be selected by default. When selected, the designated facilities will be made unavailable all day. If the facilities should only be made unavailable for certain hours during the selected dates, uncheck this box and designate the beginning and end times of the block.
Frequency: By default, "All Dates in Range" will be selected as the frequency. If the block should only take place on certain dates within the start and end date range, you may change the frequency to repeat weekly, bi-weekly, or utilize the "Pick My Dates" option.
Creating a Maintenance Block From the Maintenance Blocks Page
To create a maintenance block from the Maintenance Blocks page, first navigate to this page under the "Reservations" tab using the navigation bar on the left, and click the "Add New Maintenance Block" button in the upper right corner.
The same pop-out from the calendar page will appear. Please see the above section for information on each of the required fields, and for assistance in creating the maintenance block.
Please note that the Maintenance Blocks page will only show a list of maintenance blocks for the school site or district you are currently logged in under. If you are a district administrator that wishes to view a list of maintenance blocks for a designated school site, you must log in under your administrator account for that school site. You can click "Other Accounts" from the left hand navigation bar to switch to your administrator account for that school site, if one exists.
This page will also allow you to notify an individual of, edit, or delete a maintenance block.
Notify: To send a notification of the maintenance to be performed, click the envelope icon next to the maintenance block. A pop-out will open, displaying details on the maintenance block and a list of contacts. Select the contacts you wish to notify, add additional email addresses as needed, and enter a custom message.
This will send the selected users an email similar to the one below.
Edit: To edit an existing maintenance block, click the pencil icon next to the maintenance block. The same maintenance block creation pop-out will appear, with the block's current configuration. You may adjust and save any changes made.
Delete: To delete a maintenance block entirely, click the red "X" icon next to the maintenance block.