Bringing Structure and Accountability to Multi-Parish Facility Management
Managing facilities for a single church can be challenging. Managing facilities across multiple parishes requires an entirely different level of organization.
As Facilities Manager for Divine Mercy Pastoral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, David Siemonsma, oversees three parishes within the pastoral grouping while also supporting two additional parishes through a part-time role. Between daily maintenance requests, event setups, remodeling projects, vendors, and long-term facility planning, there is never a shortage of work to be done.
Before implementing eSPACE, much of that work depended on memory, hallway conversations, emails, and handwritten notes. Today, nearly every maintenance request, project, and facility record flows through a centralized system that helps Dave and his team stay organized, prioritize work, and maintain a growing portfolio of facilities.
The Challenge: Too Many Requests, No Reliable System
Before eSPACE, maintenance requests came from every direction.
A parishioner might stop Dave in the hallway to mention a leaking toilet. A staff member might send an email about a broken light fixture. Another issue might come through a phone call or casual conversation. Like many facility teams, important information often arrived when there was no immediate way to document it.
With dozens of emails arriving each day and construction projects already underway, it became increasingly difficult to remember every request and ensure nothing was missed.
The bigger challenge was the lack of a formal system.
There was no centralized database of maintenance history, no reliable method for prioritizing work, and no way to quickly see what had been completed versus what was still pending. As Dave explains, there was no real historical data to reference because maintenance information had never been consistently documented.
Without visibility into priorities and workloads, it was difficult to determine what needed immediate attention and what could wait.
“You couldn’t prioritize,” Dave recalls. “There was really no system.”
The Solution: A Centralized Work Order System for Every Request
After learning about eSPACE through the Diocese of Sioux Falls, Dave decided to implement the platform and begin building a structured maintenance process.
He started by creating service categories, defining spaces, and uploading facility information. What began as a simple work order solution quickly gained traction across the organization.
Once staff members started using the platform, maintenance requests began flowing into a single system rather than being scattered across conversations, emails, and notes.
Today, requests are submitted directly through eSPACE, allowing Dave to receive notifications immediately, whether at his desk or on his phone. New work orders can be reviewed, prioritized, assigned, and tracked from creation through completion.
The system also provides visibility into technician workloads, allowing Dave to monitor progress and identify potential bottlenecks before they become larger problems.
Most importantly, every request now creates a permanent record.
Instead of relying on memory, the team can look back at previous work, review documentation, and understand exactly what was done in a particular space or facility.
Prioritization Became Possible
One of the most significant improvements has been the ability to establish priorities.
Not every maintenance issue carries the same urgency. A cosmetic repair may be able to wait, while a failed water heater requires immediate attention.
With eSPACE, work orders can be categorized and prioritized based on severity, giving technicians a clear understanding of what needs to happen first.
Rather than reacting to whoever spoke the loudest or most recently, the team can focus on the issues that have the greatest operational impact.
This structured approach has helped create consistency across multiple campuses while ensuring critical issues receive immediate attention.
Nearly 3,000 Work Orders and Growing
Approximately 18 months after implementation, Divine Mercy Pastoral is approaching a significant milestone.
The team has processed nearly 3,000 work orders through eSPACE.
While setup and teardown activities account for a large portion of the workload, every request is documented, assigned, and tracked through completion. The volume of work has provided valuable insight into facility operations while creating a growing historical database for future reference.
The result is greater visibility into maintenance activity across all supported parishes and facilities.
More Than Work Orders: Projects, Documentation, and Facility History
As the team became more comfortable with eSPACE, they began leveraging additional functionality beyond day-to-day maintenance requests.
Dave now uses the platform to support project management for facility renovations and improvements.
For a recent remodeling project, he used eSPACE to create project timelines, assign tasks, track target dates, store bids, maintain contracts, and organize supporting documentation.
By connecting project information directly to specific spaces, the team can quickly access the complete history of work performed within a room or facility.
This centralized approach eliminates the need to search through email chains, filing cabinets, spreadsheets, or shared drives to locate critical information.
When questions arise, the answers are already attached to the work history.
Pictures Save Time and Improve Communication
Another feature that has become particularly valuable is photo documentation.
Maintenance requests often suffer from incomplete or inaccurate descriptions. What one person calls a broken fixture may actually be a different issue entirely.
By encouraging users to attach photos directly to work orders, technicians gain immediate visual context before arriving on site.
According to Dave, photos frequently save his team significant time by reducing confusion and helping technicians bring the right tools, materials, and expectations to the job.
As he puts it, “Pictures are worth a thousand words.”
Supporting Better Staffing and Vendor Management
The data collected through eSPACE is also helping leadership make better operational decisions.
Because technicians track their time within the platform, Dave can better understand labor demands and workload distribution. This information can be used to justify staffing needs, identify capacity constraints, and ensure resources are allocated appropriately.
The team also uses eSPACE to collaborate with outside vendors.
Work orders can be sent directly to contractors, who can review, accept, and complete requests without requiring a software subscription. Proposals, communications, and project documentation remain attached to the work order, creating a complete record of vendor activity.
For organizations managing multiple facilities, this streamlines communication while improving accountability.
Looking Ahead: Asset Management and Preventive Maintenance
While Divine Mercy Pastoral has already seen significant value from work order management and project tracking, Dave views the platform as a long-term operational system rather than a finished project.
The team is actively building equipment inventories and facility records that will support future asset management initiatives.
As more assets are entered into the system, they will be able to leverage lifecycle planning, equipment history, and preventive maintenance scheduling to become even more proactive in managing facilities.
For Dave, eSPACE is not simply helping solve today’s maintenance issues. It is creating the foundation for smarter facility management in the years ahead.
Why Dave Recommends eSPACE
For organizations still relying on paper forms, spreadsheets, emails, and memory to manage maintenance, Dave believes the first step is simple: start documenting the work.
Even basic work order tracking creates accountability, visibility, and a historical record that most organizations do not realize they are missing.
Once teams begin using the platform, they often discover opportunities to improve prioritization, reporting, project management, vendor coordination, asset tracking, and preventive maintenance.
“It’ll just make your life a lot easier,” Dave says.
What started as a solution for tracking maintenance requests has become an essential operational tool for managing facilities across multiple parishes, thousands of work orders, and an ever-growing list of responsibilities.
About eSPACE
eSPACE is the leading facility management software for churches, schools, and faith-based organizations. From work orders and asset tracking to event scheduling and preventive maintenance, eSPACE helps teams steward their spaces with excellence.
