Our Facilities Management Department covers the operations of 24 town buildings in our municipality. These buildings also include three elementary schools and one middle school. Our maintainers and custodians handle all aspects of these buildings, from cleaning and grounds work, to repairs, HVAC and inspections (just to name a few). Prior to Maintenance Edge we utilized two work order systems. School staff used an in-house request system through our IT Department, while all other town employees utilized a purchased software (MP2). My position is that of Administrative Assistant and I am the one individual that processes all work requests for our office. This meant switching back and forth between our two systems making sure all requests were processed. Work requests were not addressed during any absences from the office (vacation, etc.), thus sitting in queue until my return. Also, there was not a concise record of completed tasks. I am still the one individual in our organization who uses MaintenanceEdge on a full time basis. However, we have now added our maintainers and custodians as daily users of this program. When we began using it in November of 2012, I realized how simple and flexible this program was. It has met all of our needs, and as I continue to use the system, I find more and more areas we can adapt to its use. It has been extremely helpful in reducing the amount of daily work order processing, as so much is now automated through the program. Instant notification to our maintainers' cell phones and email gives immediate contact on requests and tasks, thus eliminating any delays during my out-of-office time. Automatic routing also eliminates the need to forward work orders to the proper maintainer, since notification is within minutes. This function also allows our maintainers to check on work orders when at a specific building, thus eliminating duplicate travel time. This has greatly improved the productivity of our department. We have also taken advantage of the automated reports function, which generates and emails the specific building reports to the proper individuals on a weekly basis. Everyone, including building directors and principals, are "on the same page" with updates and tasks. MaintenanceEdge definitely helps us all communicate more effectively and efficiently. Finally, from the standpoint of the "requesters" at our many buildings, they find it very user friendly. One 20-30 minute training session was all it took to get all users up and running. The transition has been very smooth, especially with the added assistance from the FacilityDude support staff. They are easy to contact, always friendly, and have the correct answers and information that is needed; and if not, they continue to work on any issues until they are solved. I've recommended MaintenanceEdge to a number of colleagues in local governments in my area. It is a user-friendly system with fantastic customer support. From my standpoint, it is a blessing, and has done wonders for our department!

A Tool You Can Not Go Without

We initially began using Facility Dude in July of 2013. Are initial goal was to utilize Facility Dude in several departments thru out our Government entity. The startegy was to start out slowly to see if the software would meet our needs. After adding our fifth department last week, we have become very pleased with its performance. Facility Dude is currently being used in our following departments: Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Communications, Community Development and Construction and Maintenance. Each department is on schedule of implementaion of various degrees and levels. The unique aspect of Facility Dude is that the departments have been able to operate seperatley within the same account while the sytem stays intact as a whole. This allows for upper management and county officials to view a snap shot of all departments at any given time. The other crucial advantage of using one work order system is that departments can easily exchange information without restriction. Facility dudes internet based access does not burden hardware specifications allowing us to be creative in finding efficient means of operation. For example we can utilze Ipad technology that is a few years old allowing us to purchase used hardware at a much less expensive expenditure. This carries over to not needeing as powerfull technology in relation to overall hardware costs. Several times while implementing Facility Dude we have come across needs that were not readily tested already within the workings of the original system. Facility Dude has been very helpful in working with us in developing protocols to work thru these "custom to us" features. Currently we are working together in areas that need fine tunning. The overall impression we have recieved from our online in the field staff has been very positive, with an emphasis on ease of use. The support staff at Facility Dude has always be extremly timely and usually instant. The timely completion rate of work orders has decreased from one half to one full day on average. This has been a result of requests from requesters going immediately into the system and technicians being able to see them and route themselves accordingly. Can I at this time do a complete review of Facility Dude? No I can not, reason being is that as much as we have already made succesfull we have not begun to scratch the surface of all that we think Facility Dude will do for us.

Maintenance Direct has been a lifesaver for our department.

Pros

SchoolDude has the best customer service department! We really appreciate their prompt and friendly staff. Maintenance Direct is very user-friendly and allows unlimited user access. I loved that it was so easy to implement, you only had to enter minimal amount of data before using.

Cons

The only thing I can say is maybe allowing some customization in some of the filed categories instead of having to use their default list. Some districts may use different ways to describe the same function.

SchoolDude User Friendliness

Pros

My overall thoughts of schooldude would be that it serves it purpose for scheduling event but it really is not user friendly. The amount of time that it takes for a new user to complete a proposal to schedule an event is pretty tedious.

Cons

I am not a new user so it is easy for me to access and set of events but even explaining to new users is hard because of the lay out. I think it needs to be more simplistic. For example like when you turn on a new Iphone it asks for a piece of information then you hit next and it asks for another. Then it populates all your information for you to review at the end.
One other flaw that I noticed in it for billing purposes is that it does not send an email notification when something new is put on to the calendar. Which would be really helpful when something is added last minute if the invoices are already completed for that day.
I am not a veteran and do not know all the ins and outs of schooldude, but I do think these fixes could improve the users experience on it.

First CMMS at Atlas

Pros

MaintenanceEdge start up has been amazingly simple. Once our equipment list was finalized and given to Dude Solutions, their team completed all the data entry allowing free time for our end users to familiarize themselves with the software. The navigation is easy and training went smoothly and quickly. The support staff has been lightening quick about any questions that have come up. On going weekly scheduled meeting with our dedicated representative from Dude have reinforced training and expanded regularly on our knowledge of the program.

Cons

There are a few functions that have been lacking that tech support has been made aware of. Not all of the reports are able to be automatically generated on a schedule, ie. Downtime. I would like to see the ability to toggle some of the fields on or off depending on the end users preferences.

THE EASE OF IT ALL

Pros

Learning to use MD was so easy. I can enter purchased items, or stock items and then actually track the cost of a job, including the labor. It lets you know what status it is in, New Request, work in progress etc. and each person assigned to that job can actually go in leave notes for the others who are involved. If items have been ordered, you can also notify the others that once they arrive the job can be completed. Working in a school system, you deal with so many locations, and this helps to keep everyone informed and up to date on the latest.

Cons

I wish we had the options of ink colors, so if something is vital, that part could be done in red so that it is very visible.

My Experience with SchoolDude

Pros

Ease of use. Significantly less paper work. Quick response when service is indicated. Keeps everyone who needs to be aware of an issue informed. So far the process has worked as advertised. It has allowed our staff to provide quick and accurate responses. There is more accountability when a request is made in writing, approved by a supervisor and acted upon in an efficient amount of time.

Cons

I really can't think of anything. Maybe making deleting a request easier. There are times when the situation submitted has been addressed through a conversation and there is no need for the responder to take action.

Repair Assistance 101

Pros

Maintenance Direct keeps great records and history of repairs and those who submit them. It helps to retrieve similar issues and generate vendor repairs as a combined problem, rather than piece meal each repair separately. In the long run, it is a tremendous cost savings overall.

Cons

Changes that are not always made known ahead of time that I feel are a sometimes a loss of accessibility. Example is password reset on the administrative side. This has recently changed and it does make it more cumbersome to figure out new user errors such as duplicate logins.

Great Product

Pros

I use two packages from SchoolDude. Maintenance Direct and Facility Direct. We also use Trip Direct in our District. All work great together and are seamless. I can go to one and then it will connect me to the others without having to re-enter passwords. All keep records of past events and searches are simple. Maintenance Direct is very powerful and more than meets our needs. Everything is thought out and setup for a School District, but I can see it used for other Business's as well.

Cons

The only complaint that I would have is that the charts on the Home Page of Facility Direct doesn't export to Excel and when printing it out, it can look strange on the paper.

Great Product and Great Customer Service

Pros

The product works great for the administrators, technicians, and users. We get positive feedback regularly about our use of this product. And if there happens to be something we don't understand about the product or some way we think the product could be improved, the customer service is happy to respond to requests and take recommendations into consideration.

Cons

Honestly, there's not really anything we don't like about them. They have a good product that they continue to improve. I guess I just wish they had more products.

Preventative Maintenance software

Pros

The software has the best (easiest to navigate and common sense flow) user interface out of the 4-5 competitors that I evaluated. The sales rep that I worked with was low pressure and responsive to my needs and questions. Implementation cost and annual service costs were very competitive. The after purchase training and setup was also very positive. I have a point person and scheduled time blocks for training and continue to have great customer service 3 months after implementation. In fact my training rep. emailed me today asking how things were going and if I had any questions.

Cons

In a perfect world, I would like to tailor the software to my specific needs and industry. Facility Dude is a generic software from the sense that it accommodates the language and requirements spanning several very different industries. I have had to be creative in a few cases with how we classify groups and naming convention. Not a big issue however the inability to have some level of customization would be my only complaint.

Tech Request Made Easy

Pros

I like this product is easy and straight forward in entering a request. Only the facts are needed; not any unnecessary questions to clutter the request.

Cons

It is a little irritating when you can't login when you forget to pull down to itdirect and have to start over; there needs to be an option for iDevices or Android devices and netbooks rather than hardware. Finally, when checking on tech requests, it would be nice if the list pulled up with newest first. I know that is an option at the bottom, but sometimes I forget and have to go to end;

SchoolDude software is outstanding.

Pros

SchoolDude software is user friendly, with amazing reporting features. The Client Services Team goes above and beyond in support of the SchoolDude products. Client Services is not provided from a foreign country. The staff is easy to understand - there is no language barrier. SchoolDude University provides a unique opportunity to expand product knowledge and build relationships with peer institutions.

Cons

There is not a single aspect that I am unsatisfied with.