Posted 23rd March 2012 By Rob Whalley

How does Tabs CAFM software meet end-user needs?

Tabs CAFM is constantly in development, from advances in new technology or bespoke client functionality. All new development is placed into a centralised system to the benefit of all clients through future upgrades.

Tabs FM was a pioneer of Mobile technology, providing advanced in-house development of Mobile applications for rugged devices. Today, following a shift in the industry from rugged to commercial hardware, our Mobile interface is in the final stages of development, offering compatibility on iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 8.

The evolution of technology also means that developers can never stand still. Over the past 4 years, we’ve been redeveloping our product using cutting edge technology that will allow us to deploy our administration console as a fully Webbased application or as a local installation. This ensures that we satisfy the technical requirements of each client.

Our product is particularly popular in halls of learning both in the State and Private Sectors. This popularity is borne of recommendation rather than target marketing.

To a great extent, the usage in a college or school reflects that in a hospital or sports arena. We have flexibility to change nomenclature within the system and a routine Planned Maintenance task on the 1st 11 Football pitch is managed in much the same way as a lift maintenance task at Mercedes Benz Head Office.

We have provided development in recent times around the commercial use of school/college facilities out of school hours and have developed a Client Relationship Management suite to address Client Management.

A detailed example of our recent achievements may be a recent specification for a London School involving their Room/Space Booking.

The requirement was to change the system to enable a senior member of staff to manually authorise every room booking without having access to the administration application. Typically, room authorisation would be performed by Estates/Facilities staff following a level of training. However, is this particular scenario the Deputy Head wanted complete authorisation control over room bookings and associated expenditure. We collaborated with the school on the process required and produce a development specification to suit. The proposed development was to introduce a ‘Pre-authorisation process’, which would email a hyperlink to the booking request to a dedicated staff member. The booked could then be viewed directly via a Web browser and authorised accordingly. Reject/clarification notes could be returned to the requestor, with accepted request progressing into the system for Estates/Facilities teams to process as normal.