ManageEngine Enhances FacilitiesDesk (CMMS - CAFM )Software; Offers Greater Customization and Building Maintenance Capabilities

AUSTIN, TX, September 22, 2010 – ManageEngine, makers of a globally renowned suite of cost effective network, systems, security, applications and facilities management software solutions, today announced a new version of its integrated facilities management software, ManageEngine FacilitiesDesk. This latest edition provides greater flexibility through extensive customization capabilities and adds the ability to manage the physical infrastructure, from individual offices to entire buildings.

The new FacilitiesDesk software allows facilities professionals to ensure the physical infrastructure for which they are responsible is properly maintained. Using the application’s calendar function, preventative maintenance and recurring housekeeping activities - such as electrical wiring checks, safety inspections, carpet cleaning and wall painting - can be scheduled in advance to ensure they are performed on-time. And because the software is easy-to-use, employees too can use FacilitiesDesk to quickly notify the facilities team in the event a problem, a water leak for example, should occur.

New customization capabilities make the job of facilities professionals easier. Working with the templates that are part of FacilitiesDesk, in only a minute or two administrators may customize request forms by choosing to auto-populate some values, hide fields that aren’t needed in certain situations, rearrange fields to display information in a specific order, and other options. The result of such extensive customization is a form that is tailored specifically to the needs of that environment.

"We've been on the lookout for a suitable facilities, admin and maintenance management solution for quite some time now and FacilitiesDesk quickly became our tool of choice for several of our facilities, admin and maintenance related tasks," said Ragid Kader, infrastructure & facilities administrator at Qatar Gas Transport Company Limited (Nakilat) QSC. "Now when users call with a problem, we are able to address the problem faster as we have the best facilities and maintenance management software. With FacilitiesDesk we are able to gain complete control of facilities, asset and maintenance operations."

"Facilities professionals are faced with a growing list of responsibilities and management's expectation that they are controlling operating costs while maintaining the infrastructure," said Ananda Raman Krishnan, product manager, ManageEngine FacilitiesDesk. "We've designed FacilitiesDesk to help these professionals stay ahead of the game through proper planning, and quickly address incidents when they do occur. We know what keeps facilities professionals awake at night!"

The new features found in FacilitiesDesk join an already extensive list of capabilities designed to allow facilities professionals to take complete control of maintenance management for both facilities and assets. FacilitiesDesk is available in two versions - Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) and Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM). While each version provides specific benefits, the two are designed to easily integrate, offering a robust feature set, including tracking and management of assets, work orders, and maintenance requests; as well as portfolio and move management.

Pricing and Availability

ManageEngine FacilitiesDesk is available as a downloadable file for both Windows and Linux platforms. A 30-day fully functional trial edition is freely available for evaluation from the website. Pricing starts at $275 for the CMMS Standard Edition; the Enterprise CAFM Edition starts at $995 (annual subscription). Perpetual licensing models are also available.

For more information please visit the product web page at http://www.manageengine.com/products/facilities-desk/index.html

About ManageEngine

ManageEngine is the leading provider of low-cost enterprise IT management software and the only one making the 90-10 promise – to provide 90 percent of the capabilities offered by the Big 4 at just 10 percent of the price. The ManageEngine suite offers enterprise IT management solutions including Network Management, HelpDesk & ITIL, Bandwidth Monitoring, Application Management, Desktop Management, Security Management, Password Management, Active Directory reporting, and a Managed Services platform. ManageEngine products are easy to install, setup and use and offer extensive support, consultation, and training. More than 40,000 organizations from different verticals, industries, and sizes use ManageEngine to take care of their IT management needs cost effectively. ManageEngine is a division of ZOHO Corporation. For more information, please visit www.manageengine.com.

Media Contact:
Greg Wise
Weber Shandwick, for ManageEngine
+1–512–794–4716
gwise@webershandwick.com

Ashish Kuriakose
ManageEngine
ashish@manageengine.com

FacilitiesDesk Partner Program

FacilitiesDesk MarketPlace

We aim to offer the finest solutions with services to clients all over the globe. FacilitiesDesk believes that novel solutions, superior technologies and strong partners are the key elements for client satisfaction. That is why we are always on the watch to develop our partner network to new geographies.

Improve your profit

As a FacilitiesDesk partner, you will broaden your business solution and turn out to be more successful. You gain help in selling, developing, marketing and delivering FacilitiesDesk Software to the growing demand of the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and Computer Aided Facilities Management Software(CAFM) market.

Benefits FacilitiesDesk Partner Program:

• Sturdy positioning of your value proposition and competency
• Expanded business opportunities
• Shared strategic sales and marketing initiatives
• Access to a broad and strong growing customer base
• Access to the expanding and high potential ManageEngine FacilitiesDesk community

Want to know more? Contact FacilitiesDesk

Happy Reselling!

Facilities-asset-maintenance-management-software

A nice review of FacilitiesDesk by WarePrise.com

It can be quite challenging for organizations to manage multiple facilities and assets which are located in various sites. One way to overcome this would be to utilize a facilities, asset and maintenance management software.

I can recommend is ManageEngine’s FacilitiesDesk – an integrated, web based facilities management software.

Thanks WarePrise for the nice review.

Try FacilitiesDesk

How easy to get a evaluation copy of a CMMS/CAFM software ? How often you feel, why it is difficult to get a evaluation copy or access to a online demo of a CMMS or CAFM software ?

Most of the time you end up making a decision based on the limited resources available on the net. Thats why, we at FacilitiesDesk have all the options open

You can play with online demo or you can download a evaluation copy. No form registration, we have a strong belief that if you like the product you will comeback. You download the product, evaluate it against your requirements or play with the online demo. If it meets the requirements the next step is to look at the pricing. Again you have the complete information on pricing in our website with the option to buy online.
Forgot to mention, you have free support during your evaluation.

CAFM Pricing

From whatever we read on internet its all about six figure investment to implement a CAFM System. If the cost of the software itself is huge added to that you have annual maintenance cost for the software that will be in four to five figure range then how to justify the selection of software. For any organization (small, medium or large ), it will be impossible to afford a CAFM system with that pricing.

ManageEngine FacilitiesDesk takes a different tack. We have a one user free version and we have published our pricing starting from 995 $. No hidden costs, Come on, I hear you say, how can a product that costs 80-90% below the competition be just as good? Actually we say our product is better, but don't take my word for it. Try it out yourself . You have the following options to try

Product Demo link
http://demo.facilitiesdesk.com

Product Download link
http://www.manageengine.com/products/facilities-desk/download.html

Product Pricing
http://www.manageengine.com/products/facilities-desk/store.html

Get More from your CAFM Implementation

Steven from iwmsnews.com done a wonderful series of posts highlighting the ways to improve your IWMS or CAFM implementation. It gives you very good insight, starting from information gathering to contract evaluation to training needs to vendor scorecard to everything that need to be given consideration while selecting or implementing a CAFM software.

We recommend to have a look at the series of post available here. And also look forward to more articles from Steven. Thanks Steven for you time and effort in bringing this out.

Enjoy your Weekend

Why run to office or to your home computer to manage emergency or urgent work request. Enjoy your weekend, access FacilitiesDesk from your PDA(iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia etc) for any urgent work.

Why FacilitiesDesk

Need for an "Integrated" Facility Management Software to automate facility management:

Why do you need a Facility Management tool?

Optimizing facility management can save your organization a considerable percentage of its maintenance contract charge. Breakdown of resources can take a toll in your revenue through loss in productivity. Costly downtimes can be reduced if a proper facility management system is in place.

Types of Facility Management Software:

Computer-aided facility management (CAFM) software focuses primarily on space management issues: who owns the property, People of the workplace, where are the facilities located, how many facilities are present across the globe, how much does it cost to run the operation in each facility, and so forth. It also is used to manage moves and renovation projects that change how the spaces look and work. There is also usually a graphical component to CAFM so that users can connect CAD plans to facilities database information.

Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software focuses primarily on maintenance issues and problem resolution. Assets in a facility break down and somebody has to fix them. The primary vehicles for communicating problems and resolutions are the initial work request that is logged when something is wrong and the work order that is created to track the steps to fix the problem. In short maintenance management, work order tracking and preventive maintenance are the order of the day for a CMMS Application.

In CMMS software Preventive maintenance focuses on processes and activities designed to maintain assets before they break and to extend their life. CMMS may include tools to manage parts, equipment documentation, fleet maintenance, staff and subcontractor activities, and so forth.

Which type would suit you?

CAFM and CMMS sometimes overlap in the area of work orders. Most CAFM software uses work orders to manage staff and Facilities, employees and team’s relocations.

The work order provides a convenient and efficient tool to manage the details that go with these activities.In large organizations having facilities and operated across globe, different teams are generally responsible for facility and maintenance issues.

Each group may want software applications that meet their specific needs. In smaller organizations the same team may be responsible for both functions and prefer a tightly integrated solution that meets all their needs.

Why should you choose FacilitiesDesk?

FacilitiesDesk addresses the needs of both CAFM and CMMS seekers.

FacilitiesDesk Standard Edition is Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) tailored to help managers like you to take control of the complete maintenance management of your facilities across the globe from this single console.

• Maintenance management:

• Preventive or Scheduled Maintenance management
• Breakdown maintenance request management
• Tracking and monitoring the work orders

• Asset management and Tracking
• Purchase Orders Management and Tracking
• Contracts Creation, Management and Tracking
• Generation of n number of Reports with varied permutations and combinations of parameters
• Comprehensive KnowledgeBase
• User-Friendly Configuration Wizard

On the whole, FacilitiesDesk standard edition provides all that you need to have in full-fledged and productive Maintenance HelpDesk – a CMMS.

FacilitiesDesk Enterprise Edition is a CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) Software. And the good
news is that (mainly for the SMBs) FacilitiesDesk enterprise edition is available at an interestingly affordable price point compared to other CAFM vendors.

It includes all the features of the standard edition plus entire portfolio management with property, lease and space management and Move Management. If you are looking at a fully fledged Facility management tool enterprise edition is the best fit.

• Property Management & Lease Management - Access information and manage the details of all nature with respect to your properties and their lease structures of all your facilities across the globe from a central console.
• Space Management - Intuitively visualize and analyze the utility of the space available in all your facilities across different locations and manage to put the space to use more effectively. Space management with FacilitiesDesk is made efficient with the help of tools like graphs and AutoCAD integration.
• Move Management - Good news with FacilitiesDesk is that no more Chaos while initiating a move, in other words relocation. The Move management feature in enterprise edition helps in the complete move cycle from planning till the completion of relocation.
• Room Booking - With FacilitiesDesk room booking feature you will see effective room booking management with least chaos and eradicated double bookings. This takes care of the chores like pre-setting the meeting room and allows the meeting chair to concentrate on the cores of conducting a meeting.

Facility managers typically want a single application to manage both facilities and CMMS processes and FacilitiesDesk is tailored to fulfill both needs. Also FacilitiesDesk offers all that a CAFM offers interestingly at the price of CMMS.

Do not take my word for it…Try it…decide for yourself…

31 Days to improve your IWMS/CAFM Implementation

A series of nice posts on how to improve your IWMS/CAFM implementation by Steven Hanks from IWMSNEWS. Its a 31 day series now three days completed.

Day 1: Gather information about your current implementation
Day2: Evaluate your contract
Day 3: Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey

We follow/respect Steven Hanks. This gives a opportunity to us to evaluate FacilitiesDesk and see where we stand and how we can improve. You can also follow the posts and can improve your FacilitiesDesk implementation.

FacilitiesDesk - Quick Setup

How long will it take to install, setup initial configuration and bring FacilitiesDesk System to production ?

Quick Setup : Here you can install FacilitiesDesk, setup email settings and mail server configuration. And then what, go live, now you have FacilitiesDesk system up and running in just 30 minutes. With this setup you can track mails sent to your facilities team and start working on it.

Other advantages, you can configure FacilitiesDesk to create User Login or User access when a request arrives through email. And you can set notifications to send the Username and password for that particular user/email.

All your employees or users will get added automatically into the FacilitiesDesk system while your facilities team work on the requests created by them. Now users can login and see the status of the maintenance requests raised by them.

Can we call FacilitiesDesk - Self Learning CMMS Software.

We will see more detailed configuration/setup options later

Critical CMMS Properties

David Berger at Plant Engg has a great post Flexible, agile and scalable which address the critical CMMS properties for organizations on the move.

The critical properties according to him and how FacilitiesDesk address those properties

1. Web Architecture
To access FacilitiesDesk all you need is a web browser and internet.

2. Advanced Security
Role based access to ensure a given user sees and does only what's needed

3. Multi-site support
Ability to create multiple sites, locations and departments

4. Parameter driven setup
David talks about Economic Order Quantity, choosing whether closed work orders can ever be reopened, or determining whether inventory is valued using LIFO, FIFO or average cost.
In FacilitiesDesk you have Reorder Level & re-opening of closed work orders, it lags inventory valued LIFO and FIFO

5. Form based data input & output
Template based data input & output via reports which can be exported to Excel or CSV

6. Database Configurator
Adding custom fields to company specific needs

7. Workflow Engine
Business rules and Escalations

8. Explorer Style hierarchy
Explorer style hierarchy for your space - Region-->Site-->Building--> Floor

-->Room, Equipments & Components

9. Integration Aids
David talks about RFID, Barcode and mobile solutions. Mobile (iPhone & Blackberry) support is available. Barcode will come soon.

User Portal

Have been getting lot of queries from evaluators on user login details. What a user can do after logging into FacilitiesDesk ? What permission does users have?

So this is dedicated to them :).

In FacilitiesDesk you can create unlimited users. As per our licensing model cost of the product depends only on the number of Supervisor or Administrator login you have.
So you can have unlimited number of users with FREE of cost.

Here is the list of features that a normal user can do after logging into FacilitiesDesk.

1. User can create Work Request / Maintenance Request / Move Request, generally all kind of Requests.

2. User can check the status of his/her request. Whether it has been fixed or still pending. In his dashboard he can see consolidated status, that conveys about ,"All Requests raised by him", "Completed Requests" ,"Pending Requests". On clicking on the appropriate option it will take him to the filtered result.



3. Add Notes to his request. Can also notify the supervisor associated to the Request through Note addition.

4. Take a print out of his/her request.

5. If given permission by Supervisor he can see all requests raised in his department.

6. Can see Announcements given by Supervisors or Administartors.

7. User can add reminders for themselves. And it would be notified through e-mail.

8. Users can Book conference Rooms present in their Site.They can also invite participants/invitees also.




9. If they want any asset for the meeting they can request it while booking itself.A new work request will be created on behalf of that.

10. Can browse through the Knowledge Base for predefined solutions.

11. User can personalize FacilitiesDesk as per their need. They can change ,
** Default Language
** Theme
** Password

Benefits :

* Reduced support load
* Empower users to identify solutions quickly
* Keep staffs informed
* Your Help Desk is available to your staffs 24X7
* Users can review history of previous requests
* Users get to find their colleagues and their contact details with a search portal
* Get a quick view and knowledge about their space

Asset Management Work Flow

Felt a workflow of a process would be the best way to describe about the functionality, so such an attempt. Asset Management is an integral part of FacilitiesDesk. So , all you people using FacilitiesDesk must be aware of the complete workflow of the module.

Before adding an individual Asset into the inventory , you need to specify its parent hierarchy. Meaning, what Product Category, Product Type & Product it belongs to. Let's use the example of a Coffee Vending Machine.

Product Category ~ Vending Machines

Product Type ~ Coffee Vending Machine

Product ~ Fresh & Honest CVM

Asset Name ~ FHCVM 001

With FacilitiesDesk it makes you to manage huge set of assets with ease.

Other features associated with Asset Management are,

1. Annual Maintenance Contract for assets can be calculated and notified accordingly.

2. Vendor's of the Assets can be tracked. ~ Vendor Management

3. Customized reports can be generated.

4. Reports can be scheduled , Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly basis. (So you receive a copy of the report in the desired format(pdf/html/xls/csv) at the schedule date)

5. Work Requests for raised for an asset can be tracked.

6. Preventive Maintenance for Assets can be scheduled.

7. Meter Reading can be monitored.

8. Tracking inventory items and Ordering(Raising a Purchase Order from our Purchase Module) them if they go below Re-Order Level.

9. Tracking & maintaining assets based on its Location. (Eg. list of assets present in a particular Building/Floor/Room)

10. Extra Costs details for the assets can be tracked.

11. Customizing your own form fields with the help of additional fields we provide.

12. A complete history of the Asset can be maintained.

13. Asset Lease Details can be tracked , notified & maintained.

14. Asset can be assigned to a User/Department & can also be associated to other Assets & Components.

15. Maintain your own Knowledge Base for each and every Assets.

16. And lot more .To learn more you can always ask for a free online product demo or visit our online demo website.

And here is the work flow of Asset Management in FacilitiesDesk.

CMMS/CAFM - Day-to-Day data entry

Nice blog post on Important considerations for CMMS data entry

The above post deals with two forms of data entry
1. Initial data entry
2. Day-to-Day data entry

Initial data entry is a large task, but making a good commitment to the initial data gathering will make the job easier.

There is a massive amount of work required between gathering and entering this initial data. After all, there will be equipment data such as model number, serial number, equipment ID, purchase date, installation date, warranty, etc. Included in the data should be information on preventive maintenance on each asset (what needs to be done, how often work should be performed, etc.). There will also be inventory parts information including part number, description, location and reorder point. Labor information including each technician’s name and basic employee information also should be incorporated.

Coming to the Day-to-Day data entry, you have couple of options

1. Have a administrative assistant to enter the data. Here the data needs to be recorded on paper by the technician who is on the job and hand over the paper to the assistant.
2. Have the technician enter the data into system at the end of his/her work.

Will not be easy if they can directly enter the data into the system from the field using a PDA. This will be the ideal scenario where no information is lost, no recording of data on paper (Go Green) and no extra manpower (Administrative assistant) is required.

Now you know the real use of PDA integration in FacilitiesDesk. You can access FacilitiesDesk from your iPhone or Blackberry and update the system on the go.

Easy Work Request

Why I need to login to a CAFM/CMMS to send a work request
Why I need to open a mail client to send a work request.

Above two have their own merits we will cover it in subsequent posts. How often we as employees thought of the above.
I look at a problem in a common area (Water leak in rest room) and i want to report. Here I am just passing the message to the concered team to take note. For this type of reporting common problems, wont it be easier to just click a link, type the problem and Send. Instead of going through the whole process of login or opening up email client, composer etc.

This is the main reason behind Self Service Portal / Customer Portal in FacilitiesDesk.

Facilities team can post the link in the intranet or in their website. Users can click on that link which will bring up the Customer portal, no login required. Here, you can type the probem and submit a work request to FacilitiesDesk. Thatz easy work request, isnt it.

Using this Self Service Portal / Customer Portal, you can also browse common solutions or instructions to frequently occuring problems and you can resolve it by yourself. Minimising your facilities team work.

Its not just about having a facility software

By now we have seen several reasons for opting a Facility Management System for our workplace…Let’s take a serious dimension to it where we will be addressing the impact in business.

Every organization has its own business drivers, however most organizations will have these objectives in common:

• Increase productivity
• Reduce operational cost run
• Improved customer satisfaction

Each functional group within an organizational structure will have its own objectives in place, designated to play a part in a collective effort to address these key business drivers.

For Facility Managers, their on-going objective is to improve the operational efficiencies of their facility services. Improvements can be made in different ways, including:

• A re-organization
• Implementing process improvements
• Investing in an IT solution – takes care of above two objectives too, resulting in improved operational efficiency

In most cases improvements will come about by addressing a combination of the above. IT solutions clearly play an important part, however it is rarely the sole reason for improvement within FM operations.

IT is an enabler; it will exaggerate both good and bad operational practices. If an organization applies technology to an inefficient operation it is unlikely to see any return on its investment.

However, apply technology to a well-organized operation and the service provided will go from strength to strength, delivering increased productivity, reducing operational costs and increasing customer satisfaction.