For in-house estates & facilites management teams

One portfolio. Every service line. One accountable trail.

Running your own buildings means owning every issue, every operative, every provider. askporter Operations gives your team one place to raise, dispatch, track and close — from first report to signed-off job.

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See askporter Operations

The askporter task manager dashboard displayed on desktop and mobile, showing due, response, and resolution metrics with donut charts, total tasks over time graph, and recent team activity.

Your software reality

You want the data. You don't want to run the software.

In-house estates and FM teams sit in an awkward middle. Full-scale CAFM suites are built for the team running the facility on contract — months to deploy, a small department to run, priced on assumptions that don't match an in-house model. If you're running it in-house, most of that machinery is overhead you don't need — or it sits alongside a CAFM you already have, doing the parts that one doesn't do well. Spreadsheets, shared inboxes, Microsoft Teams and a WhatsApp group are too light. Issues raised in one channel get lost in another. External providers manage themselves. Occupants chase for answers you don't have. What you actually want is the data: which issue, which building, which provider, which status — in one place.

Two-thirds

of in-house FM teams still run their operation on spreadsheets, shared inboxes, and message threads.

< 75%

asset-register accuracy in 43% of organisations — the data in the system doesn't match the estate on the ground.

49→81 min

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) trending up across in-house FM — most of the time lost sits in coordination, not the fix itself.

Sources: IWFM / RICS in-house FM benchmarks · askporter FM Survey

What askporter delivers

What your team gets back

Reduce time from reported to resolved

Every issue lands in one place, triaged on arrival. Assignment and SLA clocks start automatically, whether the work goes to your in-house workforce / DLO or to an external provider.

Under 60 seconds to raise

End Back-and-Forth with Custom Issue Templates

Customise how issues are raised to match your exact workflows. askporter prompts users for specific details based on the issue category—whether that's precise office locations for fabric repairs or asset tags and model numbers for HVAC maintenance.

Any channel, anyone

Increase accountability across every service line

Maintenance, cleaning, security and caretaking run through one trail — per building, per service line, per operative. Occupants see one response. You see one report.

One trail, end to end

Prove services were delivered as paid for

Check-in and check-out confirm presence. Photo evidence confirms completion. Occupant feedback confirms the outcome. Service-provider performance becomes a fact on the page, not a claim on an invoice.

Photo evidence on every job

One platform, four people it works for

Built for the team accountable for the estate

A facilities manager reviewing a task schedule on a laptop while a maintenance worker completes a job on-site, illustrating how askporter connects office-based task management with field operations.

The portfolio owner

Head of Estates / Corporate Real Estate Director

Accountable for a multi-building portfolio. Needs portfolio-wide visibility: a snapshot of open issues, service status and exceptions across every site, a consistent audit trail across service lines, and confidence that services are delivered to the standard the contract specifies.

The in-house operator

Head of In-House FM / Facilities Manager

askporter acts as your helpdesk, in-house team, and external contractor coordinator in a single platform. It pulls every issue into one place, equips operatives with the data they need to execute, and provides proof that the job is done—giving you CAFM-level control without the CAFM-level headache and without adding to your headcount.

Internal owners of external providers

Service Provider Managers

Manage the cleaning contractor, the security provider, the specialist maintenance firms. Need a single view across every provider, appointments managed in one place, SLA visibility in real time, and evidence on every job — not end-of-month PDFs.

Colleagues, students, patients, staff

Occupants

Need to report an issue the way they'd send a message. Need to know it's been received, who's coming, and when it's done. One channel, clear status, no app to download.

Simplicity is the goal.

One platform for your operations

askporter Operations is one product covering the full in-house estates lifecycle — reporting, oversight, delivery, and occupant communication. Scopes are included as standard. No modules to buy, no tiers to upgrade. Works on its own where you have no CAFM; sits alongside the CAFM you already use where you do.

A facilities manager using askporter to send a proactive maintenance notification, composing a message about a planned lift inspection and selecting which service users and contractors to notify — all from within the task record.

Already running a CAFM?

Keep it. askporter runs alongside. You don't have to adopt the Control & Management layer to get value — Task Raising, Job Delivery and Outreach can be bought standalone and feed straight into the CAFM you already run. Plug us in wherever the friction is: how building users raise tasks, automating the chase for compliance documentation, or equipping field operatives with the data they need to execute.

Task Raising - the smart way raise a request

Job Delivery - the easiest way to manage your operatives

Outreach - keep your desk admin-free

Illustration of a person reporting a ceiling water leak via chat, with askporter raising an urgent task and assigning it with an ETA

Task Raising

Every issue, in one place — from every channel, from every building.

Occupants report issues the way they'd send a message — WhatsApp, email, QR code on a wall, or web. Self-help suggestions deflect the issues that shouldn't need a work order in the first place. What reaches your helpdesk is already triaged and ready to assign. Where you already run a CAFM, tasks sync through; where you don't, askporter carries the record. Either way, the issue is in one system, attributed to the right building, and ready for the next step.

Task Raising — any channel, any occupant, issue reported in seconds rather than minutes.
Self-Help & Triage — deflect issues that don't need a work order; escalate the ones that do.
CAFM Integration — where you already run a CAFM, tasks sync through; where you don't, askporter carries the record.

See Task Raising

A facilities manager reviewing the askporter dashboard on a tablet, showing task response and resolution charts, total tasks over time, and a prioritised task list — with the AI assistant panel open alongside for real-time queries.

Control & Management

One oversight layer across in-house operatives and external providers.

The layer between "issue raised" and "operative on site". Work orders and quotes go through the approval path you define. SLAs are configured by category, location, and asset — not one-size-fits-all. Assignments route to the right team, whether that's your DLO, your cleaning contractor, your security provider or a specialist maintenance firm — in one motion, on one trail. Every stakeholder sees the same picture: in-house operatives and external providers work inside a single shared record, with status notifications to the occupant at every step. When a job is trending toward breach, you hear about it before the penalty is booked — not after. Control & Management is the platform where FM teams without a CAFM run the operation end-to-end; for teams who already have one, it's optional — Task Raising and Outreach can do the standalone work alongside.

Work Orders & Quotes — raise work orders and request quotes before work is carried out, through the approval path you define.
Task Pre-Approvals — quotes can be set to automated approval where your business rules allow (e.g. below a defined value threshold).
SLA Management — SLAs configured by category, location and asset, with breach alerts before the window closes.
Task Assignment — route to the right team, in-house operative or external provider, in one motion.
Task Management — the single view of every open, in-progress and closed job across the portfolio.
Task Status Notifications — occupants updated automatically at each step; no "what's happening with my ticket?" inbound.
Performance Dashboards (Future) — portfolio, service-line and provider views when the feature ships.

See Control & Management

Job delivery

Operatives arrive prepared. Every job has proof.

In-house operatives and external providers work inside the same system. Jobs are briefed with asset history, access codes, and instructions before arrival. Check-in and check-out confirm presence via WhatsApp, QR code, NFC, or web link — no app to download. Photo evidence captures before and after. The job isn't closed on someone's word — it's closed on evidence your occupant, your auditor, and your finance team can all see. Coming to the platform: assigning external suppliers inside the same flow, and occupant-confirmed appointment scheduling.

Operative Job Management — briefing, dispatch and status for in-house operatives and external providers in one system.
Photo Capture & Evidence — before and after evidence attached to every job, timestamped against the work order.
Supplier Assignment — assign external providers inside the same flow as in-house operatives.
Appointment Management (coming soon) — occupant-confirmed slots with automatic reminders.

See Job Delivery

Outreach

The conversation with your occupants, before and after the job.

Outreach turns your estate from reactive to proactive. Planned maintenance goes out with advance notice and rescheduling options, not as an email nobody reads — occupants get a week's warning, the option to reschedule, and a completion confirmation with evidence for the compliance file. Compliance and safety campaigns — fire safety, access audits, welfare — reach everyone in the right building at the right time, with a date-stamped record for the regulator. Satisfaction surveys run automatically after every job, feeding a view of occupant experience that connects back to the provider and the service line. Outreach is the layer most CAFM systems do badly or not at all — and it's the layer that gets noticed fastest by the people using your estate.

Planned Maintenance Notices — advance notice to occupants, with rescheduling options before the day.
Compliance & Safety Outreach — fire safety, access audits, welfare check-ins, delivered by building and cohort.
Client Satisfaction Surveys — automated post-job and periodic surveys, with results attributed back to service line and provider.

See Outreach

Internal Estates examples

How it works on site

Reactive maintenance

Extractor fan fails in a campus kitchen on a Thursday evening.

The catering team reports it from their phone. askporter identifies the site, confirms the contact, and raises a work order against the maintenance provider with a 4-hour SLA. The provider is briefed with access codes and asset details. By Friday lunch the job is closed with before/after photos and the kitchen is operational for weekend events.

Cleaning oversight

Verifying the specification actually ran last night.

Your cleaning provider cleans 14 buildings overnight. Operatives check in by QR code at each site. Photo evidence is captured against the specification. You see the trail by 07:30 — which buildings were cleaned, by whom, with what evidence. If a site was missed, the conversation with the provider happens on facts, not invoices.

Planned works

Fire door inspection across 22 buildings.

Outreach sends advance notice to occupants, building by building. Compliance outreach captures access arrangements where needed. Job Delivery runs the inspections with photo evidence on every door. Control closes the loop with one compliance view across the portfolio. When the auditor asks, the answer is a trail on screen — not a week of chasing spreadsheets.

Fix how issues get raised.

Task Raising alongside the CAFM you already run.

Your estates team is happy with the CAFM that runs the back office. The occupants aren't — calls to the helpdesk, forms nobody finds, tickets with half the context. Task Raising sits on top: occupants report via WhatsApp or QR; the AI triages and categorises; the task lands in your CAFM with asset, location, and context already populated. The back-office system stays; the reporting journey gets fixed. Outreach can follow as a second standalone — planned works notices, compliance campaigns, satisfaction surveys — without touching the work-order engine you already own.

Illustration symbolising business growth and platform scale, alongside askporter's key performance statistics

Internal Estates platform results

What one platform, across every service line, actually delivers

askporter runs in production across corporate estates and FM operations, managing hundreds of thousands of assets and automating well into six figures of tasks a year. No single case study tells an in-house estates team what their own rollout will look like but the aggregate volume confirms the platform handles portfolio scale as a matter of course.

Ready to run operations without the admin overhead?

Book 30 minutes with us. We'll walk through your portfolio, your service lines, and the providers you work with today and show you what the trail from "first report to signed-off job" looks like across every building. No CAFM deployment. No rip-and-replace. Your data, visible, from day one.