Managing Severity and Responsibility Settings

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Severity and Responsibility Settings and It’s Effect in your Work Orders

When a job needs approval, it will go into the status:

1. Needs PM Approval (if you are on the Home Assistant or Premium plan)

2. Otherwise, it will go to Forwarded to PM.

Whenever a work order enters the Needs PM Approval status, the following notifications are triggered:

1. Latchel will create a task for the assigned user group

2. When it is between 8 am - 7 pm (property time), Latchel will send a text to the user group

3. After 24 hours, Latchel will send a reminder email to the user group

In addition to pre-approval, you can also configure job severity and responsibility settings from your Latchel portal. Access this link to view your account pre-approval, severity, and responsibility settings. Please note, if you mark something as resident-responsible, you are saying that the resident is responsible for these costs and Latchel should bill the resident (this setting should only be used if you are on the Home Assistant program).  If you mark a job as normal, urgent, or emergency, this will indicate the job is the Property Manager’s responsibility.

• Needs Pre-Approval = Approval of new non-emergency maintenance requests is required before Latchel dispatches a Service Provider
• Resident’s Responsibility (Home Assistant Plan Only) = The tenant will be responsible for paying for this job. Latchel will coordinate these jobs and charge the resident through the Latchel portal if the resident is enrolled in the Home Assistant program
• Normal = Non-emergency
• Urgent = Scheduled in 72 hours
• Emergency = Dispatched immediately

By keeping these settings up to date, you can ensure Latchel is taking the right action for newly created work orders.

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**How to Update Severity and Responsibility Settings

At the Company Level**

To modify your pre-approval, severity, and responsibility settings at the company level, click on the drop-down at the top right-hand side of your screen. Select Account Settings from the drop-down.

Then on the Severity/Responsibility tab, you will see over 100 problems/locations listed on this page. Latchel has applied default settings to get you started, using the dropdown Settings Type, or the Problem Category, you can filter the responsibility you wish to update.

Click the dropdown of the corresponding problem/location and select the appropriate severity/responsibility. Once selected, the settings will save automatically.

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At the Portfolio Level

Click the Places dropdown and select Portfolios.

Click on the name of the Portfolio.

From here, click Severity/Responsibility.

To override the Company Level, click Override.

Then select the appropriate setting for the problem/location. Once selected, the settings will save automatically.

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At the Property Level

Click the Places dropdown and select Properties.

Search for the property and click on the address.

From here, click Severity/Responsibility.

To override the Portfolio/Company Level, click override and then select the appropriate setting for the problem/location. Once selected, the settings will save automatically.

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How to Save Existing Severity Responsibility Presets

You can save different severity-responsibility settings presets based on weather conditions, seasons, daylight variations, and expected emergencies. And also, to revert a previous settings if you are unsure of the changes you have made.

Under the Severity/Responsibility tab, click the ellipsis icon and select Save as Settings Set.

Then enter a Name and Description for the settings set, and click Group Settings.

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How to Apply Existing Severity and Responsibility Preset

Now that you have Severity settings saved, you can apply the settings at the property, portfolio, or company level.

On the Severity/Responsibility tab, click the ellipsis icon and select Apply Settings Set.

Next on the pop-up window choose a Settings Set from the dropdown and click Apply Settings.