This feature is not yet released.

Overview

Maintenance Plans offer a way to provide your customers with support entitlements from a depleting fund.

Maintenance Plans are inventory items that can be added to quotations or sales orders in the same way as any other service. They are linked to user-defined "Maintenance Plan Types", which define the main attributes of the plan.

Time logged against cases that are considered maintenance-enabled and billable can be drawn from a customer's maintenance plan.

Example Maintenance Plan Types and linked Maintenance Plans

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Maintenance Plan Types - Configuration

Maintenance plan types allow you to define various plan configurations, based on a number of options we provide. They are configured from the "Maintenance Plan Types" area of the Settings zone.

The fields available are as follows:

Field	Description	Example Value
Name	Name your plan	Flex Support Plan
Description	A summary of the plan type, for your own information	Fully flexible support plan
Renewal Frequency	Default length of plan	Monthly
Flexible Renewal Frequency	Can the frequency be changed?	True
Unit Type	Default unit of time for time logging	Day
Flexible Unit Type	Can the unit type be changed?	True
Duration	Default duration of plan in selected unit	5
Flexible Duration	Can the duration be changed?	True
Min Duration	Minimum duration	3
Max Duration	Maximum duration	5
Minimum Deductible Unit	Minimum number of units that can be deducted at a time	1

These maintenance plan types can be linked to a service in your inventory. This then converts that service to a Maintenance Plan.

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Maintenance Plans - Configuration

Inventory items of Service type can be assigned a Maintenance Plan Type from the menu shown below. The service will then be considered as a maintenance plan.

In this example we have set up a price book category for Maintenance Plans, but this is not required.

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Cases - Maintenance-Enabled Sub-categories - Configuration

Cases must belong to specific sub-categories in order to be eligible for maintenance plan time logging. The sub-category must be flagged as both "Maintenance Enabled" and "Deductible". This is done from Case Category management, which is accessed from:

Settings - Case Categories

From here, click on a sub-category, and check the boxes as shown.

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Customer Record - Maintenance Grid

The "Maintenance Plans" grid will show you details of any active maintenance plans for that customer, regardless of expiry status. You can group using column headers - e.g. plans of the same type, non-expired plans, and see totals for that group.

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Case View - Indicator and Plan Details

There is an maintenance plan indicator at the top of a case record. This can be clicked for a summary view of all maintenance plans for that customer.

The indicator will show green in the event that:

• The customer has a maintenance plan asset
• The case is eligible for maintenance plan time booking
• There is time left in the plan

The indicator will show red in the event that all of these are true:

• The customer has a maintenance plan asset
• The case is eligible for maintenance plan time booking
• There is no time left in the plan OR the customer has no active plan

The indicator will show grey in the event that the case is not time-deductible (based on case sub-category).

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Logging Time (Work in progress)

Time is logged using the + button as usual. The dialogue this opens will allow you to log time. Users with the required permission can add time retrospectively - this will allow them to log time for a past date.

The following fields can be filled out:

Time - You can enter a text string representing the time spent. You can enter this in any of the following units, or a combination (e.g. 1h 3h) and this will be converted to working hours.

Use m, h, d, w, mo, y to represent time (e.g. "2d 1h")
We use the following conventions: 8h = 1d, 5d = 1w, 22d = 1m

Reason - Enter a summary of the work being logged

Maintenance Plan - Select the maintenance plan you would like to deduct time from. Remaining time on each plan is shown.

Add Retrospective Time - This allows you to enter an earlier date for the logged time. This is permission-dependent.

Deductible - Users with the appropriate permission can uncheck this box, which will allow them to log time against a plan, but without deducting time. Time logged in this fashion will not be rounded to the plan type's increment - e.g. 16 minutes will log as 16 minutes even if the plan type operates with 15 minute increments. 

You can also see the details of time logged against that case. Users with the correct role can edit or delete entries. In the event that time logged is removed or reduced, that time will be restored to the plan.

If your case is maintenance-enabled, time must be logged from a plan, unless you have the user role to add non-plan time. Please see below for details.

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Related Permissions

Allow Case Time Creation after Maintenance balance is exhausted

Permission to allow users to create Case Time even after the maintenance balance is depleted

Allow Retrospective Case Time Addition

Users in this group can create case time for previous dates

Override Case Time Creation for Cases with Maintenance Type

Permission to log a “non-maintenance plan” case time entry when maintenance plan specified on case sub-category is enabled.

Delete Case Time Entries

Allows the user to delete existing case time entries

Override Deductible in Case Time Entry

Allows the user to log time against a plan without deducting it.

You may also wish to review the permissions relating to asset creation, editing etc

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Author: Raymond Carrel