Monday morning planning sessions often involve distributing the week’s work orders across maintenance crews. Without batch tools, this means opening each work order individually, assigning it to a user or group, closing it, opening the next one, repeat 20 times. Distribution feature in Antero lets you select multiple work orders and assign, print, or email all of them in one action, turning a 20-minute task into a 2-minute task.
Why use the distribution feature?
Maintenance planning shouldn’t be tedious data entry. When you’ve identified 15 work orders for the electrical crew this week, you shouldn’t have to open each one individually to assign it to the Electrical Team maintenance group. When Friday afternoon arrives and you want to print next week’s scheduled work orders for the crew board, you shouldn’t have to print them one at a time. Distribution feature handles bulk actions efficiently, so supervisors spend time planning work instead of clicking through screens.
How to assign multiple work orders at once
In the work management screen, use filters or manual selection to identify the work orders you want to assign. Hold Ctrl and click each work order to select multiple, or use the filter to display only certain work orders, then select all. Click the Distribution button in the toolbar. Choose Assign to Maintenance Group or Assign to User from the dropdown. Select the target group or user. Click Apply. Antero updates all selected work orders immediately with the new assignment. Done.
Print work orders in batches
Some plants still post printed work orders on crew boards or hand them out during shift briefings. Printing 20 individual work orders one at a time wastes time and paper (from misprints or formatting issues). With distribution feature, select the work orders you want to print, click Distribution, choose Print, and Antero sends all of them to the printer in one job. Review the batch print preview to ensure formatting is correct, then print once.
Email work orders to operators or supervisors
For plants using email notifications, distribution feature can email selected work orders to assigned users automatically. Select the work orders, click Distribution, choose Email, and pick recipients from your user list (filtered to those with email addresses on file). Antero emails each work order with all its details—task instructions, parts, attachments—so recipients can review before starting. This is useful for remote operators, contract workers, or supervisors who need advance notice of upcoming work.
Common distribution scenarios
Monday morning planning: Supervisor reviews all new work orders that generated over the weekend or from scheduled templates. Selects 10 for the day shift crew, uses distribution feature to assign them all to “Day Shift Maintenance” group in one click.
Shift handoff: Day shift didn’t finish 5 work orders. Supervisor selects those 5, uses distribution feature to reassign them to “Night Shift Maintenance” so they pick up where day shift left off.
Contract work: Plant has 8 HVAC work orders that need to go to an external contractor. Supervisor selects all 8, uses distribution feature to print them and attach to the contractor’s PO or email them to the contractor’s account.
Weekly planning: Supervisor forecasts next week’s scheduled PM work. Filters to show all scheduled work orders due next week, prints them all using distribution feature, and posts them on the crew board Friday afternoon so Monday morning starts smoothly.
Combine distribution with filters
Distribution feature power multiplies when combined with Antero’s filtering tools. Filter to show only “Building Maintenance” type work orders assigned to “Day Shift” with a due date this week and status “Open.” Now you’re looking at exactly the subset you want to act on. Select all, use distribution feature to reassign, print, or email. Filter different parameters, repeat. This workflow makes bulk actions precise instead of risky—you see exactly what you’re acting on before you act.
Avoid accidental bulk changes
Because distribution feature acts on all selected work orders, double-check your selection before clicking Apply. Accidentally selecting 50 work orders instead of 5 and assigning them all to the wrong person creates cleanup work. Antero shows a confirmation dialog with the count of work orders affected—if the number looks wrong, cancel and reselect. A moment of verification prevents hours of correction.
Use distribution for recurring weekly tasks
If your plant has a consistent weekly planning routine—every Monday assign scheduled PM, every Friday prep next week’s work—distribution feature makes that routine fast and repeatable. Supervisors develop muscle memory: open work management, apply the standard filter for this week’s PM, select all, distribution, assign to group, done. Five minutes, every week, no variation, no missed work orders.
Why batch actions matter
Maintenance management involves hundreds of small administrative tasks. Each one might take 30 seconds individually, but 200 tasks × 30 seconds = 100 minutes of pure clicking. Distribution feature and similar batch tools compress that time by 80-90%, freeing supervisors to focus on higher-value work: analyzing failure patterns, coaching operators, planning capital projects, or actually fixing equipment instead of pushing data around.
Next Steps: Streamline Antero work order management with batch tools →
