Tips & Tricks

Just wanted to say I really appreciate the new sub work order, assigned procedure steps, and custom analytics features! I remember these features were a hot topic when the forum started, so It’s been awesome to see this reach fruition and continue to watch the platform grow. Really looking forward to playing around with these. Huge thank you to the dev team for making maintenance management easier!

Would anyone be willing to share their methods for naming and organizing parts that they found to be effective and efficient for technicians and scalable for parts clerks/buyers? I am trying to explore different options to find a scalable standard that I can implement in our new system

Hi everyone,I recently started a new position with a company that began using MaintainX in January. I’ve used MaintainX in a previous role, but since this team is still relatively new to the platform, we’re running into some challenges.Specifically, we’re seeing:Inaccurate or incomplete time entries on work orders Work orders being completed at the end of a shift instead of immediately after the task is finishedDoes anyone have best practices or strategies for improving team buy‑in and encouraging accurate, real‑time work order updates?Thanks in advance for any insights!

I am trying to log tools for inventory purposes. The issue is, I don’t want to necessarily put them in as assets and would rather have a section particularly for tools. Has anyone had any luck adding new lists for subjects other than the stock items that come with the program?

I need to automate an oil change. Example: Oil was changed at meter reading 100 hours, the next oil changes is in 100 hours. Automation work order happens at 200 hours (all good so far) The actual oil change happens at 215 hours. I need the next Automated work order to happen at 315 hours not 300 hours. Looks like I have to go in and Automate after each oil change to stay on the 100 hours change schedule?? I hope I explained this correctly?

I'm new on here and setting up some preventative maintenance and haven't been able to do quarterly inspections or work. Just wondering if there's something i'm missing. 

Has anyone come up with a good method to print QR codes from the MaintainX part library on Dymo label printers? I thought about just buying a few thousand consecutive QR codes and scanning them as I create parts in inventory but that wouldn’t allow me to have one label for every identical part in inventory. I want to be able to print them easily as I create new parts in my inventory or replenish parts. I am using a Mac which probably makes this more difficult. Any help would be appreciated.

I created a work order for attending Maintain X university and selected a file. The first populated to the add files section. I selected a second, but nothing seemed to populate, so I repeated. After several (6) tries, I discovered that the files had populated to the top of the page. I can remove the first file from the add files section, but none of the subsequent 6. Thoughts or advice? 

Hi all, I’m working on implementing MaintainX for the first time in our facility. A lot of the software is intuitive, but I’m having some confusion with implementing asset hierarchy for subassemblies that rotate in and out of use. (CPG)We have two extrusion systems that extrude our product into a panner system. Each extrusion system has a blade that cuts the product into sized bars. We have three different blade sub assemblies that switch on and off extruders based off of availability; when Blade 2 is being cleaned and Blade 1 is in use, Blade 3 will be switched on. Each blade spends time in use and not in use depending on our production schedule.Would it be easiest to make these their own assets instead of child assets of our extrusion systems? That is what I am leaning towards; attaching one blade as a child asset doesn’t reflect how we actually use our blade.What do you guys think?Thank you!

I’m a new user; can anyone tell me how do I see the machine history? what were the work orders that were completed and open? and what spares have been used in this asset?

Beginner user here!  I don’t have a small QR code printer, we’ve purchased label pages (3x4 labels per page) to print from our computer.  We are trying to figure out how to print multiple copies of the same QR parts label on one sheet.  Seems like a silly question, but I need to figure out how to make it easy for the mechanics in the shop to complete!  Any brilliant ideas/solutions you’ve come across are much appreciated!

We are utilizing the Workload view in the web UI to set calendar dates for the techs to do work. Often the WO due date is later than the date we are scheduling the techs to do the work. Example is we have a planned work order with a due date of 10/15/25. The tech has availability to start and complete the WO on 10/14/25 and we use the Workload view to schedule the work on 10/14/25. The mobile app will only show to the technician the due date of 10/15/25 for that WO. Does anyone know how to switch the mobile app to show the date the work is scheduled for in the Workload view and not the Due Date as shown on the WO itself? 

My first question in MX. I have junior staff that my senior engineer prints work orders and places them in mailboxes as assignments for the day. I would like to have a user that I could assign to multiple staff to share.  Is this possible without making a new email address that could be shared by all of them.

We use the same parts for our monthly PM work orders, and I’m looking into a way that a PO for new parts will automatically be made once a certain reorder point is reached.I cannot find a way to set up this automation, and am wondering if anyone knows how to do something like this or if it is even possible.Wehn going through automation, the only trigger is a meter reading, so I’m not sure if I should be looking to automate the process or if there is something within the “PO” section that is more suited for what I’m trying to achieve.Thanks.

Three years. That’s how long a major American manufacturer — whose products you’ve likely touched today — has been evaluating digital transformation solutions. They’ve formed a committee, vetted vendors, and reached unanimous agreement that change is urgent. And yet, operations are still run on clipboards and spreadsheets from the 90s.  This isn’t an outlier. It’s happening across manufacturing — and across industrial sectors globally. Well-intentioned decision-makers are stalling progress in search of the perfect solution. The risk of choosing “wrong” feels too high. So they choose nothing at all. Here’s my recent piece in Smart Industry exploring this topic:

Hi, Before using certain pieces of equipment our operators are required to complete an inspection of the equipment and log it.Is there a way I could create the inspection as a procedure in MaintainX that can be activated by the operator as they need it? If I can do this in MaintainX it would make the standard operating procedure easy to access and create a record to show the procedure is being complete.The operators have requester level licenses   Thanks,Ben

How do I customize and automatically generate a report showing all open work orders and requests? I need to set up a report to be sent daily so others can see what work is still needing to be done. 

Hello, I would like to know if i can somehow High light a work order in the app so i know it has been handed out and printed. I get so many work orders and it gets overwhelming at times and I'm not sure if its been printed out. Thank you,JTJtroglia@suburbanpropane.com

When it comes to AI, I’ve seen a lot of teams get tripped up by the same thing: trying to push new tools from the top down — without talking to the people who actually do the work.This month I joined our product lead, Roshan Satish, on a recent episode of “Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast” to talk about what we’re seeing work on the ground. The most effective AI rollouts don’t start with dashboards or pilots. They start with conversations, and when leaders get out on the floor and ask their teams:What slows you down?What tasks feel like busywork?What problems keep coming back?The goal isn’t to have technicians invent their own AI solutions. It’s to surface the pain points from the people who live and breathe the work so solutions can fit into their day — not add more work to it.Here’s our full conversation if you want to check it out:

Hi there, we have parts which come in with batch numbers and expiry dates, i want to be able to hold these in stock and complete stock checks on them and allocate them out for traceability. Can this be done?

Does anyone have any good ideas for giving credit for completed work orders to multiple team members. I’ve thought about creating a procedure template that can be added to work orders where multiple team members name appear on a drop down and can be selected if they worked on the work order but i don’t think that will give the other members “credit” for completed work orders in Reports. 

Has anyone tried to build a report to show downtime for a production line with multiple assets? If I have a line with 10 assets but only 5 of them cause that line to stop producing is there a way to reflect that? I thought of creating an asset for the line and list the 10 assets as sub assets of it. Then potentially set those that are critical to function of the line as critical and only track downtime on those. Would that then track the line downtime? I’m hoping someone has already solved this and can help me.Cheers everyone,John 

We utilize the 10% rule for PM completion, this means as long as the PM is completed within 10% of the frequency it’s still on time. MaintainX only counts on time as being completed by the due date and I can’t find a way to add a window either in the calculation or a scheduled start and finish date on the WO. If I could add that it should show on time if the job was completed any time during that window. Any suggestions?Reagrds,John