Equipment due dates, status colours and reminders: the exact rules

This page collects the rules Equipment Management uses to set the dates of an equipment item and its maintenance records, to colour the item’s status, and to send maintenance reminder e-mails. Where a task page already explains a rule, the table gives it in one line and links to that page.

Dates

Date	What sets it	When it changes
Purchasing / Start date of an equipment item	You, on the equipment page.	Only when you change it. It is the starting point for the Due date of the item’s first maintenance record, and for the next due date of an item without maintenance records.
Due date of the first maintenance record of an equipment item	Set once, when the record is created: the item’s Purchasing / Start date plus the number of days in its Maintenance interval. The first record is created when Purchasing / Start date, Maintenance interval and Responsible are all filled in; see Add equipment.	Only when you edit it on the open record.
Due date of a later maintenance record	Set once, when the record is created by completing the previous one: the Performed Date of the newest completed record plus the number of days in the item’s Maintenance interval.	Only when you edit it on the open or unlocked record.
Due date of a maintenance record created while the item has no Maintenance interval	The day the record is created.	Only when you edit it.
Performed Date of a maintenance record	You. Required to complete the record.	When you edit it. Changing it on a completed record does not move the Due date of the open record; see Register maintenance.
Next due date of an equipment item (shown in the Status column of the list and in the export)	The Due date of the item’s newest maintenance record. For an item without maintenance records: Purchasing / Start date plus the days of its Maintenance interval.	Recalculated when the item or one of its maintenance records is saved, when a record is completed, and each morning for active items. Deleting a maintenance record does not recalculate it until the next save or morning check.

Changing an item’s Maintenance interval, or the number of days of an interval on the Admin tab, does not move the Due date of maintenance records that already exist; such a date changes only when a user edits it on the open or unlocked record. The new interval applies to records created afterwards; see Manage equipment dropdowns and intervals.

How intervals count

Rule	Detail
Unit	An equipment maintenance interval is a number of calendar days, weekends and holidays included.
Months and years	An equipment maintenance interval counts days, not calendar months or years. An interval of 30 days does not land on the same date next month, and an interval of 365 days lands one day earlier in the calendar when the period includes 29 February.
Intervals in a new module	When Antenor adds Equipment Management for a company, it comes with five intervals: Annual (365 days), Quartely (shown exactly like this in ABMS) (90 days), Monthly (30 days), Weekly (7 days) and Daily (1 day). A user with the Admin right on the Equipment row can rename, change, add and delete intervals on the Admin tab, so your company’s list may differ; see The equipment Admin tab.

Status colour of an equipment item

Colour	Rule for the equipment item
Green	The next due date is later than today plus the item’s First notification days.
Yellow	The next due date is after today, and no later than today plus the item’s First notification days. With First notification 0, an item is never yellow.
Red	The next due date is today or earlier.

When the colour is not calculated as usual

Situation of the equipment item	Status colour and next due date
No maintenance records and no Purchasing / Start date	Green. No next due date is calculated.
No maintenance records, Purchasing / Start date filled in, no Maintenance interval	Green. No next due date is calculated.
No maintenance records, Purchasing / Start date and Maintenance interval filled in, but no Responsible	The colour and next due date are calculated from Purchasing / Start date plus the interval’s days. No maintenance record is created, and nobody is reminded, until a Responsible is set.
Maintenance records exist, none of them completed, and Purchasing / Start date has been emptied	The colour and next due date are not recalculated: they keep the values from the last calculation, and no reminder e-mails are sent for the item, until a record is completed or Purchasing / Start date is filled in again. Such an item always has earlier values, because its first maintenance record could only be created while Purchasing / Start date was filled in.
The item is set to Inactive	Recalculated when the item or a record is saved, but not each morning, and no reminder e-mails are sent.

Reminder e-mails: when and to whom

These rules are explained with an example in Set up maintenance reminders:

Rule	In one line
Who gets them	Only the equipment item’s Responsible, in that user’s own ABMS language; nobody if Responsible is empty or the user is deactivated.
When they are checked	Once each morning, for active equipment items only.
First e-mail	On the first morning the equipment item is yellow or red.
Repeats	Every Reminder interval (days) days after the previous e-mail while the equipment item stays yellow or red; with 0, no repeats at all.
Starting over	When the equipment item turns green, the reminders stop, and its next due period starts with a new first e-mail.
Grouped e-mails	The Responsible gets one e-mail per group of equipment items instead of one per item only while Send grouped email is on and at least one Group by field is selected on the Admin tab of Equipment Management.

Content of a reminder e-mail for one equipment item

Part	Content
Subject	“Equipment action will expire: “ (yellow item) or “Equipment action expired: “ (red item), followed by the item’s Internal id/name. When Internal id/name is empty, the subject is only “Equipment action will expire” or “Equipment action expired”, without the colon.
Greeting	The Responsible’s first name.
Text	A one-line notice, then “Click on the link to open the equipment and make the appropiate changes.” (shown exactly like this in ABMS)
Table, one row for the item	The item’s Internal id/name; one column for every dropdown field assigned to Equipment, empty where the item has no value; the Reference equipment of the item’s newest maintenance record; the due date, written day.month.year (for example 31.03.2026), or “Expired” when the item is red; a link that opens the equipment page.
Closing	“With kind regards,”, your company’s name, your company’s logo and “Antenor Management System”.

A grouped reminder e-mail has the same greeting, table columns and closing, with one row per equipment item in the group. Its subject and opening text are described in Set up maintenance reminders.