What is a job record?
A job record is the account of one piece of work — what was requested, what was found, what was done, by whom, when, and what remains outstanding.
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<img src="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/job-record/diagram.svg" alt="job record — diagram from FacilityOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/job-record">What is a job record?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk">FacilityOptix</a>
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</figure>What was found is the part most often missing and the part with the most value. A record saying 'attended, repaired' cannot support a condition assessment, a warranty claim or a failure analysis.
Recorded by the engineer at the point of work, it is evidence. Typed up later by a coordinator, it is a summary of a phone call.
Outstanding work is the other half. A job closed with a follow-up needed and no follow-up raised is how small defects become large ones.
In practice
A closed job reading 'attended, no fault found'.
The fault was intermittent and is still there. The record tells the next engineer nothing except that somebody has already been.
What a job record is for is the next person, and 'no fault found' is the least useful sentence available — what was checked and what was ruled out is the useful part.
Repeat visits to the same asset with the same closure note are a pattern nobody is reading.
What goes wrong in practice
- Findings not recorded, only outcomes.
- Records entered later by someone who was not there.
- Follow-up work identified verbally and never raised as a job.