Generator maintenance software has to do the part a spreadsheet cannot: keep a next due date on each unit, let an authorized person prepare the work order, capture the visit in the field, and leave a record the office can find later. A completed PM should be retrievable on that generator, not a note buried in a closed job.
If the schedule is the business, a missed PM is an exposed obligation. The useful test is whether the tool can show what is due, on which unit, and who is responsible, without someone rebuilding that list by hand.
What to make the vendor show
Ask for these on a site you already service, not on a sample fleet:
- A schedule per unit. Each generator has its own record and its own next due date.
- The agreement behind the dates. Units on a service agreement should show the future visits that agreement is supposed to create.
- Draft work, not a silent schedule change. When a PM is due, an authorized person prepares the work order. Preparing it is not the same as scheduling or completing it.
- Field capture. The technician opens a checklist on a phone or tablet and records readings, photos, and serials against the unit.
- Due and overdue visibility. The office can see overdue and upcoming work by equipment, customer, due date, and assigned technician.
- A record you can hand over. Completed work stays tied to the unit, with the person, time, and snapshot of an audited approval.
Schedule the unit, not only the customer
A generator has its own identity: make, model, serial, kW rating, ATS, fuel type, and install date. It also has its own maintenance obligation. A site with several generators is several obligations, each on its own clock.
The schedule should follow the unit. On a multi-generator site, staff choose whether to prepare one work order per unit or to group the units due at that address into one visit. When a PM is completed against one unit, that unit's next due date is the one that moves. The other units stay on their own dates.
Recurring agreements are what keep the calendar from being retyped. Placing a unit on a plan should populate its future PMs so the agreement and the due list describe the same work.
Data can move. The decision stays with a person
When a PM comes due, the work order should already carry the customer, the site, the access notes, and the equipment. The technician should be checking those facts, not typing them again. That is data flowing from the record the system already has.
Generating the work order is not advancing the job. In PowerOps, an authorized person generates draft work orders for enabled schedules that are overdue or due within 30 days. Staff review the scope and approve scheduling. A reminder flags the overdue item. It does not complete the PM. Payment receipt can mark an invoice Paid. That is the automatic step. The service decisions before it are clicks by a named account.
On reminders
The record starts at the unit
The readings in a maintenance record are taken at the generator, not at a desk. Mobile capture lets the technician work from a checklist and write readings, photos, and serials against that unit. Re-entry at the office puts a name on a reading the clerk did not witness.
PowerOps inspection, checklist, and service-report drafts save locally with an online session check. Reconnect to resume or submit them; they never submit in the background. Only eligible note and labor operations support automatic sync. Photos, signatures, time and status actions, and completion require a connection.
Due, coming due, and overdue
PowerOps reviews active schedules by equipment, customer, due date, and assigned technician. Overdue and upcoming work are separate. A 12-month chart counts each schedule's stored next due date. It does not project later repeat visits or calculate how much labor the month needs.
When something is overdue, the view is the signal. A person decides what to do. The software does not mark the PM done because the date passed.
The maintenance record is the deliverable
A unit's history outlasts one visit and often one technician. Completed PMs, transfer tests, and load bank results need to stay on that unit. Readings stored only as free text on a closed job have to be reassembled when someone asks.
An audited completion in PowerOps keeps the approving account, the server timestamp, the attestation, and a snapshot of the submitted data. That audit entry is append-only. Working forms and equipment fields can still change through permitted paths. The snapshot is what was submitted at that click. It does not, by itself, prove the physical work or that a reviewer will accept it.
A customer may ask for records on a hospital or a data center. That describes the customer's site. It is not a claim that those organizations are PowerOps customers. The check on the record is narrower: who approved the visit, when the server accepted it, and what evidence the approval retained.
Cadence belongs to the standard and the AHJ
How often to test and what the visit must include are set by the governing standard, the adopted edition, and the authority having jurisdiction. They vary by facility and use. Software stores the interval the shop configured. It does not decide the requirement.
On standards
PowerOps stores the interval selected on the agreement. The settings include monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and yearly. Those are product options, published on the generator maintenance software page. They are not a statement of what NFPA 110 requires, and this guide does not assign one of them to a facility type.
How PowerOps fits
PowerOps is generator service software organized around the unit and the maintenance record. It covers PM schedules, agreements, draft work orders, mobile checklists, a due and overdue view, and the approval snapshot described above.
The agreement drives the schedule. The schedule is what an authorized person uses to generate draft work. Field capture feeds the unit record. Configured AI can draft follow-ups or flag overdue work inside a stage. It does not approve a gate or change the workflow state.
Questions to take into a demo
- Does each generator have its own next due date?
- Do agreements populate the future PMs for the units on them?
- Who clicks to create a draft work order, and who approves the schedule?
- Which drafts persist with limited connectivity, and which actions need a connection?
- Can the office separate overdue and upcoming work by equipment and technician?
- Does completion keep an approval snapshot, and can working forms still be corrected?
- Does anything advance a PM because a date passed?
- Can the shop set the interval the agreement uses, instead of accepting a hard-coded one?
Keep the sample equipment record, the draft work order, the submitted checklist, and the approval snapshot from the demo. The gaps on that set are the decision.