Problems and Problem Types in Loc8
A Problem in Loc8 is a wide term used to address faults, issues, breakdowns, leakages, hazards, failures and other such scenarios that may occur on several levels anywhere in field, at a site, or against an asset. Owing to the various risk levels and challenges that can arise when a problem occurs, Loc8 equips you with Problem Types to help you tackle the complexity with a clear and systematic approach.
When a Problem occurs, with the help of Problem Types you are able to categorise the Problem and record critical information in a precise and structured format. This also ensures the person on duty stays in control of the situation without missing any of the important data. With extensive data collection, Problem Types help you to plan the solution and resolution in less time.
The first thing you'd like to know before proceeding to create a Problem Type is the structure of a Problem Type.
Structure of a Problem Type
Name and Prefix - allows you to give a naming convention to problems having similar characteristics, with the name possibly based on the language more common to your business/industry. It is the Name that the person reporting the problem sees and selects to refer to the incident in field.
Category - enables you to create a collection of problem types, considering that over time problem types will only grow. With category in place, searching, browsing and picking the right problem types becomes really quick and easy in both mobile and browser app.
Message/Instruction - provides you the space to freely enter specific directions to clearly guide the person dealing with a problem of a particular type.
Resolution tasks - enables you to get to the next step of resolving the problem by automating which tasks are applied from your Task Library to the subsequent job created to resolve the problem.
Custom Field - gives you the ability to standardise and regulate the data captured for any problem of a specific type. The custom fields that you create can be applied across different problem types, and if a custom field is removed from your Loc8 system, the data captured against a problem will remain intact.
In this article we will see how to:
Creating a new problem type
STEP 1 Go to the Settings page.
STEP 2 Open Problem Configuration.
Under Types tab, you will find a list of pre-built problem types for you to get started.
If you wish to work with the pre-built problem types instead of creating a new one at this stage, jump to the next section Configure a Problem Type.
STEP 3 Open the wizard to create and define the new problem type.
The next screen presents the structure of problem type, where you can fill in the mandatory fields necessary to distinguish the problem type from the rest and also add custom fields to capture specific data on the problem report, which is of this problem type. This has been discussed in the next section Configuring a Problem Type.
Configuring a Problem Type
STEP 1 Fill in the details to describe the problem type.
These are the first fields a person browsing through the list of problem types will see.
A sample screen of the Problem Type details displayed on the Loc8 Mobile app is shown below:
STEP 2 Specify tasks from your Task Library to automatically add them to the resolution job.
If you would like to create some more tasks, you can do so by opening Libraries -> Task Template in a new browser tab and follow the instructions in Create Task Template.
STEP 3 To add more specific fields, create Custom Fields and associate them to this particular Problem Type.
A sample screen of how the custom fields will be displayed on the Loc8 Mobile app is shown below:
Creating Custom Fields
STEP 1 Under Settings -> Problem Configuration, switch to the CUSTOM FIELDS tab.
STEP 2 Name the custom field group and define the fields that it will contain.
There are a wide range of field types available for you to choose from when creating custom fields to ensure reliable data storage.
The complete set of available field types are shown using examples:
All of the field types are pretty self-explanatory, they expect the same input as indicated by their Type name. The List type is no different, only that it has an additional step to add the options that should appear in the dropdown list (shown in the next section).
Creating a List Type Custom Field
STEP 1 Select List type and name the custom field.
STEP 2 Enter the options one at a time and save them.
This is how you can create a collection of custom fields under custom field groups and apply them to any Problem Types.
You have completed defining a Problem Type.
Now when your team reports a problem through their Loc8 Mobile app or reports a problem through browser, they can see this problem type, its associated resolution tasks, custom fields and other details that have been defined here.