A small facilities team is usually sold a suite and needs about a third of it. The useful way to think about facility management tools is not as a product category but as a short list of jobs, each of which can be done by a spreadsheet, by a point product or by a module of something larger, and each of which is worth doing in a particular order. This page sets out that order: what to fix first, what the tool for each job has to do, and which of them the free sheets on this site already do for nothing so you can defer the purchase until you know what you are buying.
The order the jobs are worth doing in
Asset register first, because nothing else can be computed without it and because it is the piece nobody else will build for you. Work orders second, because that is where the day goes and where the backlog either grows or does not. Space and occupancy third, because it carries the largest single number but usually only changes a decision at a lease event. Condition and replacement fourth, because it is never urgent and is the one that is expensive to have skipped. A tool that is excellent at the third job and weak at the first is the wrong first purchase however good the demo was.
What facilities management tools each have to do to earn a line
The asset tool has to hold location, condition on a fixed scale and expected life, and let you export all three. The work order tool has to capture hours in the field, offline. The space tool has to hold area and occupancy over time rather than a single snapshot, because a one-week reading in August is not utilization. The condition tool has to turn condition and age into a replacement profile. Anything a product does beyond those four is a convenience, and conveniences should not decide a purchase that will hold your estate for a decade.
What facilities management software tools allow the manager to do that a spreadsheet does not
Three things, and the arithmetic is not among them. Several people can hold one record without forking it. The history of a change survives the person who made it, which matters most at exactly the moment somebody leaves. And the link between an asset and its work orders is real, so the question "what has this chiller cost us" is a lookup rather than an afternoon. Every dashboard is a view of those three properties, and a product that has them with an ugly interface is a better buy than one that has neither with a beautiful one.
Which ones you can defer, and for how long
All of the arithmetic, indefinitely, because the free sheets here do it: utilization and the cost of empty desks, running cost per square foot and per person, backlog hours against technician capacity, and the annual sinking fund the asset base needs. On the worked examples those are 60% utilization with $168,000 carried by empty desks, $30 a square foot and $3,500 a person, a backlog growing 22.5 hours a week, and a $70,000 annual gap between a $160,000 need and $90,000 set aside. What you cannot defer is the record, and the record is what to buy first.
Questions people ask about facility management tools
Which facility management tools should a small estate buy first?
The one that holds the asset register properly, because every other figure is derived from it and because nobody else will build it for you. Work order capture is second. Space and occupancy tooling is worth more than it looks but usually only changes a decision at a lease event, so it can follow.
What do facilities management software tools allow the manager to do?
Hold one record several people can touch without forking it, keep the history of a change after the person who made it has gone, and link an asset to its work orders so the cost of a single item is a lookup. The reporting everyone demos is a view of those three; the arithmetic itself a spreadsheet does perfectly well.
Is a point product or a suite better?
It depends on which job hurts. A suite bought for one job is expensive and usually mediocre at the other three; a point product bought for the record is a good first purchase and a bad third one, because four point products that do not share a record recreate the spreadsheet problem with logins.
What can I still do with a spreadsheet?
All four calculations, which is why the sheets on this site are free and need no account. Utilization, cost per square foot and per person, backlog against capacity, and the sinking fund are divisions. Work them first: they tell you which tool you actually need and give you the numbers to test it with.