Customer Service and Building Representatives

FDO endeavors to provide the best service possible to SJSU campus. With over 6 million square feet of buildings, an ageing infrastructure, and over 17,000 work requests annually, this can be very challenging. Given the size and complexity of the operation, effective communication between FDO and its customers is an important component to meeting campus needs.

Building Representatives (BR) and Their Role:

Building Representative’s (BR) has the primary role of being a communication conduit between FDO and building occupants. BR’s are appointed by their respective MPP’s and are responsible for relaying information from FDO to appropriate building occupants as well as providing a central point of contact for students or staff wishing to report building problems to FDO. The BR’s are an important communication liaison between building occupants and FDO. Facility issues may go unreported for extended periods of time because people may assume others have reported it or don’t know how to report it. As such, each building on campus has an officially designated BR. While BR’s are not responsible for managing the building, or managing the repair or project work done in the building, their role as a communication liaison is extremely important.

The role of the BR is critical to ensure good communication between building occupants and FDO. However, for this role to work effectively, this must be done following certain protocols. The BR is intended to be a communication liaison with FDO, and should endeavor to refrain from being a departmental lobbyist in the prioritization process. Allowing a “squeaky wheel” to influence the prioritization process would be contrary to campus wide fairness and as such should be avoided. FDO receives thousands of work requests that they must prioritize based on a host of variables and constraints. The point of contact for BR’s is the FDO Customer Service (FCS) department. BR’s should be in contact with FCS only and not contact other FDO personnel or managers as it impedes effective scheduling. If a BR does not receive a timely or acceptable response from FCS, the BR should have their MPP contact management at FDO.

FDO Customer Service (FCS) and Their Role:

FDO operates a Facilities Customer Service (FCS) department (previously called Work Control/Service Desk) from 7:30 am to 5pm, M-F, excluding university holidays. FCS is responsible for the receipt and issuance of facility related communications on campus. All communications between FDO and BR’s should be through FCS to ensure effective tracking, assignment and resolution of facility problems. FCS can also assist BR’s and others with training and procedures on how to use the on-line system to submit work requests or review their status.

FCS staff is trained to understand facility related problems and forward these issues to the appropriate FDO department that can most appropriately attend to the issue. Questions regarding the procedures for submitting work requests below should be forwarded to FCS. To facilitate effective reporting and scheduling of repairs, BR’s should utilize the following communication protocols to inform FCS:

  • Phone: 408-924-1990. Phone communications should be used for reporting emergencies (defined below).
  • Email: workcontrol@sjsu.edu. Email communications should be used for reporting concerns and inquiries, providing as much detail as possible regarding the issue or question. All emails should reference the work order number in question and should be sent to FCS. BR’s should email FCS only rather than multiple FDO individuals as a single point of contact facilitates quicker response time and better FDO accountability. Emails to multiple recipients sometimes do not get a response due to assumptions that others have responded.
  • iServiceDesk: The online iServiceDesk form should be used for submitting non-emergency service requests as well as for checking on the progress on previously submitted service requests.

Communications Regarding Utility Shutdowns and Major System Malfunctions:

FCS will send BR’s communication about planned or emergency utility shutdowns as well as provide updates on major repairs due to system malfunction or failure. The BR should forward these communications to the appropriate building occupants. If occupants raise concerns about the shutdown, the BR should forward these to FCS as soon as possible. Concerns are defined as inquiries and/or information that provide insight to events/activities/classes unreasonably affected by building shutdowns or maintenance activities. The BR can best perform this function by keeping in touch with what is scheduled in the building and working with FDO to ensure the least disruption possible.

Emergencies:

Emergencies are defined as; an immediate threat to life/safety, loss of utilities, building system failure, and immediate threat of property damage; as related to the building. The BR should report all emergencies immediately to FCS by phone and then follow up with an email. Anyone on campus should report emergencies as soon as they see them.

Types of Work Done By FDO and Methodology For Priorizing Work:

FDO also completes over 17,000 service requests per year; all of which are assessed, prioritized, and scheduled as appropriate. As one can imagine, the prioritization of work is a complex process due to many competing needs and limited resources. Most requests cannot be scheduled immediately due to the sheer volume of work. Most MandO staff is scheduled out at least 3 months and most PDC staff is scheduled out sometimes between 6 to 12 months. Emergencies, as defined above, are always given top priority and are attended to immediately. Given the volume of service requests, BR’s and the campus community are encouraged to do as much advance planning as is possible in order so that FDO can best meet their needs. It is often assumed that projects can be done during breaks like summer due to this being a slow time for most of the campus; however breaks are in fact the busiest time for FDO and the most overbooked periods. Below are the basic categories of work that FDO does.

Do It Now Calls (DIN)

Do It Now work relates to emergencies or other items that need to be done immediately. When DIN’s are issued by FDO, staff are directed to stop whatever they are doing and respond to these immediately.

Preventative Maintenance (PM)

Preventative Maintenance is critical to ensure that building components or systems do not fair unexpectedly, thereby creating great disruption and cost to the campus. FDO maintains campus buildings according a 52-Week, Multi-Year Maintenance Calendar. This means that buildings and their various components and systems are scheduled for regular PM’s (maintenance, cleaning, and inspections), and these are often scheduled out years in advance depending on the component or system requirements. PM schedules are distributed to FDO staff using a 90 day schedule and updated on an ongoing basis. Much of this work isn’t noticed by occupants as it takes place in basements, utility and mechanical rooms, and on roof tops to ensure building systems are operating as intended and to avoid unexpected failures that can cause substantial campus disruption.

Deferred Maintenance (DM)

DM is major maintenance work that is deferred due to a lack of funding. These are major building system overhauls and replacements such as roofs, HVAC systems, boilers, underground utility infrastructure, sewer systems, water systems, electrical systems, etc. The campus currently has in excess of $100 million of DM work that is needed but cannot be done until funding is available. FDO receives funding annually to address the most pressing DM needs that the funding will provide for.

Corrective Maintenance (CM)

Corrective Maintenance are requests that come in to repair something that is broken as opposed to PM’s that are work we do to prevent something from breaking.

Non-Maintenance Projects (NMP)

Non-Maintenance Projects relate to items that are not a repair but rather a change to a facility. An NMP might be something like a remodel to a space, addition of infrastructure to support a change requested by the end user. NMP are items that the requesting department would need to initiate and also would be responsible to pay the costs for, or they may be major projects funded by the State or the Chancellors Office. These projects range from new buildings to smaller remodels. Currently, FDO is managing over 100 NMP’s with a cost of over $400 million dollars. NMP’s often have a fairly long queue time due to the sheer volume of requests. Long range planning by requesting departments is crucial for departments to ensure FDO can meet their needs.