Manage downtime categories

Build the list of reasons operators pick from, and decide which ones demand a note.

A downtime category is a reason code an operator puts on a machine stop, for example Tool change. Each carries a severity, an optional color, a flag that forces a note, a planned or unplanned setting, and an optional category type. One list serves every machine in the organization.

Prerequisites. Organization Owner or Organization Administrator, see Roles and permissions. Other roles see the controls disabled.

Open the category list

Categories have no settings page. You edit them from the Classify Downtime modal, from Auto downtime classification under /settings/organization, or from the classify sheet on a phone.

Categories sit under four severity headings: None, Low, Medium, High. IoTFlows ships built-ins every organization sees; turn off Show Default to leave only your own. Only your own carry a pencil, so built-ins cannot be renamed, recolored, or deleted.

Three controls sit above the list and change what you see, not what is stored:

Control	Options	Effect
Grouping	Severity, Category Type	Which headings the chips file under, see Group categories with types
Planned filter	All, Planned, Unplanned	Hides categories that do not match, see Mark a category as planned
Show Default	On or off, on by default	Whether the built-in IoTFlows categories are listed

Your choices are saved in the browser and reapplied everywhere the picker appears, including the classify sheet on a phone. An operator who filters to Unplanned still sees that filter tomorrow, so say so before you leave a shared touchscreen set that way.

The Classify Downtime modal. Under the heading Select Downtime Category sit three controls: a Severity and Category Type pair with Severity selected, an All, Planned and Unplanned filter with All selected, and a Show Default switch turned on. Below them the underlined severity headings None in gray and Low in green each carry a row of rounded category chips. Chips the organization created carry a pencil, Lunch Break and Tool Change carry a blue calendar icon marking them as planned downtime, and a plus button follows the last chip in each severity

The downtime category list, with the grouping, planned filter and Show Default controls above it.

Create a category

Click the + on the severity row the category belongs under.
Type a name in Category name.
Turn on Require additional note if the reason is not actionable alone.
Turn on Planned downtime if this reason is work you schedule.
Pick a Category type, or leave it clear.
Pick a color, or leave the default red.
Click Add. A Downtime category added toast confirms it.

An empty name returns Category name is required and creates nothing.

Category fields

Field	Required	Values	Effect
Category name	Yes	Free text	The label operators see everywhere
Severity	Yes	The row you create under	See Set severity
Require additional note	No	On or off, off by default	Makes Additional notes mandatory
Planned downtime	No	On or off, off by default	Marks stops as scheduled, see Mark a category as planned
Category type	No	One type, or none	Tags it for grouping, see Group categories with types
Color	No	Default red, or a swatch	Colors it on the Downtimes report

The Add Medium Category form open over the category list, beside the chips filed under the None and Low severity headings. The form holds a name field reading Troubleshooting, a Require additional note row whose checkbox is ticked and whose helper text reads Operator must add a note when classified, a Planned downtime row whose toggle is off, a Category type list of Breaks, Changeovers, Failures, Material and Tooling with Failures carrying a check and a New type field below it, a Color row showing a dark red dot, a line reading Downtimes classified under this category will show as the default red, and Cancel and Add buttons

Creating a category: the severity row you open the form under sets its severity.

Set severity

Severity is how much a stop of this kind costs you, from None to High. It decides the heading the category files under and its color.

The edit form has no severity control, so a category cannot move between headings. To move one, create it again under the correct row, then read Delete a category.

Severity levels

Severity	Use for	Where it shows
None	Not a loss: a break	Gray heading
Low	Planned work: a changeover	Green heading
Medium	Avoidable stops: waiting on material	Amber heading
High	Stops needing someone now: a breakdown	Red heading

Require a note

Turn on Require additional note and the operator must fill Additional notes before the stop will save. The category then carries an amber alert icon in the picker.

Require a note only where the reason alone tells you nothing you can act on. Other and Breakdown earn it. Changeover does not: ten copies of the word "changeover" is all it buys you. Notes drive the only-with-notes filter on the Downtimes report.

The Edit Category form open over the Classify Downtime modal, for the Machine Failure chip which carries an amber alert icon and a pencil. The form holds a name field reading Machine Failure, a Require additional note row whose checkbox is ticked and whose helper text reads Operator must add a note when classified, a Planned downtime row whose toggle is off, a Category type list of Changeovers, Failures, Material and Tooling with Failures carrying a check, a Color row showing the default red dot, and Delete, Cancel and Save buttons

The Require additional note control: Operator must add a note when classified.

Mark a category as planned

Planned downtime is a stop you scheduled, for example a changeover or a preventive maintenance window. It is a setting on the category, not on the individual stop, so every stop classified under Preventive maintenance is planned and every stop under Breakdown is not.

Turn on Planned downtime in the add or edit form. Its helper line reads "Downtime using this category is planned". The setting is off by default, and you can change it on an existing category without touching the stops already classified under it.

A planned category carries a calendar icon on its chip, ahead of the name, with the tooltip Planned downtime. Operators see the icon while they classify, which is the cheapest way to tell them that a reason is one you expected.

The Edit Category form open over the Classify Downtime modal, above the Tool Change chip in the Low severity row. The form holds a name field reading Tool Change, an unticked Require additional note row, a Planned downtime row whose toggle is on and whose helper text reads Downtime using this category is planned, and a Category type list with a Clear link at its right and four rows, Changeovers carrying a blue check, then Failures, Material and Tooling, each with a pencil and a trash icon, above a New type field and a plus button. A Color row showing the default red dot and the Delete, Cancel and Save buttons close the form

The Planned downtime toggle and the Category type picker, both on the category form.

Choose planned or unplanned

Turn Planned downtime on when you decided in advance that the machine would stop:

Scheduled preventive maintenance
A changeover or setup you wrote into the schedule
A break or a shift handover the plan accounts for

Leave it off for everything the schedule did not account for, including a tool that broke early and a changeover that was not planned for that shift. If you have to think about whether a reason was scheduled, it was not.

Planned is not the same as low severity. Severity says what a stop costs you, planned says whether you chose it. A four-hour scheduled rebuild is planned and still High. Set the two independently, see Set severity.

Today the flag drives the picker: the calendar icon on the chip, and the All, Planned, Unplanned filter above the list. The category filter on the Downtimes report and the Advanced report still lists categories by severity, so plan to read planned and unplanned apart by selecting the categories themselves.

Group categories with types

A category type is a tag you put on a downtime category so that related categories can be grouped and reviewed together, for example a Failures type over Machine Failure, Robot Failure and Jammed Machine. Types belong to the organization, and one type can carry any number of categories.

A category holds at most one type. Types are separate from severity: severity ranks a single category, a type collects several.

Create a type

Types are managed from inside the category form, so there is no separate page.

Click the + on a severity row, or the pencil on an existing category.
Type a name in New type under Category type.
Click the + beside the field. A Category type added toast confirms it, and the new type is selected for this category.
Click Add or Save to store the type on the category.

Creating a type adds it to the organization immediately, before you save the category. If you close the form without saving, the type stays and the category keeps the type it had.

Assign, clear, rename and delete

Action	How	Result
Assign	Click a type in the list	A check mark marks it
Clear	Click the selected type again, or click Clear	The category files under No Category Type
Rename	Click the pencil on the type, edit, click the check	Renames it everywhere, on every category that carries it
Delete	Click the trash on the type, then confirm	Removes the type from the organization

Rename rather than delete. A rename keeps every category grouped as it was, which is the whole point of the tag.

Group the picker by type

Switch the grouping control above the list from Severity to Category Type. The chips then file under one heading per type, sorted alphabetically, with No Category Type last. Categories with no type collect there, which makes that heading the list of categories still to tag.

The grouping is a view, not a change to the categories. Switching back to Severity leaves every category exactly as it was.

The Select Downtime Category list with Category Type chosen on the grouping control, All on the planned filter and Show Default turned off. Category chips file under five underlined blue headings: Breaks carrying Break, Lunch and Lunch Break, each with a calendar icon; Changeovers carrying Tool Change, also with a calendar icon, and Testing; Failures carrying Tool Broken, No Power, Robot Failure, Jammed Machine and Machine Failure; and Material carrying No Part, No Sample, No Parts and No inventory

The picker grouped by category type, with the planned filter beside it.

Decide whether you need types

You probably do not need types. A list of roughly eight categories reads fine under the four severity headings, and a tag on top of that is one more thing to maintain.

Add types when the same review keeps cutting across severities. For example, Machine Failure is High and Jammed Machine is Medium, but a maintenance review wants both, so a Failures type earns its place. Keep the number of types well under the number of categories: a type per category groups nothing.

Change a color

Click the pencil, then the swatch beside Color.
Pick a swatch, or Default red to clear the color.
Click Save. A Downtime category updated toast confirms it.

A category with no color draws in the standard downtime red. Your color carries through to the Pareto and the by-interval and by-asset bars on the Downtimes report.

You do not need a color on every category. Color the two or three reasons you are working on now and leave the rest red.

The Edit Category form for Machine Failure scrolled to its color grid, with the Planned downtime row and the Category type list above it. Twenty-one swatches sit in three rows, the dark default red first, and a white check mark marks a violet swatch in the bottom row. The Color dot at the right of the row has turned violet, and the line under the grid reads Downtimes classified under this category will show as Violet 600 instead of the default red

The color palette: a category's color carries through to the charts on the Downtimes report.

Delete a category

Click the pencil, click Delete, then confirm in the Delete Downtime Category dialog.

Deleting a category rewrites your history. It comes off every downtime ever classified with it, and those stops become unclassified. There is no undo.

Rename rather than delete. Open the pencil, change the name, and save: the stops keep their classification.

Design a category list

Keep the list to roughly eight categories. Operators classify from a touchscreen mid-shift, and a list that scrolls gets the first visible item every time. The Pareto then measures list order, not the plant.

Write categories at the level you can act on. Machine problem names nothing, and wins the Pareto every month without telling you what to fix.

Set Planned downtime on the whole list in one pass, when you build it. It is a single toggle per category, and doing it later means going back through a list an operator has already been classifying against.