AppFolio work orders: what the Work Done button can’t tell you

AppFolio gives a maintenance request a clear path on paper. A resident submits it online, it becomes a work order, a vendor sees it in the AppFolio Vendor Portal, and the vendor marks it done and sends an invoice. Every step has a screen. What the screens don’t do is make the calls between the steps, and that is where most of a property manager’s maintenance day goes.

This post walks the path from AppFolio’s own public pages and help material, then names the points where a job waits on a person. It describes AppFolio as its public pages do, checked on the date in the sources.

From online request to Work Done in AppFolio

1. The resident submits it. AppFolio lists online maintenance requests and work orders among its core maintenance features, and says residents get live status views as the work progresses.
2. The work order goes to a vendor. Newly assigned work orders appear in the vendor’s portal automatically, with an email alert. Depending on the job, the vendor may need to accept or decline it.
3. An estimate, if you ask for one. You can request estimates from several vendors. An approved estimate moves the job to the vendor’s In Progress group, and the vendor gets an email.
4. The work happens. The vendor can post notes to you with up to 10 photos per note.
5. The vendor marks it done. A Work Done button tells you the job is finished, with 10 seconds to undo it.
6. The invoice and payment. The vendor uploads or builds an invoice in the portal, and its status moves from Needs Invoice to Under Review, Payment Pending and Payment Sent.

AppFolio also sells an AI coordinator it calls the Realm-X Maintenance Performer, which it says can reply to residents, analyze images, troubleshoot and prioritize emergencies. If you use it, the questions below still apply to whatever handles the steps between screens.

Where an AppFolio work order waits on a person

Each step above ends with someone waiting on someone else. The software records the wait. A person still has to notice it and act.

The last two rows matter most. A Work Done tap tells you the vendor thinks the job is finished. It doesn’t tell you the tenant has hot water again. And an online request submitted at 11:40 PM ET waits for a person to read it, whatever its status says.

A checklist for AppFolio users

• Set a time after which a job nobody has accepted moves to your backup vendor
• Ask for estimates from two vendors on bigger jobs, so a quiet one doesn’t hold the job
• Ask vendors for a photo note before they tap Work Done, and keep it on the work order
• Ask the tenant whether it is fixed before you close the work order, and record the answer
• Write down what counts as an emergency, so a night request gets the same answer every time
• Pick a time limit for each of the other waits above too

Our posts on following up with a quiet vendor and confirming a repair before closing the work order go deeper on the last three.

Where Now Ours fits

Connected to AppFolio, now ours reads your work orders and writes each step back, so the AppFolio work order stays the record. The job a vendor hasn’t accepted is the one it chases: Ours texts that vendor up to 4 times in your company’s name, and if they stay quiet, you get one line in Needs you with the next vendor to offer it to. It answers tenant calls and texts at any hour, offers jobs to your technicians before your vendors and books the visit with the tenant. The work order closes only when the tenant confirms the fix, or the vendor or technician marks it done with a photo or note. On Cautious, the default, it asks before it picks a vendor or spends money. See how now ours works with AppFolio.