Archibus holds an enormous amount of data. That’s the good news. The challenge is knowing which Archibus reports deserve a regular look, because no facility manager can review everything every week.
Here are five that earn a spot on the weekly list. Together, they cover the work in front of you, the service you’re delivering, the money you’re allocating, the commitments coming due, and the assets you can’t afford to lose.
Why Run Them Weekly?
Monthly reviews tell you what went wrong. Weekly reviews let you fix it. A backlog that drifts for four weeks is a problem, but one that drifts for a week is a quick conversation.
A weekly rhythm also builds a habit. When the same five reports get a look every Monday, patterns jump out and surprises get rarer.
1. Work Order Backlog
What it shows: Open work requests, grouped by status, age, trade, building, or priority.
Why it matters: Backlog is the clearest picture of whether your team is keeping up. A growing queue means demand is outpacing capacity, or work is stuck somewhere in the process.
What to look for:
- Requests that have been open far longer than their priority should allow
- Work waiting on approval, which often points to a bottleneck outside the shop
- Requests that haven’t been assigned to anyone
- One trade or building carrying a disproportionate share
What to do: Reassign, escalate, or close out. Even a quick pass to confirm that “open” work is actually still open can clean up a surprising amount.
2. SLA Compliance
What it shows: How often work is responded to and completed within the targets you’ve set.
Why it matters: SLAs turn “we’re busy” into “here’s how we’re performing.” They’re also what leadership and customers actually notice.
What to look for:
- Any drop compared with last week
- Priorities or problem types where you miss targets most often
- Specific crafts or buildings that lag behind the rest
- Work that is trending toward a breach but hasn’t missed yet
What to do: Dig into root cause. Missed targets usually trace back to staffing, parts, approvals, or targets that were unrealistic from the start. Adjust the process or the target, but do it deliberately.
3. Space Chargebacks
What it shows: How space costs are allocated back to divisions and departments, typically based on the area they occupy.
Why it matters weekly: You aren’t billing every week. Instead, you’re checking that the inputs are right before the billing cycle arrives. Chargebacks are only as accurate as the data underneath them.
What to look for:
- Rooms that aren’t assigned to a department
- Recent moves or organizational changes that haven’t been reflected
- Departments whose charges changed unexpectedly
- Common area that hasn’t been prorated the way you intended
What to do: Fix problems at the source. Assign the rooms, update the occupancy, and correct the department codes, so the month-end numbers hold up when finance asks questions.
4. Lease Expirations
What it shows: Leases and options with upcoming dates, such as expirations, renewal options, and notice deadlines.
Why it matters: Missed dates cost money. A notice window that closes quietly can lock in a renewal or remove your leverage.
What to look for:
- Expirations and option dates coming up in the next several months
- Notice deadlines, which often arrive well before the expiration itself
- Leases tied to space that’s underused
Archibus can also surface alerts for leases and options coming due, which makes this one easy to build into the routine.
What to do: Start conversations early with leadership, finance, and the landlord. Review utilization first, so decisions rest on data rather than inertia.
5. Critical Assets
What it shows: Assets flagged as critical, along with their condition, open work, and maintenance status.
Why it matters: Not all equipment is equal. If a chiller serving a lab fails, the impact is far bigger than if a minor unit goes down.
What to look for:
- Critical assets in poor condition
- Overdue preventive maintenance on critical equipment
- Open work requests against critical assets
- Repeat failures on the same equipment
What to do: Move critical work to the front of the line and confirm PM is current. Also flag assets where repair costs suggest it’s time to plan for replacement.
A 30-Minute Weekly Routine
Putting it all together doesn’t have to take long. Here’s one way to run it:
- Backlog (10 minutes): Clear stalled and aging requests first.
- SLA compliance (5 minutes): Note the trend and flag any misses.
- Critical assets (5 minutes): Confirm nothing important is slipping.
- Lease dates (5 minutes): Check what’s coming up.
- Space data (5 minutes): Spot-check assignments, especially before a billing cycle.
These times are only suggestions. Adjust them to fit the size of your portfolio.
A Note on Report Names
Archibus is highly configurable, so report names, dashboards, and navigation can differ by version and by how your organization has set things up. If you can’t find one of these views, your Archibus administrator can help. So can IMS Consulting.
Prefer to ask instead of click? IMS.ai, built natively inside Archibus, lets you ask questions about work requests and maintenance analytics in plain language.
The Bottom Line
You don’t need a dozen dashboards to stay on top of your portfolio. Five well-chosen reports, reviewed on a steady schedule, will surface most of what needs your attention.
IMS Consulting helps organizations get more from Archibus. If you’d like help setting up these views, cleaning up the data behind them, or building a weekly review routine, we’re happy to talk.
About IMS Consulting:
For over a decade, IMS Consulting has been at the forefront of delivering comprehensive services across multiple platforms, including Archibus, ServiceNow, and ESRI, to our diverse clientele in both public and private sectors. As a dedicated small business, we offer personalized attention from experienced and certified consultants. Our experts collaborate closely with clients to gain a deep understanding of their operational processes, identify unique requirements, and uncover opportunities for enhanced management of their infrastructure. We are committed to helping you make informed capital budgeting decisions that yield benefits today and sustainably into the future.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should facility managers review Archibus reports?
Operational reports such as work order backlog and SLA compliance are worth a weekly look, since problems can build quickly. Financial reports like space chargebacks often follow a monthly or quarterly cycle. Even so, a weekly check on the underlying data helps keep them accurate.
Do I need to be an Archibus expert to run these reports?
No. Most of these views are standard parts of the application, and your Archibus administrator can help you find them. Archibus also has a Favorites option in the navigation, which can keep your weekly views one click away.
What should I do if the data in a report looks wrong?
Fix it at the source. Reports reflect the records behind them, so correcting room assignments, department codes, or work order statuses will improve every report that draws on them.