Managing equipment in Aggrado

1. Add each machine.

   On Machines, select Add a machine. A Number, a Name and a Machine type are enough to start; make, model, year and serial can come later. Each machine number is used once. Many at once come in from a spreadsheet with File › Import › Equipment….

2. Say how it is priced.

   Equipment class links the machine to its class in Bid's Codebook, so jobs are charged that class's rate. Left empty, it reads None: jobs pay its machine type's rate.

3. Say where it lives and who owns it.

   Set its Group, its Home yard, and Ownership: Owned, Financed, Leased, Rented in or Customer supplied. Road vehicles also take a VIN, Plate and State.

4. Enter the meter it reads now.

   Hours now (or miles) is asked for only when the machine is added. Its machine type's service program schedules its service as soon as it is in.

A tag on the machine is what makes the phone quick: the operator scans it rather than hunting through a list.

1. Print them.

   Choose Equipment › Print machine tags for the whole list, or Print QR tag on one machine's page. Tags carry the code and the machine number in large type, so a tag too dirty to scan can still be read and typed in.

2. Replace a lost or copied tag.

   On the machine's page, select Replace lost tag. The old tag stops working at once, so select Print the new tag and put it on the machine the same day.

Most equipment records are made beside the machine, on the phone, and land here. The office's job is to read them and act.

1. Meter readings.

   A reading can also be typed on the machine's page under Add a reading. A reading lower than the last, or showing more use than the days allow, is still kept but held: the Readings to check tile on Machines lists them, oldest first, with Count it, Don't count it and Void beside each. Counted, it moves the machine's meter and its service due dates; not counted or voided (a typo, the wrong machine scanned), it stays on record and never counts.

2. Walkarounds and other inspections.

   The Inspections tab lists what crews filled in, with the result, who did it and the job. Open one to read each answer, its photos and the signature, then Mark checked or Needs a look. On the phone, the operator marks what's wrong and Everything else OK marks the rest in one tap, and the inspection says so; Walkarounds on the phone on this tab turns that off for a company that wants every item tapped.

3. Problems.

   A failed walkaround item raises a problem on its own, and a crew can report one from the machine. The office can report one too, on the machine's page under Report a problem: What's wrong?, How bad is it? (Can wait, Needs a look soon, Needs a look today or Unsafe), and Don't run it until it's fixed, which marks the machine down until the problem is closed. Send to the shop sends it.

A machine's status reads Down: can't run, In the shop, Due for service (can run) or Parked when it isn't simply Active.

The Problems tab is the shop's queue, sorted by what matters: Machine down, Unsafe or needs a look today, New (nobody has seen it yet), and Open a week or more.

1. Say you've seen it.

   Open the problem and select Seen it, so the person who reported it can see somebody has it. Everything said about it is kept on its History, which they read.

2. Give it to somebody.

   Set Assigned to. It saves as you choose; there is no separate save.

3. Fix it.

   Under What to do, select New work order to open one with this problem already on it. For something settled without a work order, change the status to Fixed and say what was done, which the note requires.

1. Open it.

   Select New work order from the Work orders tab, a machine or a problem. It starts with that machine's open problems and its overdue or due-soon service already checked, under Problems it fixes and Service it does. Add anything else under Other tasks, a Standard task or Or type a task. On Service, each row has Make work order, and checking off several makes them in one go, one work order per machine.

2. Say who does it, and who pays.

   Set the Type and Priority, and whether it is Done by Our shop or an Outside shop or dealer. Assigned to puts it on the mechanic's phone. Check Charge it to a job only for a repair in the field or damage on a job, and give the Job and Job cost code. Shop service stays in equipment overhead. Select Create work order.

3. Work it.

   Move each task with Start, Done or Skip. Mechanics add their hours from the phone, or add them under Add labor; nobody types a mechanic's rate: it comes from their wage on their employee card plus the company's labor burden, else their trade's rate. Parts go under Add a part, and sublet, freight and fees under Add a charge (sublet, freight, fees).

4. Complete it.

   Enter the hours (or miles) when done, which is required when any of its service is measured by meter, and select Complete work order. That one step writes the service entry, closes the problems it fixes, restarts that service from the closing meter, and puts the machine back to work unless something else holds it. Where the work order named a job, the total is charged to that job under its cost code; otherwise it is equipment overhead.

The Service tab is every machine's next service, overdue first. Due dates count from the last service, by meter, by calendar or by whichever comes first, and each machine's pace decides when a meter-based one lands.

1. Do it on a work order.

   Select Make work order on the row (or Record done for something already done). Either way it restarts from the closing meter rather than from the date somebody typed.

2. Record service done elsewhere.

   For the dealer's field service or an emailed invoice, open the machine and use Record service done: check off what was done, give the date and meter, say whether it was Done by Our shop or an Outside shop or dealer, enter Labor, Parts, Other and Tax, and select Save service.

3. Put one off honestly.

   Put off asks for a date or a meter and a reason, such as a machine that cannot come off the job this week. It shows as Put off with that reason rather than quietly disappearing, and Due again now brings it back.

1. Add the rental, and its machine with it.

   On Rentals, select Add a rental. Pick A machine in the fleet, or New machine to add it right there with its Number, Name and Machine type: it goes on Machines as Rented in, so crews can inspect it and put hours on it.

2. Say what it costs.

   Give the job it's For job, the date it went On rent from, the Rental house, Their phone (for the call-off), the Contract or PO number, and the Day rate, Week rate and 4-week rate. Select Add rental.

3. Call it off.

   A foreman calls it off from the phone the day it is done, which is what stops the clock. The office then rings the rental house and enters their confirmation number and the Pickup date. When it is back, select Returned, which takes the machine off the crew's lists.

A machine the look-ahead needs and the company is short of can be reserved under Rent for the plan (Machines the plan needs at the top of Rentals jumps there), and becomes a rental here when it arrives. Getting machines from one job to another is on Machine moves: publishing the look-ahead makes the moves, and each is hauled on your own lowboy or by a hired hauler. See the two-week look-ahead.

On most sites nobody knows what went into which machine: the fuel truck comes, fills what is there, and leaves a ticket. So Aggrado treats fuel as a site expense, like a trucking ticket, and models each machine's burn instead of asking for it.

• Fuel tickets. The foreman photographs the fuel truck's delivery ticket on the phone (Today › Ticket, as a fuel ticket, or Fuel ticket on the job's page), with the gallons and the price a gallon, which starts at the company's fuel price. Every ticket posts to the job's Fuel code at what it cost, never spread over the other codes. They are on the job's Fuel view, where the office can add or correct one.
• The Fuel code. A job won in Bid gets one from the estimate's fuel line, with that line's budget. A job without one says so on its Fuel view, where a project manager marks one of its codes as the Fuel code or taps Add a Fuel code (an overhead code, FUEL, with no budget). A job has exactly one; a ticket with no price, or on a job with no Fuel code, waits off the job's cost and says why.
• Modeled burn. Each machine's running hours on the time cards × its burn rate: the machine's own gallons an hour when the shop set one, else its equipment class's rate at medium load from the codebook. The field never says how hard a machine worked, so medium is the middle it is modeled at.
• Rates that correct themselves. The job's Fuel view sets gallons delivered against gallons modeled, week by week. Over at least a week and 500 gallons, a gap of more than 20% either way is flagged, and each class's rates are suggested at what would have closed it. A project manager, owner or admin taps Apply to the codebook to use them; nothing changes by itself.

Some outfits' fuel trucks meter each machine. For them, Equipment setup › Fuel on the phone turns on Log fuel machine by machine on the phone (off unless you turn it on), and the phone then offers Record fuel on each machine. Those fills are on the Fuel tab here, either By machine or as Each fill. The column worth reading is vs similar: each machine's burn against machines like it — the same equipment class, or failing that the same machine type — flagged at 15% or more over. Where there is nothing to compare against, it says Nothing to compare rather than inventing a benchmark.

A job is charged for a machine by the hour, running or on standby. The most specific rate in effect on the day of the work wins: the machine's own rate, then its equipment class's, then its machine type's.

• Rates are kept on Equipment › Equipment rates: Add a rate by equipment class, machine or machine type, or Copy rates from Bid (Preview Bid's rates shows what would change first). A machine with no rate for its day doesn't hold up the crew's hours: the card is approved, and the machine waits under Machines waiting on a rate and posts to its job as soon as the rate is set.
• Hours come from approved time cards, so a machine charges a job only for the hours a foreman put on it, at Running or Standby.
• Fuel is not in the hourly rate. A job's fuel is its fuel tickets, on its Fuel code, so a per-machine fill is never charged to the job as well; its job is recorded for comparison only.
• Shop service stays in equipment overhead. Only a work order you marked Charge it to a job reaches a job's cost, under the repair cost code you chose.

What each job is being charged shows on the job itself; see Getting started with Job.

Equipment has its own permissions, worked out from a person's company, Job and Field roles. The screens leave out what somebody cannot do, so a missing button is usually a role, not a fault.