Facilities Help Desk Software for Microsoft Teams
Facilities management helpdesk software gives you one place to log every building and workplace request, from a leaking faucet to a broken door lock, and turns each one into a ticket with an owner, a priority, and a deadline. If your organization runs on Microsoft 365, that help desk can live inside Microsoft Teams, where your team already works.
A facilities team takes requests from a QR code or a phone photo, routes them by category, sets response targets for urgent problems, and watches workload on a dashboard. A CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) is a separate tool for assets and maintenance schedules.
What is facilities help desk software?
Facilities help desk software is a request desk that logs, routes, and tracks building and workplace requests such as repairs, cleaning, access, and office moves. Some teams call it a facilities ticketing system, and each request becomes a ticket with a requestor, a location, an owner, and a status.
In help desk facilities work, the software manages requests, while a CMMS manages assets and maintenance schedules, and a later section explains when you need both.
Why do facilities requests get lost in email and chat?
Email and chat leave your facilities requests without an owner, a priority, or a record the next person can see, so requests get lost. A leak mentioned in a team chat, a broken lock reported by email, and a request logged on one shift all depend on someone remembering to act.
At Fresno Chaffee Zoo, the Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) and Security department handled safety issues, security needs, and facility access through emails and verbal updates. A request logged on one shift could go unnoticed by the next.
Since the switch, the zoo reports a response time improvement of more than 30% for security and maintenance tickets, according to its customer review of Ticketing as a Service.
What information does a facilities request need?
A facilities request needs five details before your team can act on it: where the problem is, what kind of problem it is, how urgent it is, what it looks like, and who reported it.
Location: The building, floor, or room, so your technician goes to the right place the first time.
Category: Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, cleaning, security and access, or moves, which decides who receives the request.
Urgency: The difference between a flooding pipe and a flickering light, which decides how fast someone must respond.
Photo: A picture shows your technician what to bring before the visit and avoids a second trip.
Requestor: Someone to ask when a detail is missing, and someone to notify when the work is done.
How can employees report a problem from a QR code or a phone?
Your employees can report a problem by scanning a QR code that opens the new-ticket form in Microsoft Teams, or by opening the same form in the Teams mobile app. Ticketing as a Service by TeamsWork gives your facilities team a request desk inside Microsoft Teams, so there is no separate portal to learn.
Copy the link of the new-ticket form and turn it into a QR code with any free QR code generator. Stick that code on a door, a vending area, or a piece of equipment, and a scan opens the new-ticket form for whoever spots a problem.
On a phone, the attachment box of the form has a camera button, so your requestor can take a photo or a short video, name it, and save the ticket. Your technician sees the problem before the visit and can bring the right tools the first time.
How do you route requests to the right technician?
You route requests by giving each one a category tag and letting assignment rules send every tag to the right person. Tags are grouped into categories, so a category such as Request type can hold HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Cleaning, Security and access, and Moves as separate tags.
A rule states a condition and an assignee: if the tag is plumbing, assign the ticket to the plumber, and if the priority is urgent, assign it to the supervisor. Rules can use tags and custom fields as conditions, and an urgent rule placed first with Stop processing more rules ticked takes priority over the tag rules.
The automatic assignee list can also notify your team when a ticket arrives without an assignee, and building and room come from custom fields on the ticket form.
Every ticket has one assignee, so you always know who owns it, and a Followers custom field keeps others in the loop, such as the building manager, even when they are neither the assignee nor the requestor.
How do SLAs work for urgent facilities requests?
A service level agreement (SLA) sets how quickly a request must get a first response and be resolved, counted in working hours. Define the working schedule once, then set the targets and who gets the escalation when one is missed.
A burst pipe marked Urgent follows the Urgent targets you set in your SLA configuration for Microsoft Teams ticketing.
Due date alerts notify the assignee one day before, on, and for two days after the due date, and idle ticket alerts can reassign a ticket nobody has touched for a set number of days, for example 3.
How do you see which team member is overloaded?
The ticket dashboard shows how many tickets each assignee has open, in progress, resolved, or closed, plus created versus resolved over time, so you can step in before requests slip.
Owners get the dashboard inside Teams, and first response and resolution charts appear once SLAs are enabled. Filters narrow the view by date range, tag, and priority. The ticket list below the ticket dashboard in Microsoft Teams shows the tickets behind each chart. For deeper analysis, a Power BI report is available on the Leader plan.
Facilities help desk or CMMS: which one do you need?
A facilities help desk handles requests, while a CMMS manages assets, preventive maintenance, and work orders, and the table below shows where each one fits.
What you need | Facilities help desk | CMMS |
|---|---|---|
Receive, assign, and track requests | Yes | Often |
Photos and location with every request | Yes | Often |
Response targets and escalation | Yes | Often |
Workload and resolution reporting | Yes | Yes |
Asset register and equipment history | No | Yes |
Preventive maintenance schedules and work orders | No | Yes |
Spare parts inventory and vendor contracts | No | Yes |
Ticketing as a Service covers the first column, the request side. Some teams start with a help desk and add a CMMS later, when asset history becomes the problem.
For recurring inspections without a full CMMS, a checklist app for Microsoft Teams such as Checklist as a Service covers them in the same Teams environment. Its recurring checklists repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or on custom dates, so a monthly fire-door check reaches the right person every month.
How to set up a facilities help desk in Microsoft Teams
Create a dedicated Facilities instance, add the fields and tags your requests need, then connect assignment rules, SLA targets, and a QR code. Treat the categories and targets below as starting points for your own building. Steps 3, 5, and 6 need the Professional plan.
Install the app: Add Ticketing as a Service to Microsoft Teams from the TeamsWork website or Microsoft AppSource.
Create the Facilities instance: Use a Teams channel for your facilities team, separate from IT, so owners, assignees, and members are only facilities staff.
Add location fields: Create required custom fields for building and room.
Define category tags: Add tags such as HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cleaning, security and access, and more.
Set assignment rules: Send each tag to the right assignee, and put the Urgent rule first with Stop processing more rules ticked.
Configure the SLA: Set the working schedule, then first response and resolution targets for urgent requests, with an escalation contact.
Print the QR code: Copy the link from the New Ticket form, create the code with any free QR code generator by following steps to create a QR code for ticket submission, and place it at doors and equipment.
Test with a real request: Report a problem from your phone with a photo, then check the notification, assignment, and SLA timer.
Run your facilities help desk inside Microsoft Teams
Requests that sit in an inbox or a chat thread depend on someone remembering them. Ticketing as a Service by TeamsWork gives each request an owner, a priority, and a deadline inside the Microsoft Teams your employees already use. Pricing is per organization with unlimited users, so there is no per-seat fee as your headcount grows.
Frequently asked questions
What is a facilities help desk?
A facilities help desk is a central place where employees report building and workplace problems and where the facilities team logs, assigns, and tracks each request until it is resolved. Software versions turn every request into a ticket with a location, a priority, and an owner.
Is a facilities help desk the same as a CMMS?
No, a facilities help desk manages requests, while a CMMS manages assets, preventive maintenance schedules, and work orders. The request side is where Ticketing as a Service fits, and teams that need asset history or maintenance planning add a CMMS, with Checklist as a Service available for recurring inspections.
Can contractors submit or update requests?
Yes, contractors can raise requests in two ways: by being invited as guests in your Microsoft 365 tenant, or by sending an email when email-to-ticket is on, which is part of the Professional plan. The app creates the ticket from the email, and the contractor's reply is added to the ticket as a comment.
Is there a free facilities help desk?
Yes, Ticketing as a Service has a Free plan with up to 30 tickets a month and a one-month free trial, so you can test it with one team before you decide.
How does an employee report an issue from a phone?
An employee scans a QR code or opens the Facilities instance in the Teams mobile app, describes the problem in the new-ticket form, adds a photo with the camera button, and saves the ticket. The ticket then shows the facilities team the photo and the location.
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