A repair that nobody is working on looks the same as a repair that is fine. Both are "open". The difference is time: how long since anything happened. We call a job like that a silent job, and the way to find them is to measure stall age.
What stall age is
Stall age is how long an open job has sat at its current stage. A job triaged three days ago and waiting for a contractor has a stall age of three days at that stage. A job waiting for an invoice for three weeks has a stall age of three weeks. It is not the total age of the job: a repair can be old and moving, or new and stuck.
Measure it at each stage
The stages of a repair give you the places to look:
- Reported. Nobody has looked at it yet. The first response is the one tenants judge.
- Triaged. Decided, but not yet moved on.
- Awaiting approval and assigned. Waiting on a decision, or with a contractor who has not started.
- In progress. The work is under way.
- Awaiting invoice. The work is done; the paperwork is not.
- Awaiting sign-off. Waiting on one of your own team.
Different stages deserve different limits. In FixDocket a job counts as stalled after two calendar days as reported, three as triaged, five awaiting approval, assigned or awaiting sign-off, and fourteen in progress or awaiting an invoice. Closed and cancelled jobs cannot stall. Those are a first cut at "worth chasing", so take them as a starting point for your own.
What to do with the number
Sort open jobs by how far past its limit each has gone, longest first, and start at the top of the list each morning. FixDocket's stalled view does this for you: open jobs that have sat at one stage too long, the furthest past first. Over time the same figures tell you which stage is your bottleneck: if sign-off is where jobs wait, the fix is internal.
Read why repairs stall, or see how it works for letting agents.