Watch the How to connect SFG20 to Facilio webinar for free.

Let’s kick off with a brief introduction to who SFG20 are.

If you didn’t already know, SFG20 is recognised as the industry standard for building maintenance specification. For over 35 years, it has been committed to championing compliance and helping to keep buildings safe.

SFG20 was formed in 1990 by the Building Engineering Services Association, also known as BESA. This was in response to the need for a standardised approach to building maintenance.

If you ever feel like you're constantly playing catch-up with new legislation and regulation, SFG20 can support you with our growing library of over 1,000 maintenance schedules. Each schedule includes up-to-date guidance on what maintenance tasks need to be performed, by whom, and how often.

Every one of our maintenance schedules is created, updated, and monitored in line with the latest legislation, regulations, and best practice. This is all carried out by our brilliant in-house team of highly skilled technical authors.

Don’t worry—every time we update a schedule, we send out automated notifications to let you know what’s changed. We give you a side-by-side comparison of the old and new schedules, and you can implement updates at any time that best suits you. There's no need for you or your team to conduct complex research, which saves a huge amount of time, effort, and money—all of which are equally valuable.

Since well-maintained assets run more efficiently and are likely to last longer, this can help you avoid costly downtime and hefty non-compliance fines.

So, your next question might be: how exactly can the SFG20 standard be accessed, and how can I use it effectively?

All of our guidance is accessed through a licence to Facilities-iQ—our intelligent software solution that houses over 1,000 maintenance schedules. It’s the only way to put the SFG20 industry standard into practice and manage compliance in line with legislation, regulations, and best practice standards affecting building maintenance and safety.

Let’s now look at what’s included in an SFG20 schedule.

An SFG20 maintenance schedule is a collection of tasks related to maintaining a specific asset or building fabric. Each schedule contains the asset type name, a unique reference code, task name, task criticality, timing, frequency, the required skill set, task instructions, and links to relevant legislation and supporting documents.

Our maintenance schedules save you the hours you’d normally spend drawing up legally compliant specifications. We use a colour-coded system to indicate the criticality and legal requirements of each maintenance task, meaning you don’t have to waste time prioritising assets or sorting between statutory and non-essential tasks.

• Red tasks are statutory or legal and signify activities that assist in achieving legal compliance. The term "statutory" refers to requirements defined by primary and secondary legislation.

• Amber tasks are optimal and represent function-critical or industry best practice tasks. While not legally mandated, they help prevent business disruption.

• Green tasks are discretionary or non-critical, covering optional maintenance activities for systems that would have minimal business impact if they failed.

• Pink tasks are business-critical. While not statutory, they are crucial for operational or contractual compliance and can be applied by tailoring schedules in Facilities-iQ.

By using Facilities-iQ, you can create maintenance regimes containing our schedules, allowing you to plan and carry out the required work. This is made even easier by selecting an FM system that is a digital partner of SFG20.

This brings me on to our digital partner programme.

If you’ve ever felt like the person in the image—overwhelmed and unsupported—we’re here to catch you before you fall. One of the main reasons people fall behind with the SFG20 standard is because their FM systems don’t include the latest version.

Historically, it was easy to upload SFG20 content once into your CAFM system and forget about it. But the SFG20 standard updates monthly—with up to 700 updates a year. Outdated content can put occupants at risk and render your organisation non-compliant.

Our digital partner programme solves this.

We connect FM systems—such as CMMS and IWMS—to Facilities-iQ via our API (Application Programming Interface). This allows SFG20 content to automatically populate your system, including the latest updates, which you can choose to implement when it suits you.

This saves hours of manual data entry, avoids double-handling of information, and ensures you’re always working with the most current version of the SFG20 standard.

Let’s talk about how the API works and the benefits.

Once your FM system is integrated with Facilities-iQ via API, SFG20 content flows seamlessly into your connected FM system. You’ll receive update notifications and can choose when to apply them.

By choosing a provider that’s part of the SFG20 digital partner programme, you eliminate the risks associated with manual imports. You’ll have peace of mind knowing that all maintenance work is carried out in line with current industry standards, regulations, and best practices.

I’d now like to hand over to Vishak Chandra Prakash from Facilio, one of our fantastic digital partners, to introduce themselves and explain more about their integration with us.

Thanks, Jenny. I'm really pleased to be part of this webinar today. It’s a great opportunity to introduce Facilio and explain how we help organisations stay compliant with SFG20.

Facilio is a connected CAFM (or CFM) platform that supports FM customers, as well as owners and operators of large real estate portfolios, in operating and maintaining their facilities more effectively.

Let’s move on to the next slide, please, Jen.

Facilio as a platform is built to support both types of organisations—you could be a property owner or a service provider. We operate across multiple industry verticals, including healthcare, higher education, and commercial real estate. Our platform is designed to be flexible and scalable to suit different property types.

You can see some of our customer logos on the screen, including large service providers like Cushman & Wakefield, property owners like Brookfield, British Land in the UK, and 7-Eleven in the US. This illustrates the breadth of customer profiles using the Facilio platform globally.

Next slide, please.

When we look at how SFG20 is typically implemented within other CAFM tools, the reality is that operationalising compliance can be quite challenging. Even if you have job plans and compliance frameworks in place, integrating them into your CAFM platform, setting up schedules, applying them to different properties, assigning engineers, and ensuring PPMs aren’t missed is often a manual and time-consuming process.

Many FM providers still rely on a combination of Excel spreadsheets for job scheduling and paper-based workflows in the field, which must then be manually fed back into the CAFM system. As a result, enforcing and maintaining SFG20 compliance becomes difficult.

Next slide, please.

This is where Facilio’s connected CAFM approach offers real benefits. By integrating with SFG20 and pulling in live data, we ensure that maintenance schedules are always up to date. This allows compliance to be embedded into your daily operations.

We can automatically apply the latest templates across your building portfolio, assign tasks to engineers with the right skills, and track job completion. This gives you full visibility into completed activities, outstanding remedials, and potential compliance issues—empowering you to take prompt action.

Dashboards and reports can be used internally and shared with your customers if you’re a service provider managing multiple client portfolios.

Next slide.

As regulations continue to evolve, our live sync with the Facilities-iQ platform ensures that your job plans remain current. As Jenny mentioned earlier, SFG20 schedules receive multiple updates throughout the year. With our integration, these updates are continuously synced into your system.

Facilio’s reporting and dashboarding tools help you stay audit-ready, with all regulatory requirements reflected in real-time data.

Next slide.

Beyond compliance, Facilio also helps you optimise the way you manage and apply SFG20 schedules. Not every task will apply to every property or asset, so the ability to tailor and configure SFG20 job plans is crucial.

Facilio allows you to customise these plans to fit your buildings and the services you provide. You can then roll them out at scale across your portfolio—improving how you allocate resources and plan jobs based on available staff and skill sets.

The platform also offers financial control features. Customers can see the cost of completed activities, plan procurement, and begin budgeting for resources based on anticipated workloads.

Next slide.

Facilio can also help with resource forecasting by using the estimated duration data within SFG20 schedules. This allows you to understand how long different tasks take and what resources are required to meet SFG20 compliance throughout the year.

This insight is valuable whether you're preparing bids for FM contracts or managing an internal property team. You can ensure you have the right people, with the right skills, at the right time—supporting accurate budgeting and efficient resource deployment.

Over time, the platform helps you compare actual completion times to estimated durations, enabling continuous improvement in how you manage resources.

Next slide.

Now let’s talk specifically about how Facilio connects with the SFG20 platform.

As you can see in this screenshot of our settings page, once you obtain your API key from SFG20, you can enter it directly into the Facilio platform. This allows us to start pulling in your maintenance regimes.

You can set the sync frequency—monthly, quarterly, or as needed. You can also click “Sync Now” to manually update the job plans at any time.

Next page.

The imported job plans from SFG20 will display key details, including statutory status, task frequency, and relevant legislation. All of this information is included in the job plans pushed into Facilio.

From there, you can hit the “Publish” button and apply these job plans across your entire property portfolio.

Final slide.

Here’s where you start to gain real visibility into your schedules and how they are applied in the field. Facilio’s PPM calendar shows when jobs are due and which assets they relate to.

We also provide labour reports to help you plan for the required skills and resource levels needed to maintain ongoing compliance with SFG20.