How Can Facilities Management Software Be Customized For Your Needs?

Facilities management software suites aren’t designed as out-of-the-box perfect for every business. Your office runs like no other, and its needs are like no one else’s. What makes FM software ideal isn’t whether it’s born customized, but whether it can easily be customized to suit your needs, whether your business is large or small.

Knowing that you probably won’t find any software that’s 100 percent plug & play, the next questions are how much customization do you need and which options are most important to you. If you manage more than one location, those questions are doubly important. Here’s how you’ll know that you’ve found the best and most flexible system for your office.

Does the Software Cover All of Your Major Bases?

You’ll want to come as close as possible with the Facilities Management software that you choose. The more features and options that you have on the front end, the less work you’ll need to do on the back end. SaaS is customizable, contrary to some misconceptions. It’s also less labor intensive and potentially less costly because you don’t need a technician on site or need to pay for yearly upgrades.

You should have the ability to choose what works best for you and how each of those components function. The ideal SaaS building blocks work together and independently, as you decide. This sets the strongest possible foundation for fine-tuning, and lets you reconfigure in the future if your needs change.

Can the Tools Control Privacy for Sensitive Data?

One of the keys to an effective Facilities Management software solution is the ability to control who can access which data as simply as possible, and without installing separate programs on every computer in the company. Although everyone in the office might use some facet of the software, at least to some degree, that doesn’t mean everyone should have unfettered access to everything.

Using dual or multiple systems is cumbersome, and separate software for the things that you want to keep restricted leaves one more potential gap open for errors and oversight, especially for the facility manager who oversees it all. An integrated system lets you become the architect, setting virtual partitions that allow access, or not.

Is Customization Simple, or Complicated?

Customization of any Facilities Management software is great and an important factor to keep in mind when implementing a facilities management software. On-site solutions might require comprehensive reprogramming to find a design that’s right for you. That’s a costly endeavor, especially if you don’t have your own IT team. And if you’ve ever dealt with reprogramming, you know the host of kinks that invariably need to be worked out and corresponding down time along the way.

SaaS can be the best choice because these solutions typically allow ease of configuration by either the provider or the user. These technology platforms are designed to allow changes to workflow and preferences within a couple of clicks. No timely, complicated and expensive customization. These tools allow you to establish a solid framework that can quickly adapt to the changing needs of your enterprise.

The whole point of Facilities Management software is to make workflow throughout your entire business smoother. It’s created to do away with the myriad standalone programs and hard copies that you might normally use, and place everything in a convenient, accessible, digital location.

SaaS works so well because it’s customizable for large businesses that might have several locations, or even small ones that are just starting out. And it lets you – not a third-party IT team – be the designer.