When someone asks how many signs you own, the honest answer is usually "a few". And when the question is where the big metal one is, somebody remembers it went to a property in the north end, but not which one. The damaged one went to the workshop months ago and nobody knows whether it came back.
Signs are a real investment: they cost money, they break, they go missing, and they get duplicated because nobody can find the one that already existed. And the person who installs them does not work in your office, so you give the order over the phone and afterwards there is no record of whether it was done.
Now in Mapaprop you manage the physical stock of your outdoor signs from your own account.
Three facts per sign, independent of one another
This is the core idea of the module, and once you get it everything else explains itself. For each sign the system stores three things that do not depend on each other:
- Where it is — warehouse, branch, property or workshop.
- What condition it is in — good, damaged, under repair or discarded.
- Who owns it — which branch the sign belongs to.
A sign can be damaged, installed at a property and owned by the North branch, all three at the same time. That is why they are stored separately: moving a sign does not change who owns it, and transferring ownership is a separate, explicit action.
The full history, without anyone writing it down
Every movement is recorded with its date and who made it. You can see a sign's entire life: when it left the warehouse, which properties it stood at, when it went through the workshop and where it is now. Nothing to remember, no spreadsheet to keep in parallel.
Work orders: installation, removal and move
You schedule the physical job with a date and time. There are three types, and each one solves a different case: installation takes a sign from the warehouse or a branch to a property, removal brings it back, and move takes it from one property to another without returning to the warehouse.
The move matters more than it seems: scheduled as a regular installation, the installer arrives at the destination and the sign is not there, because it is still at the previous property. That is why a move order shows them where to pick it up from.
The installer works from their phone, with no account
You add your installers — your own team or third parties — and send them the order by email. They open a link and see the whole job: which sign, at what address, on what day and at what time, with the sign's photo and any notes you left.
They do not need a Mapaprop account. Whoever installs signs is not a user of your system and has no reason to be: they open the link on their phone, out on the street, and see what they need.
Sign types, so you do not enter the same thing twice
Before your first sign you define your types: "1×2 metal with logo", "Small vinyl banner", "Construction sign". It is the make and model; each physical sign then gets its own code, which is the licence plate. Defined once, it serves every identical sign.
From the property, in one click
From any property record you can see whether it has a sign installed and open its history. And if you want to schedule an installation, you set it up right there, without searching for the property again.
What changes day to day
Ghost signs disappear. You know how many you own and which ones are available before ordering another one made. When a client asks whether the sign is up yet, you look instead of finding out.
Signs is available from the Mapaprop Pro+ plan. With any plan you can enter the module and view the inventory; creating signs, scheduling work and adding installers requires Pro+.
You can read the full step by step in the manual:
The Mapaprop team and Ricardo Asensio