Read → Classify → Check History → Prioritise → Route

Maintenance Triage and Dispatch

Reads each incoming maintenance request, classifies the right trade, checks the unit's history for repeat issues, sets priority against your rules, and routes the ticket to the correct queue ready for dispatch.

The Problem

The wrong tech showed up. Twice.

A request comes in: "Water on the bathroom floor." Your coordinator reads it, calls it plumbing, sets it as medium priority. The plumber shows up - it's actually a leaking AC condensate line. Wrong trade. Rescheduled. The resident calls twice. Two wasted visits.

What Changes

The right tech, the first time.

The agent reads the request, checks the unit's maintenance history, and finds that the AC condensate line was flagged six months ago. It assigns the ticket to HVAC instead of plumbing and sets priority to high because of potential water damage. The right tech shows up the first time.

Humans stay in control: Your coordinator approves every dispatch and overrides any call the agent gets wrong. The agent handles the reading, the trade classification, the history lookup, and the priority rules. It removes the guesswork on routing, not the decision to send.

HOW THE AGENT WORKS

TRIGGERLLMAPIDECISIONACTIONWAIT

TRIGGERRequest ArrivesWebhook from portal, SMS, email, or phone-log entry

LLMRead & ClassifyLLM reads request → trade, symptom, location

APIPull Unit HistoryQuery PMS for past tickets on this unit/asset

LLMMatch Repeat IssueCheck whether this symptom has appeared before

DECISIONSafety / Emergency?

LLMSet PriorityApply priority rules - damage risk, habitability

APIFind Queue / TechMap trade to the right queue or assigned tech

DECISIONDetails Complete?

ACTIONRoute TicketCreate routed work order, flag for coordinator

ACTIONAlert CoordinatorHigh-priority or emergency → immediate notification

The agent uses the same information your coordinator would use - it just checks the history faster and applies trade classification rules consistently. Your coordinator still reviews and approves the dispatch. The agent removes the guesswork, not the oversight.

HOW TO BUILD IT

Three levels of depth. Pick the one that matches where you are.

For the ops person who needs to understand what's involved and brief their team.

Your IntakePortal, SMS, email, phone log

The AgentWorkflow engine + LLM

Your PMSUnit history, work orders, queues

WHAT YOUR TEAM PROVIDES ONCE

Your trade taxonomy - the categories and sub-categories work gets sorted into
Priority rules - what counts as emergency, high, medium, low, and why
Routing map - which trade goes to which queue, vendor, or in-house tech
Required details per category - what a complete ticket needs before dispatch
Escalation rules - when the coordinator gets pinged instead of auto-routed

What happens day-to-day: Requests arrive the way they always do. The agent reads each one, classifies the trade, checks the unit's history, sets priority, and routes it. Your coordinator opens a queue of correctly sorted tickets every morning instead of a pile of raw text to triage by hand.

For the IT person or technical lead who needs to scope the integration.

INQUIRY SOURCES

Resident portal

SMS / email inbox

Phone-log entry

WORKFLOW ENGINE (N8N)

Trigger

LLM - Classify trade

PMS API - Unit history

LLM - Match + prioritise

Rules - Routing map

PMS API - Create WO

Notify coordinator

CONNECTS TO

PMS (Yardi / AppFolio / RealPage)Read: unit history, queues. Write: routed work order

Intake channels (portal / SMS / email)Read: incoming requests

Notifications (Slack / email / SMS)Alert coordinator on emergency or low-confidence calls

CMMS (optional - e.g. Property Meld)Optional - sync ticket status and dispatch

WITHOUT PMS API

Agent classifies and prioritises from the request text alone and posts the routed ticket to a shared queue or sheet. No history lookup, so repeat-issue matching is skipped. Still removes the manual triage step.

WITH PMS API

Agent reads live unit history and writes the routed work order straight back. Classification uses real repeat-issue data. Best experience.

For the person who wants to build this agent step by step. Each node below maps to an n8n workflow node.

TRIGGERNode 1

Trigger - Webhook / Email / SMS

Webhook from portal, OR IMAP on the maintenance inbox, OR Twilio inbound SMS. Normalise all three into one payload.

Output: { unit_id, resident_name, channel, raw_message, photos, timestamp }

LLMNode 2

LLM - Classify Trade & Symptom

OpenAI GPT-4 or Anthropic Claude. Classifies the request into your trade taxonomy and extracts the symptom and location.

Output: { trade, sub_category, symptom, location, access_notes, confidence }

You are an assistant that reads property maintenance requests and classifies them.

Read the request below and return:
- trade: one of [plumbing, hvac, electrical, appliance, general, pest, life_safety]
- sub_category: a short specific label (e.g. "water leak", "no cooling", "outlet dead")
- symptom: what the resident is actually reporting, in a few words
- location: room or area in the unit
- active_damage: true if water/electrical/safety damage may be ongoing, else false
- access_notes: any entry or pet instructions mentioned
- confidence: high / medium / low - how sure you are of the trade

If the trade is ambiguous between two options, set confidence to low and name both in sub_category.
Respond ONLY with valid JSON. No explanation.

--- REQUEST ---
{raw_message}

INPUT

"There's water on the bathroom floor near the toilet, been there since this morning. It's spreading toward the hallway. You can come anytime, no pets."

OUTPUT

{
  "trade": "plumbing",
  "sub_category": "water leak - possible toilet or condensate line",
  "symptom": "water pooling on bathroom floor, spreading",
  "location": "bathroom",
  "active_damage": true,
  "access_notes": "anytime, no pets",
  "confidence": "low"
}

APINode 3

HTTP Request - Pull Unit History

GET request to your PMS/CMMS API for past work orders on this unit. Fallback: read from a maintenance-history sheet if no API.

Output: Array of past tickets: [{ date, trade, sub_category, resolution, recurring_flag }]

DECISIONNode 4

Condition - Emergency or Repeat?

IF active_damage = true OR trade = life_safety → priority = emergency, alert coordinator now. ELSE IF symptom matches a past ticket → raise priority one level and attach history.

Output: Branch: EMERGENCY (alert + route) or NORMAL (continue to priority rules)

LLMNode 5

LLM - Set Priority & Resolve Trade

Applies your priority rules and uses unit history to resolve a low-confidence trade call (e.g. recurring AC condensate line → HVAC, not plumbing).

Output: { final_trade, priority, reason, history_note }

You are a maintenance dispatch assistant. Decide the final trade and priority.

Use the classification, the unit history, and the priority rules below.
- If the history shows this exact symptom was caused by a different trade before, prefer that trade and explain why.
- Set priority using PRIORITY RULES. Never set emergency unless active damage or a life-safety issue is present.
- Give a one-line reason a coordinator can read at a glance.

CLASSIFICATION:
{classification_json}

UNIT HISTORY:
{unit_history_formatted}

PRIORITY RULES:
{approved_priority_rules}

Respond ONLY with valid JSON:
{ "final_trade": "", "priority": "", "reason": "", "history_note": "" }

OUTPUT

{
  "final_trade": "hvac",
  "priority": "high",
  "reason": "Water near bathroom matches AC condensate line flagged 6 months ago, not a plumbing leak. Active spread = high.",
  "history_note": "Recurring: condensate line cleared on 2025-11-12, same symptom."
}

APINode 6

HTTP Request - Route to Queue

Map final_trade to the correct queue or assigned tech via your routing map, then POST a work order to the PMS/CMMS with trade, priority, reason, and history note attached.

Output: Work order created. Status set to "Routed - pending coordinator review".

ACTIONNode 7

Notify & Flag

Send the coordinator a summary line. Emergency or low-confidence calls get an immediate alert; everything else lands in the morning queue.

Output: Coordinator notified. Ticket ready for one-tap approve or override.

MVP vs Advanced — Where To Start

MVP — START HERE

Single intake channel (portal webhook)
LLM trade classification only
Maintenance-history Google Sheet
Fixed priority rules
Routed ticket posted to a shared queue
Coordinator alert by email

ADVANCED — ADD LATER

Full Video Walkthrough Coming Soon

From raw request to routed ticket - step by step.

Everything on this page is free to learn.

When you're ready to build — do it yourself or bring us in.

Book a call to scope this

OTHER AGENTS IN LEASING & MARKETING

Punch List Generator

Converts QA failures into structured follow-up tasks

Work Order Triage and Priority Tagger

Applies consistent category and severity rules across all tickets

Parts and Materials Blocker Agent

Tracks parts-dependent jobs so tickets don't silently stall

Maintenance Missing Details Collector

Fills the gaps in a request before a tech is dispatched

Frequently asked questions

Maintenance Triage and Dispatch is an AI agent that classifies trade, sets priority from history, and triggers correct dispatch.

The wrong tech showed up. Twice. The Maintenance Triage and Dispatch addresses this — it classifies trade, sets priority from history, and triggers correct dispatch.

No — your team stays in control. Your coordinator approves every dispatch and overrides any call the agent gets wrong. The agent handles the reading, the trade classification, the history lookup, and the priority rules. It removes the guesswork on routing, not the decision to send.

This is 3 of 8 agents in Maintenance & Facilities. → · Explore all 10 departments →