Facilities management software, in the plural, is the toolkit a facilities team searches for on the day the floor plan, the desk list, the attendance count and the folder of contractor certificates stop fitting in one person's head. Strip the category down and it is a record with four things in it: what floor the organisation has and how it is divided, which desks exist and who is booked into them, how many people were actually in on each day, and which contractors are cleared to come on site with the date each credential expires. Everything else on a feature list is a way of getting those four in and out. A manager asking what facilities management software is usually already has all four, spread over a spreadsheet, a booking calendar and an inbox, and wants to know what changes when they sit in the same place.
The space inventory is the denominator under everything
Every other figure the software produces is divided by the floor it holds: utilization is attendance over desks, cost per person is rent over the people the floor seats, and the case for giving up a floor is the inventory with the attendance laid over it. A facilities management system that treats the inventory as an optional module will let you book desks that are not on any floor and count attendance against nothing, and a year later there is no way to ask what a floor is used at. The test is simple: put one floor in with its desks and its area, and see whether every booking and every count files itself against it. If it does not, the rest of the record inherits the same looseness.
Utilization is a measurement, not a headcount
The reason the software exists is that somebody eventually asks how full the building is, and headcount does not survive that conversation. A floor with 140 desks and 180 people assigned reads as oversubscribed until the door count goes in: 84 in on an average day is 60% utilization, 126 on the busiest day is 90%, and 14 desks are spare. That is arithmetic on your own counts rather than anybody's rating, and it is the sentence the lease decision actually needs. The free space utilization worksheet on this site works it from your desks, headcount, average and peak attendance and area with no account.
The desks and the contractors are the two records that change weekly
A desk record is which desks exist, which are shared and who is booked into them on which day; a contractor record is who is cleared for which building, what insurance and induction they hold and when each expires. Both change every week and both are asked about on a Monday morning, which is why they belong in the software rather than in a spreadsheet somebody updates on Friday. A facilities management system software that keeps the first and not the second sends the manager back to the folder of certificates for the question that carries the most risk.
Export is what makes the record yours
A building outlives a software subscription and the manager who bought it. Ask early what comes out and in what form: the inventory with its areas, the desk list with its bookings, the attendance counts by week, the contractor clearances with their dates. If the answer is a report rather than a file, the record belongs to the vendor and the next system starts empty. This is worth more attention than the interface, because it is the one thing that cannot be fixed later.
Questions people ask about facilities management software
What is facilities management software?
A record of the floor, the desks, the attendance and the contractors cleared to be on site, kept against the building, with the arithmetic that turns them into a space requirement, a utilization figure and a desk count for a hybrid rule. HardFM works the arithmetic free on the page and HardFM Pro keeps the record for $24 a month for the whole team.
Is facilities management software the same as facility maintenance software?
No. Maintenance software keeps the asset register, the work orders and the preventive schedule for the plant that keeps the building running; that is the neighbouring product at fmlane.com. Facilities management software in the plural is the workplace side: space, desks, attendance and site access.
What should a facilities management system cost?
Most workplace suites charge per desk or per user per month, with analytics on a higher tier. HardFM Pro is $24 per month for the whole team, however many floors and people, and every worksheet computes free before an account exists.