Facility management software: what to specify before you build

Start with the post, not the person. A site has posts such as lobby, floor three washroom or night gate, each with shift timings and a required headcount. The roster fills each post for each shift, and an empty night gate shows red long before the guard on the previous shift is due to leave.

Attendance must tie to the roster. Staff mark in on a phone with location, a face photo or a QR code at the post. Specify what happens when someone is absent: who is alerted, how a reliever is assigned, and how the shortfall is shown to the client. Absence needs a plan, not a scramble.

Every task on a contract becomes a checklist line: wash basins, empty bins, mop lobby, check fire extinguisher tags. Each line should carry a time and, for key items, a photo taken in the app. A photo is the strongest answer to a client who says the work was not done.

Decide how detailed to be. Too many lines and the cleaner taps through. Write the list per area and frequency, then let the supervisor sign off the round, because a lobby checked hourly and a plant room checked weekly need different lines. Failed items should open a task, not vanish.

Soap, tissue rolls, garbage bags, chemicals and machine parts are issued to sites and often billed back to the client. Specify a store, a site stock level, an issue entry by the supervisor, and a reorder alert when a site runs low.

Machines need their own register. A scrubber drier has a serial number, a site and a service date, and when it breaks the record shows who last used it and which brush was replaced. Keep one line per machine.

A service level agreement names response and resolution times: a spill cleaned within fifteen minutes of a call, a lift lobby inspected every two hours. The software should start a clock when a complaint arrives and flag it before the time runs out. A missed call is remembered.

Clients ask for a monthly report. It usually shows attendance against the contract, checklist completion, complaints and their closure times, and consumables used. If you build this once as a template per client, the monthly send takes minutes rather than days of copying from registers.

A ready tool fits when your work is one service with a standard checklist and a standard report. It starts quickly and costs little to maintain. Test it on one real site first.

Custom pays off when you mix housekeeping, security and technical staff on one site, bill per post and per consumable, or must match each client’s own report format. Take your three most demanding contracts, write down what each needs, and ask any vendor to show those on screen.