Shared Maintenance Tasks
Create and manage maintenance tasks that apply to multiple pieces of the same equipment across your practice, with per-equipment assignment overrides and centralized editing.
What are shared maintenance tasks?
A shared maintenance task is a single maintenance schedule that applies to multiple pieces of the same type of equipment across your practice. Instead of creating the same task separately for each unit, you create it once and ChairPulse links it to all matching equipment automatically.
For example, if your office has 7 operatories that each have a dental chair, you can create a "Wipe down and disinfect chair surfaces" task once and have it apply to all 7 chairs. Any changes to the task -- frequency, description, SOP link -- update everywhere at once, while still allowing per-equipment assignment overrides.
Shared maintenance tasks are equipment-based. For room-based shared tasks, see Shared Checklists.
Creating a shared maintenance task
When you create a maintenance task and select a piece of equipment that has other units of the same model in your practice, ChairPulse offers a scope selector so you can apply the task across all matching equipment at once.
Open the Add Maintenance Task dialog
From the Maintenance page, click the Add Maintenance Task button in the header. You can also access this from an equipment detail page.
Select your equipment
Choose the equipment from the dropdown. For example, select "X-Ray Sensor - Op 1".
Choose your scope
If other equipment of the same model exists in your practice, a scope selector appears with two options:
- All N units (default) -- Creates a shared task linked to every matching unit (e.g., "All 3 X-Ray Sensors")
- This unit only -- Creates a standard single-equipment task
Select All N units to create a shared task.
Fill in task details
Enter the task description, frequency, first due date, time of day, and optionally assign a default team member and link an SOP. These settings apply to all linked equipment.
Save
Click Save to create the shared schedule. A confirmation toast shows how many units the task was created for (e.g., "Maintenance created for 3 units").
If some of the matching equipment already has this task, ChairPulse will add only the missing units to the existing shared schedule rather than creating a duplicate.
How shared tasks appear in Room view
In the Room view, shared maintenance tasks are displayed in a dedicated shared task card at the top of each room category group (e.g., Operatories).
The shared task card shows:
- A "Shared Tasks" header label
- An emerald badge indicating coverage (e.g., "All 7 operatories" or "3 operatories")
- A list of all shared tasks in the group, each showing:
- Task description
- Frequency label
- Linked SOP indicator (if applicable)
- Evidence requirements (photo or notes icons)
- Assigned staff members (up to 3 avatars, then "+N" for additional)
Tasks that are not shared continue to appear on individual room cards below.
Viewing shared task details
Click a shared task card to open the Shared Task Detail Sheet -- a slide-out panel that shows comprehensive information about the shared schedule and all its linked equipment.
What the detail sheet shows
- Task name and frequency at the top
- Type indicator -- "Equipment" for maintenance tasks
- Coverage badge -- "Shared across N operatories" with a collapsible list of all linked rooms
- Edit shared task button to modify the schedule
Per-equipment rows
Below the header, each linked piece of equipment is listed as a separate row showing:
- Equipment name and the room it is located in
- Status badge (Overdue, Due today, Due soon, On track)
- Assigned staff member with an inline edit button (pencil icon)
Per-equipment assignment overrides
Shared tasks have a default assignee set at the schedule level, but you can override the assignment for individual pieces of equipment. This is useful when different team members are responsible for different rooms.
Changing a per-equipment assignee
Open the shared task detail sheet
Click the shared task card in Room view to open the detail sheet.
Click the pencil icon on an equipment row
Find the equipment you want to reassign and click the edit (pencil) icon next to the current assignee.
Select a team member
Choose a team member from the dropdown. This override applies to all future instances for this specific equipment only -- other equipment in the shared schedule keeps its own assignment.
The assignment follows a priority chain:
- Per-date override (highest priority) -- Set from the calendar Day view for a specific date
- Per-equipment override -- Set in the shared task detail sheet (stored on the equipment link)
- Schedule default -- The default assignee set on the shared schedule itself
- Room assignment -- The staff member assigned to the equipment's room for that day of the week
When you change a per-equipment assignee, all pending and upcoming task instances for that equipment are automatically updated. Instances that already have a per-date override are not affected.
Assigning across specific dates
For more granular control, you can assign a team member to specific dates for one piece of equipment:
Expand an equipment row
In the shared task detail sheet, click on an equipment row to expand it.
Select dates
Use the quick date buttons (This week, This month, or All dates) or pick individual dates to target.
Choose an assignee
Select the team member who should handle this equipment on the selected dates.
These date-specific overrides take the highest priority and will not be changed by any other assignment updates.
Editing a shared maintenance task
Click the Edit shared task button in the shared task detail sheet to open the Edit Maintenance Schedule dialog. This dialog has two tabs:
Details tab
Change settings that apply to the entire shared schedule:
- Task description
- Frequency and time of day
- Default assignee
- Linked SOP
- Evidence requirements (notes, photos)
Changes made here update the schedule for all linked equipment at once.
Operatories tab
Manage which equipment is linked to the shared schedule:
- View all currently linked equipment with their per-equipment assigned staff
- Unlink a piece of equipment from the shared schedule (it will revert to having no schedule for this task)
- If only one piece of equipment remains after unlinking, the schedule automatically converts from a shared schedule to a standard single-equipment schedule
Deleting shared maintenance tasks
From the edit dialog, you have three options for removing shared tasks:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Remove from this equipment | Unlinks one piece of equipment from the shared schedule. The schedule continues for the remaining equipment. |
| Remove from all equipment | Deactivates the schedule for all linked equipment. No equipment retains this task. |
| Delete schedule | Permanently removes the schedule and all its instances. |
Removing a task from all equipment or deleting the schedule cannot be undone. Completed task history is preserved, but all future instances are removed.
Adding equipment to an existing shared task
If you add new equipment of the same model to your practice after a shared task already exists, ChairPulse handles this automatically:
Create a maintenance task for the new equipment
Open the Add Maintenance Task dialog and select the new equipment.
ChairPulse detects the existing shared schedule
The scope selector recognizes that a shared schedule already covers other units of this model.
The new equipment is added to the existing schedule
Instead of creating a duplicate schedule, the new equipment is linked to the existing shared schedule. All settings (frequency, SOP, evidence requirements) are inherited automatically.