Ticket Categories and Priority Levels
The seven categories and four priorities FacilitySync uses, and how to choose between them consistently.
Categories and priorities are fixed lists, not free text. That is deliberate — reports group by them, so a category someone invented once would fragment your spend analysis.
The seven categories
| Category | Covers |
|---|---|
| HVAC | Heating, cooling, ventilation, thermostats, filters |
| Plumbing | Water supply, drains, toilets, leaks, water heaters |
| Electrical | Wiring, outlets, breakers, lighting circuits |
| Grounds | Landscaping, parking, exterior surfaces, drainage |
| Equipment | Appliances and machinery — kitchen equipment, AV, generators |
| Cleaning | Deep cleans, stain removal, post-event recovery |
| Other | Anything that genuinely does not fit |
Categories are shared with recurring schedules, so a monthly filter change and a one-off air conditioning fault both land under HVAC and appear together in a spend-by-category report.
Tip: If Other is growing past a handful of tickets, look at what is in it. A pattern in Other usually means a category is doing double duty — bar equipment filed under Equipment alongside the generator, for instance — and it is worth deciding a convention and writing it down.
The four priorities
| Priority | Use it when | Typical target |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Life safety, or the venue cannot host | Hours |
| High | Significant impact on operations | Same day |
| Medium | Normal maintenance | Days |
| Low | Cosmetic, or genuinely can wait | Weeks |
Priority is not a wish. It sets the SLA clock: each priority has a resolution deadline in hours, configured under Settings → SLA Targets, and a ticket past its target is flagged overdue on the ticket board and in reports.
Choosing a priority consistently
The question that keeps a team honest is what happens if this waits a week?
- The venue cannot host an event → Critical
- An event is degraded but goes ahead → High
- Something wears out faster, or a guest notices → Medium
- Nothing → Low
The failure mode is priority inflation. If everything is Critical, the Critical filter stops being the list worth looking at first, and the SLA figures stop meaning anything. A useful check: if your Critical count as a share of tickets is climbing month over month, either the building is genuinely deteriorating or the team is over-classifying. Run Ticket Load by Priority in the reports workbench and look at the trend.
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