User friendly, powerful, well priced and great customer support!

Able to easily track our real estate portfolio and run reports in real time.

Pros

- Easy and intuitive to setup, use and maintain - Can be used out-of-the-box, no customization needed (unless you want something special) - Well priced (no hidden cost, unlike many of the big, enterprise systems) - Modular system, so you only pay for the modules you need - Very responsive (and effective!) customer support - FMS keeps adding new features - Provides self-host and hosted options

Cons

It is only compatible with AutoCAD or their own CAD software. We use a different CAD software and so we had to spend extra $ to get a compatible CAD software.

Great solution for centralizing all facets of the Facilities world into a single, robust platform

Pros

As an IT Administrator of the tool, we are able to easily configure the application to support the different Facilities processes. The general model of the tool revolves around the few key concepts of Facilities Management and everything can be built out from there (space, maintenance, real estate, etc.) allowing for customized processes while still keeping the data centralized. This allows for reporting and analysis at a detailed level (perfect for engineers, space planners, property administrators, etc.) as well as at higher levels for Facilities Managers and Executives. FM Systems, as a company, provides various tools for IT admins to manage and create in the tool including an amazing customer portal with all documentation, blogs, forums, and webinars that allow for constant learning and communication with both the company and other FM Systems users. In addition, when customer support is needed, the team is knowledgeable, friendly, and easy to contact. I also like how the user experience can be tailored to accommodate different skill sets and job descriptions. There are many functional components that most software packages would require an IT skill set to be able to execute. With FM:Interact, things like customizing a view, writing/scheduling/running reports, etc. are easy enough that, with a little training, we are able to empower the business to make the solution their own. We are also able to "turn these things off" for users that don't need them.

Cons

Our implementation is currently hosted on-premise. While the IT overhead of hosting the software is not high (especially compared to other solutions), I do want to explore the option of FM hosting to further reduce that overhead. This will allow us to take advantage of the updates faster and get the latest-and-greatest features into the business' hands.

FM Interact

Overall, technical support is great but the cost for support is ridiculous. Support is not always willing to help with upgrades and patches.

Pros

AutoCAD Integration is seamless. Floor Plan viewing is easy.

Cons

Reporting is difficult to set up. You almost need a coding background. They are not beginner level friendly Tables are confusing to navigate which, Example naming of Items in A0, N0 tables and what items corespond to one another. Lack of tutorials

JLL Occupancy Planning

Better reporting and graphic views than Archibus

Pros

Web based. Graphic views. Occupancy Zones. Scenario Planning.

Cons

1) Scenario Planning Block & Stack needs to be able to sync (refresh) with live production data of occupied buildings during scenario planning duration. Live space assignments (New hires and departures) are not updated in the scenario, so accurate planning based upon open/occupied seats is not possible without keeping track manually in separate system. Should also be able to ONLY promote moves for actual people, and not have to include Open position seat assignments in the move planner as new hires, when the people do not exist yet? 2) Cannot move people in and out of Occupancy Zones or Locker Asset module using Move Planner Module. I believe move people in and out of Occupancy Zones using Move Planner Module (posted moves) will be coming this year. Would be great if locker assignment (associated with zone assignments) could somehow be connected to Move Planner module as option. 3) Portfolio Summary report should include vacant Occupancy (Mobile) Zone physical desk counts. This way client can get easy accurate total physical occupied and vacant desk counts of vacant (room) desks and vacant desks assigned to an Occupancy zone, without the zone ratio factored in?

I have been a client for over 6 years we use it for space planning , asset management and facility

Because of the ease of use we were able to role this out to a larger user group , which help decentralize some of Facility Managements work load . Move Coordinators for each department can submit move requests that just need approval from Facilities the data is all input buy the user. Seating plans are easily viewed on line and employee directories all employees to find an employees location easily .

Pros

Easy to use , can be configured to your business, ASP is reliable , you only buy the modules you need . FM Systems provides great customer support services I have had great experiences

Cons

We have been very happy with the product the new product releases have really improved usability and performance . The only con is making multiple entries is very cumbersome you can only make one change at a time. For example when entering an asset there is no copy feature when adding multiple or when editing space type you need to edit each record form. It would be nice to use a spread sheet view in addition to a form view to enter records . For large changes FM Systems support services can do batch uploads .

CAFM plus!

I worked with FM Systems 10 years ago as a co-op when it was just a software program. Fast forward to today I am working with the web enabled version where a lot of changes and enhancements have been added. There are a lot of good people who work for this company.

Pros

The only CAFM program out there where your space reporting, facilities maintenance and move management are tied to your floor plans -- and you can do live updates. Very configurable and customizable to your companies needs.

Cons

Learning curve is a little tough if you are an admin or if you want to learn how to build your own reports. Facilities Maintenance module could be more robust but that doesn't mean it isn't good for simple work order management. Getting the program customized to your needs will require much patience and hiring a 2nd party to help with the setup.

FM - a path forward

FM allowed us to move away from spread sheets and hardcopy building plans to provide tracking and reporting of building allocations and a method to track move projects and employees.

Pros

I like the fact it's browser based and with a quick click have access to my all my facilities. It's easy to use and quickly provides information for and about employees and buildings.

Cons

least liked features are browser related, not all features work well totally on Chrome or IE for all end users. FM assumes that end users are using the latest browsers and operating systems therefore their latest releases work well for everyone. Case in point FM will not work with IE when the browser is in compatibility mode.

Great Product

My overall experience has been great. I would definitely recommend this software to other companies

Pros

The software is easy to navigate through and get used to. I've been working with the software for 4 years now and there are many ways to keep your business on track and organized

Cons

Editing the sites can be difficult but the support team is great with helping

User, Implementer

We use FM Systems for space utilization, asset tracking and analytics.

Pros

How I can configure to meet needs, new viewer technology and future product roadmap. Love the support and family friendliness of FM:Systems

Cons

The user experience, software feels and looks old, good use major UI enhancements. Wish there was offline app capabilities

Academic Setting

Pros

General functionality and ability for campus stakeholder and users to all access data remotely and simultaneously. Extremely powerful tool in our setting.

Cons

My only complaint is internal and the fact there are so many features that we have yet to tie into.

Review from Phillips 66

Pros

They make it pretty self-sufficient. We have access to do a lot of things on our end without having to get FM:Interact support involved. But if we do need them, they are very helpful and easy to work with. We primarily use the Move and Space Modules and both of these are very efficient and simple to learn. I like the ability to create multiple graphic views in the drawings.

Cons

On the down side of making the software so self-sufficient...some of the processes are lengthy and somewhat confusing to me - I have a space planning and interior design background so doing some of the "behind the scenes" work of creating reports, understanding the relationships of tables and coming up with queries can be over my head at times. Luckily we have their support and our IT team to help with this.

International customer

Have found FM:Interact to be flexible in meeting our specific needs. As an international customer with a local partner, sometimes have found support issues that need to go back to FM:Systems are not dealt with very quickly.

Pros

Highly configurable, and also relatively easily customisable. If it doesn't do what you want out of the box, you can make it do what you need with either configuration or customisation. So far our experience is that it upgrades well, even with customisations.

Cons

Have ongoing trouble with dates being in US format (we're in Australia), also some issues with using metric instead of imperial (mostly with floor plans and graphic views). Doesn't do some cascading that I would expect out of the box: eg if change a room number, does not cascade that change to associated/child tables.

Good CAFM system

We have purchased several modules and use them fairly well. It is excellent for our company of 20,000+ employees. A lot of details included. Fairly easy to learn as an every day user and also for 'newbies' who use it every so often. A tiny bit clunky on the interface - some customization could be added to make it more seamless. Overall this is the 5th CAFM software I have trained and used (in my career). I appreciate the amount of information that comes straight out of the box to be used almost immediately.

Pros

Pretty robust software, helps with all the details we are requiring for our many sites/SF.

Cons

It can be a bit clunky with different modules. Not always seamless interface.

Excellent product that has help us improve operational efficiencies.

Pros

Relatively easy to learn and use. Excellent and knowledgeable product support team. Easy to teach to others within our organization. Non-facility related groups have approach us to use the system to manage their asset inventories. That has worked well and they now connect assets with space.

Cons

Relationships between database tables can, at times, be challenging to manage especially if not experienced in the use of databases. Product has become more popular and, as a result, support personnel respond slower. Additional support personnel would be beneficial.

FM:Interact

Pros

When I first looked into it and was training in the system, I was overwhelmed with all the features. Then after a few weeks of training I realize how much it could do and how it can grown with our company. I knew I had found a tool that once you were trained on it, our company was in good hands to do space planning, asset management, move management and many other things that would be very beneficial to me. THE MOVE MANAGEMENT MODULE IS MY FAVORITE. I DO MOVES TODAY LIKE A KING!!!!!

Cons

When it comes to customization in some areas, it was challenging. Trying to customize my office maps with particular color, sizes or adding in particular notes for a certain area.

Our experienced has been one of great success once the software customizations were completed.

A great means to track your maintenance and real estate portfolio.

Pros

The cost of the product fits our business. It is not complicated to use and the technicians like it. Their customer service is second to none.

Cons

The out of the box functionality is limited, thus requiring a lot of customization. Be prepared to assign a full time administrator to the implementation team, someone who can work directly with the customer support team to customize the software to meet your business needs.

Be Ready to Build, Not Take Off

It can function incredibly well, but anticipate an investment period.

Pros

There is the ability to customize and add any fields conceived of. Can connect module upon module to support global data and interfacing.

Cons

If you're expecting an out-of-the-box solution, this won't automatically deliver industry standards. You build and decide what you want, which requires a specialized skillset.

FM:Interact is a pleasure to use

Pros

FM:Interact is a solid choice for centralizing and organizing a large portfolio such as ours. Ease of use is key and FM:Interact hits the mark.

Cons

Reporting is lacking. Free solutions like Microsoft PowerBI make it easy and I hope to one day see FM:Systems publish content packs for it that will allow PowerBI to integrate seamlessly with FM:Interact data.

FM: Interact review

Pros

The thing I like most is the ability to include the various modules (asset tracking, service requests, etc.) including uploading documents.

Cons

The thing I like the least is that it sometimes is very slow, gets caught in a buffering cycle, and will freeze. It is also fairly complex to make changes without going to customer service.

Space Management

Easy to analyze our space allocation and pull reports.

Pros

I like the visual queries on floor plans such as hatching by department or space type, or displaying vacancy.

Cons

The report formats don't translate into an excel usable format. I usually will create an excel from a view. It doesn't look as nice but easy to filter.

Great product, cost effective

Pros

Modular implementation offerings, flexibility and configurability, marketing and design teams listen to customers. Hosted implementation option.

Cons

Overall quality of the software has improved over the years, but there's still room for further improvement in rolling out new release and bug fixes.

FM Interact is a great tool to manage Facilities sites, data & moves.

Pros

FM Interact is a good Facilities tool to manage Facilities sites globally. Its relatively simple to use. New Report functionality will help performance.

Cons

When running patches, it takes a bit more time due to cutting and pasting data from folders. It would be nice if an automated tool could manage this.

Highly configurable. Powerful tool.

Pros

Ability to customize to align with our processes. The system can be configured to do whatever it is you need.

Cons

Would like cleaner GUI. Given the varying levels of staff that use the application, having a clean intuitive interface for less technical users is important. This has improved recently.

FM System

I love all the features but it is not user friendly...it seems like I need a master degree on FM System in order to manage it. I use to work at google and they have the GUTS system which is an internal management system that is foolproof...I didn't need any training to manage GUTS that's how user friendly it is. If Google decided to go public with GUTS it will definitely run everyone out of business.

Pros

Lots of helpful tools to help manage facilities operation.

Cons

Not user friendly. I hope they listen to all the customer feedbacks.

FM is a great product and I am learning how to do reporting and cant wait to show leadership.

Pros

Once everything is set up it manages itself and is easy for most to use. We have techs that are not great with computers and can still use the system affectively

Cons

That it can be hard to fix issues without making phone calls. Always a hassle dealing with internal IT and your techs.

Very good user interface and excellent sys admin tools. Easy data integrations.

Pros

DWF viewer and system admin tools. The ease of installing hot fixes. Integration to SSRS reporting........

Cons

Security roles and groups are too granualar. It is very difficult to manage the access rights across the many groups and role since many came oveer from an FMSpace 7.2 conversion

FM has always been leading edge, and always looking for ways to improve the user experience.

Pros

Usability and intuitiveness. Excellent software support. Highly visual yet packed with features that allow you to track any asset you required in the system.

Cons

New hotfix releases can sometimes create unintended bugs/issues, that the system didn't necessarily have before applying.

Very good support. Always adding nice, new features. Does Space Management and Move Management well.

Pros

Efficiently administers moves. Great functionality between website and AutoCAD. Database itself is fairly easy to work with.

Cons

Users do not find it intuitive. A lot of configuration work required by admins. When functionality changes, existing features inevitably break.

It has been very good.

Not sure yet.

Pros

I am very happy with the ability we have to continue to customize they system to meet our needs as they change

Cons

However, the customization can be difficult, but I am very happy to see FM is working very hard to make those tasks easier with every rollout.

Very very happy

Pros

I really like the user interface with the graphics. I like flexibility and ease of use. Very user friendly.

Cons

Working on reporting but it is getting better. Sometime it is not easy to find what I am looking for to change in the system...fields, etc...

The ability to tailor the software to the way you want to work is amazing.

Pros

Configurability and Ease of Use are the best features allowing us to create an environment that works best for customers.

Cons

Limited API Availability for Customization - it is getting much better, but we always want to be able to do more.

Software Experience Would Be Improved With Better Documentation

Pros

FM:Interact is fairly easy to use. Software version upgrades and hot fixes are released frequently, often correcting bugs in various components.

Cons

While the software seems to be nicely robust and easy to use, navigating the menus to actually configure and personalize is often confusing. Administrator documentation falls short of explaining processes necessary to complete the changes.

FM: Interact Review

Pros

I've been using FM for over a decade and it keeps getting better and better. Love how customizable it can be. This software offers something for every purpose which is good.

Cons

Performance speed is the biggest concern globally.

A few road bumps in implementing but overall great support

Pros

How it has automated our maintenance and how it can tie into our floor plans and space management!!!

Cons

Users roles and permissions are complicated.

Knowing what you don't know!

Pros

Software goes very deep into ERP with options that i would have not thought of to help future needs.

Cons

not knowing all the functions and when learning the function not good flow on instructions.

Space Management

Tracking Department locations, and room data.

Pros

It is easy to navigate and users quickly pick up on navigating through floor plans and views. Tech support is always on top of my issues and resolves things quickly and efficiently.

Cons

A few of the programs features do not align with our company's processes, which turns into a custom build scenario.

Very informative about current and future products.

Pros

Ease of use and modules are easy to understand and follow. Expanding software to other regions to enable users to use a global system. Excellent support from the organization.

Excellent ability to organize data, moves and view plans

no longer need to update plans manually in Autocad, or count desks for vacancy! I can generate maps for scheduled moves easily and quickly.

Pros

-generate floor plans with different data -sort moves by project, date or other -view occupancy in a detailed way

Cons

-not completely intuitive -reporting is confusing and not intuitive -permissions and roles are confusing

Overall the product suite is robust and easily configurable to meet different needs.

Pros

Configurability is great and most out-of-the-box tool are very usable from the start. the new FMx reporting and floorplans are great.

Cons

there is still some legacy things that havent been yet converted over to the new html5 standard. At time the provider is short on resources and support might be hard to get.

Systems Administrator

Good. But needed lots of customization.

Pros

Ease of Use Configurability and Customization

Cons

No mandatory fields in child views Slowness in overall website

Works for us

Pros

It's customization works to fit our business' needs

Cons

Because we have so many custom settings our upgrades are a nightmare

FM:Interact Review

Multiple data sources that require maintenance from multiple groups. The benefit would be to have a single source of truth and to have the ability to share the same information. Eliminate the individual silos.

Pros

The amount of customization and the ability to configure the various data in different formats per login/access.

Cons

I would like to have some GIS capabilities for graphically locating graphical data (building) relative to each other along with the GIS for exterior utilities.

Great idea, but feels more like FM:Might Interact Eventually

Mostly using the seating plan information to find where people sit, or to see who sits in a particular area.

Pros

The search and browse facilities and accuracy of the drawing.

Cons

The speed of ... search, fetching drawings ... pretty much everything. It is SO slow and laggy. Comparable web applications that deal with far larger databases work with no apparent latency. The route into the package (which requires many hops) at our firm is rather unnecessary too, though I seem to have managed to overcome that, and achieve SSO with our in house URL shortener.

Very good product for Way Finding if you work within a large corporate building.

Overall, very nice product to use as it allows me to complete Facility projects that I may not be able to complete without it.

Pros

Very broad platform that allows me to control seating locations anywhere in the building.

Cons

The system tends to run slow at some points during the day however this could just be a networking issue.

Like some of the functions

I like that making changes to views is fairly simple. Also we are able to do a fair amount of stuff without the need for a lot of support help.

Pros

The ability to tie Autocad floor plans to a database system..........................................

Cons

I would like to see the markup and measure feature to be more developed. Kind of like how it used to be in FM 7.5. Also would like to see the ability to do department SF info and report on it.

FM Success!

I have always maintained that what makes FM:Interact so special is primarily three things: Looks Good, Easy to Use, and Highly Configurable. It has its own set of tools to easily add and edit forms, views, and floor plan maps. Also, the product has its own API and is SQL Server based to easily integrate with other systems such as HR as needed. FM:Systems got it right - they understand that every organization is different, but at the same time, needs to have a core set of FM standards and structure at its core. The company is led by an IFMA Fellow, Mike Schley, who is committed to incorporating industry topics and trends such as BIM, Alternative WorkSpace (AWS) and Hoteling into the product. This web-based and mobile-ready software stands out by being so flexible and scalable that it helps to ensure that it will grow in the organization. The only mistake you can make is not to leverage it enough - it's a powerful tool to support your facility - highly recommended!

Great System

I have been working with FM Systems for over 10 years and have integrated it with many corporate systems. It is easy to use and train on.

Pros

Ease of use to integrate. Ease of training users.

Cons

Wish documentation was better and easier to find.

review

excellent customer service from the entire team.

Pros

i personally like the ease of use of the software

Cons

would like a more modern look. the system is working well but just looks a little outdated.

Robust software -- Needs a lot of planning

We are using the program for Space Managment and Move Management. We will be rolling it out globally and it has taken a long time to get it to this place.

Pros

It is robust and can handle a lot of the basic and custom Workplace tasks including (move management, space managment, ticket management, scenario planning, etc). The new scenario planning tools is great.

Cons

Without extensive planning and configuration, there will be a lot of issues. Not as user friendly as I would like. Also, if the data is hosted by FM, it can be slow.

Complicated if you are not familiar with databases, but can provide a lot of data.

Pros

Collects a lot of data. I'm excited to use the new report builder and create more graphic reports. Great potential for us, just need to set it up better!

Cons

Complicated to set up, especially since we don't have documentation on the original setup. Our system is slow too.