Short answer

The asset's name is what the field worker sees as the task title in the mobile app. So a green bin named "Jubilee Park Play Area" reads "Jubilee Park Play Area Clean" on the contractor's phone — confusing. Asset names should describe the thing (e.g. "Green Litter Bin"), not the area. The fastest way to clean this up across an account is to run AI auto-classify in bulk.

Detail

When a routine generates a task, the title shown in the mobile app is composed from the asset name plus the routine's job title. So:

  • Asset name = "Green Litter Bin" + Routine title = "Quarterly Clean" → field worker sees "Green Litter Bin — Quarterly Clean". Clear.
  • Asset name = "Jubilee Park Play Area" + Routine title = "Quarterly Clean" → field worker sees "Jubilee Park Play Area — Quarterly Clean" for what is actually a bin. Confusing.

This means asset-name quality has a high downstream payoff: every recurring task generated from that asset inherits the name. Get it right once and every future task is right.

For accounts with lots of legacy assets created before AI auto-classify was available, the cleanest fix is bulk classification — see What does AI auto-classify do, and what are the gotchas?. After classification, do a quick pass to re-introduce any local nicknames the team actually uses ("the Mugger", "the BruBowl") so the field worker sees language they recognise.

Where the council uses operational asset codes (e.g. South Swindon's bins are tracked by CS number — CS001, CS002, etc.) put the code in the asset name. The number then flows into every recurring job that asset generates, so the operative on the bin round sees "CS017 — Empty" on their phone and can match it to the bin in front of them without ambiguity. This pattern is especially powerful for assets that look identical (every wheelie bin, every grit bin, every defibrillator cabinet) — without a unique code, the field worker can't tell which row of the task list belongs to which physical thing.

Watch-outs

  • Resist the temptation to use the asset name as a location label. Use the asset name for what the thing is, and use the location tag (or a polygon/area) for where it is.
  • For mobile workers in particular, ambiguous asset names are friction every day. They scroll the list looking for "the bin near the entrance"; if everything is named "Jubilee Park Play Area" they have to open each one to figure out which is which.