Simplify building navigation with Mapsted’s Wayfinding technology

Simplify building navigation with Mapsted’s Wayfinding technology

by | Jul 25, 2024 | ARCHIBUS

Wayfinding — guiding people through your space with turn-by-turn navigation — can help to welcome guests to your buildings and enable employees to find unfamiliar locations.

Integrating wayfinding into your Archibus deployment can have several uses. For example:

  • If you have a campus with multiple buildings, employees can access directions from a point in one building to a point in another building.
  • For booked working spaces and meeting rooms, employees want directions that guide them to the location so that they can easily find the booked room and arrive on time.
  • For planning purposes, employees want to see the fastest path to a working space that they booked or a meeting that they must attend.
  • When Workplace is deployed on a lobby kiosk, building visitors can access routes to locations in an unfamiliar building.
  • For the Workplace mobile app, navigation is supported through QR code scanning.

Wayfinding Button

To support these types of scenarios, Workplace can integrate Mapsted’s wayfinding technology by providing a Wayfinding button on the following Workplace pages:

  • Find People and Places
  • Meeting Space Booking Detail
  • Workspace Booking Details

If you have an Archibus Wayfinding license, but you do not have a Mapsted floor plan for a floor, the Wayfinding icon appears in gray, as shown on the below Workspace Booking Details page.

Mapsted Interface

Once you select Workplace’s Wayfinding button, the Mapsted interface overlays Workplace. You can then use the Mapsted interface to enter a destination. For example, in the below image, the user has entered start and destination locations within the same floor, and Mapsted has outlined the route in blue on the floor plan and provided turn-by-turn written instructions.

When through, you can select the Return to Workplace button in the upper right corner to return to the Workplace interface.

Requirements

Wayfinding is compatible with both SaaS and non-SaaS instances. For non-SaaS instances, your company’s IT policy must allow the Workplace application to connect to the external API’s defined in the AbWayfinding.MapstedUrl and AbWayfinding.MapstedSearchUrl application parameters, described below.

In order to integrate the wayfinding features:

  • The Archibus Wayfinding license must be enabled.
  • You must have a license to access or use Mapsted services during the current subscription term.
  • You must have created digital maps stored in Mapsted with room-level attributes including ”floorId”,”buildingId”,”propertyId” that enable the location to be displayed in the Archibus Wayfinding page using the Mapstead API.
  • In order to enable building-to-building navigation within a site, the buildings within a single Archibus site should be configured in a single property in Mapsted.
  • You must set the below application parameters.

Application Parameters

Set the parameters with: System / Archibus Administrator – Application Configuration / Configure Application Parameters.

AbWayfinding.MapstedUrl

This URL is used in Workplace to redirect to Mapsted’s Wayfinding feature. The default value works without configuration. The values in the <> brackets will be derived from Workplace.

The default value is:
https://maps.mapsted.com/<propertyId>?building=<bl_id>&floor=<fl_id>&entity=<rm_id>

AbWayfinding.MapstedSearchUrl

This URL is used in Workplace to find the Mapsted attributes for a specific room. The values in the <> brackets will be filled out in Workplace. The default value work without configuration, except that you must set “provider” with your company’s unique Mapsted ID.

The default value is:
https://public.mapsted.com/api/v1/integration/search?provider=archibus&property=<bl_id>&longName=<rm_id>

We at Robotech understand the challenges organizations face in optimizing navigation within their facilities.

If you want to reach us for any questions, please send us a message below or call 201-792-6300 to to schedule a demo, or email the team at [email protected].

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Visitor Management System with Eptura

Visitor Management System with Eptura

by | May 16, 2024 | ARCHIBUS, Eptura, Workplace & Facility Management

Simplify check-in for everyone

Secure your workplace and make hosting clients and visiting employees completely seamless with fully integrated visitor management.

 

Streamline your visitor experience

Create a great experience for everyone while protecting the health of your people and the security of your business.

 

Ensure a secure working environment

Welcome visitors into the workplace with an experience that doesn’t compromise your company’s health, security, or compliance objectives

 

Automate visitor management

Sync visitor and employee data with your access control system, send unique QR codes to grant access at the right time, and get real-time information about who is in the building.

 

Reduce operational costs

Save time with an automated visitor management system, allowing office staff to dedicate more time and resources to other projects.

 

Check-ins made easy

Get everything you need to make welcoming visitors a breeze.

Remote registration

Save time by allowing your visitors to answer key questions ahead of their visit and generate a custom QR code for easy check-in and building access when they arrive.

Workplace security

Secure the work environment and protect your people with integrated watchlists, ID matching, and the ability to pre-approve visitors.

 

Autonomous check-in

Increase visitor satisfaction and save time with self-service check-in capabilities by integrating with the systems that already exist in your building.

Seamless integration

Offer a touchless experience and let visitors breeze through access control systems with integrations such as email invites, e-sign NDAs, RFID access cards, and mobile QR codes.

Data security

Comply with local and international privacy regulations with customizable data retention and deletion rules.

Digital logbook

Get real-time detailed audit reports of visitor flow across your location.

Emergency management

Conduct digital roll calls in the event of an emergency or drill situation to account for everyone in the building.

Choose how you work your world

Mobile app

Make visitor check-in a breeze with easy registration, unique QR codes for every employee or guest, and helpful wayfinding tools.

 

Web portal

Get a full overview of who’s coming and going from your buildings, approve or reject scheduled visitors, and get notified when guests arrive to ensure a warm welcome.

Visitor kiosks

Sync visitor and employee data with your access control system so everyone can get where they’re going without any friction.

Want to know more?

Set up a demo to see how these tools provide the security, data, and management features you need to take control of your workplace.

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Hybrid Work Continues to Benefit Organizations

Hybrid Work Continues to Benefit Organizations

by | Feb 20, 2024 | ARCHIBUS, Workplace & Facility Management

Lessons learned from a fully remote organization can help overcome the challenges of hybrid and improve organizational health.

Our work in organizational health suggests that a fully remote organization can demonstrate a level of health that rivals, if not exceeds, the performance of most traditional companies. Organizations encouraging moderate on-site presence can learn about overcoming the inherent challenges of hybrid work from the experiences and operating models of highly distributed and remote-first companies.

To better understand and assess the impact of these operating models on organizations today, McKinsey is re-examining and refreshing an important resource: the Organizational Health Index (OHI). Based on more than two decades of expertise, our approach to measuring and improving organizational health has helped more than 2,600 clients in 100-plus countries improve and sustain performance. Although we have researched and published extensively on hybrid and remote work, we had not yet directly leveraged the OHI to connect flexible work practices (i.e., when, where, and how work gets done) to organizational health.

Since much of the debate continues in the hybrid middle—where most organizations are operating and where individual employee experiences can vary wildly—we’ve partnered with technology organizations that have been fully remote since before the COVID pandemic to help quantify the impact of their operating models. All the companies we have studied achieved top-quartile scores on the OHI, and the largest and most mature of these organizations achieved top-decile health as compared to our benchmarks. This demonstrates that it is possible to reach an exceptional level of organizational health through clear values, transparent decision making, and intentional ways of working designed to overcome limits and coordination challenges across time and place.

There are also similarities in these organizations’ cultural profiles, notably top-decile scores on OHI outcomes for Work Environment and Motivation. They share common leadership styles with top-decile performance on Consultative Leadership and Supportive Leadership OHI practices as well.

We have learned from these studies that there are six priorities for companies that aspire to sustain a flexible or highly distributed workplace alongside top organizational health, each with a set of actionable practices:

  1. Remove ambiguity about working practices. Set expectations, emphasize clear and consistent meeting protocols, and incorporate asynchronous work practices—enabling collaboration without real-time communication—through role clarity and operational discipline.
  2. Reset performance expectations. Create an environment where on-site and offsite colleagues feel on equal footing, through performance goals and reviews.
  3. Be transparent. Have a single source of truth for all managers and employees (e.g., a regularly updated handbook that lays out the rules and norms), through knowledge sharing and process-based capabilities.
  4. Be purposeful about where people work. Hybrid organizations should encourage informed, intentional choices to work together in person—focusing on the moments that matter—by helping employees understand working norms and why they are asked to be onsite. A similar level of strategic intentionality should be applied to remote working decisions as well.
  5. Foster trust and a sense of support. Demonstrate a welcoming work environment, through inclusion and belonging, supportive leadership, and openness and trust.
  6. Test and learn. Make decisions quickly, regularly assess what is working and what needs to be improved, and share lessons learned—even the failures—through empowering leadership, tech enablement, and data-driven decision making.

These six priorities are deeply ingrained within the culture at the fully remote companies that we’ve assessed, helping their employees connect and collaborate across locations and time zones while enabling top quartile performance. Organizations that have adopted, or are considering, a hybrid or fully remote operating model should follow suit—our work suggests that doing so could prove an accelerator for their organizational health.

How Archibus can Help Promote Hybrid Organization

Space management and utilization is a concept that should be on every organizational leader’s mind. With rent and real estate prices skyrocketing in desirable cities, there’s never been a better time to figure out whether you’re using all the square footage you’re paying for to the best of its abilities. Even if you don’t operate in an expensive region, unused office space represents a massive point of waste that can easily be resolved when you use facility management software. Learn more about common areas of underutilization in office spaces and see what a smart workplace management software platform like Archibus can do for you as you work to make better use of the space you have.

The Best Way to Get Archibus

If you’re new to Archibus or want to get this software today, our team at Robotech can help. We offer comprehensive entry-level basics training, and we sell Archibus software directly to companies across the country. We are a gold partner of Archibus, and we’ll ensure your team is fully set up and comfortable with the software before we consider the job “done”.
We have a few Archibus packages that we offer, and we can provide a free trial for you to test it before you buy. Within a few minutes, you’ll see how helpful this software is in maintaining your healthcare compliance accreditation.

Schedule a call to get started today.

 

Archibus OnSite App V6 gives your technicians everything they need, in the palm of their hands

Archibus OnSite App V6 gives your technicians everything they need, in the palm of their hands

by | Sep 21, 2023 | ARCHIBUS

OnSite App Version 6 from Archibus gives your technicians everything they need, in the palms of their hands.
With the Archibus OnSite mobile app, field technicians and maintenance workers can receive and update maintenance work orders from the convenience of their mobile device.
Better performance in the field helps your organization maintain facilities and assets in peak condition.

Close maintenance requests faster

  • Digitize the request process with workflows you can directly configure
  • Technicians can assign themselves tasks based on location, due date, priority, and required skillset
  • With configurable push notifications, technicians stay on top of critical, deadline-driven tasks
  • Technicians can add comments and photos, and tag stakeholders within work requests

Keep asset databases up to date with straightforward data inputs

  • Archibus OnSite connects to Archibus features including Space, GIS, and Assets
  • Easily see complete asset inventories and maintenance histories, making asset life cycle management easier
  • See who is doing what and when, so you can track progress on every work request
  • With configurable compliance checklists, technicians can easily adhere to safety and regulatory compliance items while doing scheduled maintenance and inspections
  • Access complete asset histories for informed asset maintenance decisions, compliance documentation, and condition assessments

Enable your technicians on the go

  • Sync floor plans and site maps, so technicians can easily find their way to the assets they’re working on
  • The labor hours timer alerts technicians to stop recording based on a pre-defined hours limit
  • Connect assets and work orders with quick bar code scanning
  • With offline support, technicians can work in remote locations without an internet connection
  • Archibus OnSite is localized in 6 languages and works on both smartphones and tablets

Automatically record labor hours

  • Start/Stop timer records technicians’ hours
  • Labor hours timer automatically sends alerts to stop time tracking when a maximum daily limit is reached

Reduce manually assigning tasks

  • Self-assign work requests feature allows technicians to choose from their team’s work tickets based on location, due date, priority, and required skillset

Configure critical diagnostic, equipment, and cost data

  • New diagnostic data fields allow technicians to enter defect cause and repair types, gather equipment meter readings, track downtime, and record other cost-related information
  • Data input fields can be made mandatory, so technicians must enter data for a work order to be marked complete
  • Show or hide input fields on work requests, so technicians only input necessary data
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Eptura Empowers Users to Take Control of Workdays and Workspaces with Latest Archibus Version 2023.03

Eptura Empowers Users to Take Control of Workdays and Workspaces with Latest Archibus Version 2023.03

by | Aug 16, 2023 | ARCHIBUS, Workplace & Facility Management

New Archibus software release enhances wayfinding, space management, and maintenance scheduling

Eptura, the global worktech leader, recently announced updates to its Integrated Workplace Management System, Archibus, offering business users enhanced wayfinding capabilities, improved insights for space planning and asset management, and a streamlined maintenance technician experience. These updates expand on the prior Archibus release which strengthened integrations with Autodesk and added the ability to leverage occupancy data from VergeSense sensors.

With the introduction of flexible work policies, today’s workplaces are bustling with various combinations of employees, maintenance personnel, and building guests flowing in and out of office spaces at assorted times. As revealed in Eptura’s Q1 2023 Workplace Index Report earlier this year, visitor check-ins are up 35% year-over-year with room booking check-in rates rising 76%.

This influx of traffic, paired with evolving floorplans to accommodate new ways of working, makes wayfinding more critical, especially for visitors unfamiliar with the layout of a given workspace or multi-building campus. Now offering an integration with Mapsted’s indoor navigation, Archibus enables users to easily find their way around the office, ensuring guests can quickly locate bookings and the people they are visiting.

The demands on building operators have also increased as they look to determine the right mix of spaces to support flexible work while controlling costs. Enhancements to the Archibus platform offer new ways to visualize space utilization, allowing teams to better understand current needs and inform future real estate decisions.

For maintenance teams, office attendance correlates strongly with work orders and equipment inspection volumes. By empowering technicians to self-assign work orders and collect vital maintenance information, updates to Archibus provide a more comprehensive view of pending requests and schedule availability to expedite task completion. “Technicians can input all the necessary information on their mobile devices, instead of waiting to get back to their desktops,” said Yuki Sawamoto, senior managing director of iSquared, an Eptura partner.

Updates to Archibus

As part of this series of updates, Archibus users can now:
• Enable users to find their way around offices or campuses by leveraging Mapsted’s indoor navigation from Archibus.
• Visualize space utilization trends to see averages and peaks.
• See which assets have the most or least remaining years of service by filtering on remaining service life.
• Access and display IFC models, DWG files, and PDF files to use architectural, building, and construction industry data within the Archibus BIM Viewer.
• Take actions on assets in fewer clicks, such as reporting issues, updating asset descriptions, and editing related data directly within BIM Viewer.
• Allow technicians to self-assign work orders directly from the OnSite mobile app.
• Track when technicians are approaching their labor hours limit and send alerts from within OnSite.

“For 40 years, building owners and operators worldwide — from government agencies to healthcare providers — have relied on Archibus to manage their real estate and asset portfolios. With our latest updates to Archibus, we’re putting more control directly in the hands of facility managers, building guests, and repair teams,” said Paul Phillips, CTO of Eptura. “These users have growing responsibilities amid the resurgence we’re seeing across workspaces, and these enhancements enable them to tackle those responsibilities more efficiently.”

To learn more about how businesses are leveraging Archibus by Eptura to optimize their workplaces and assets, visit our website.

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Eptura updates Archibus to better leverage BIM models

Eptura updates Archibus to better leverage BIM models

by | May 16, 2023 | ARCHIBUS, Autodesk, Eptura

Eptura, the global worktech leader, earlier this month unveiled a series of enhancements for its Integrated Workplace Management System, Archibus, offering increased visibility and reporting for occupancy, allowing facility management teams to leverage building operations data in the field, and introducing new bulk lease renewal capabilities.

Today’s facility management teams are facing a growing workload and an expanded role in ongoing space planning conversations. As these responsibilities mount, and organizations look to solidify the future of their workplace accommodations, facility managers are increasingly looking for accessible, actionable operations data to inform planning decisions. Eptura’s updates to the Archibus platform are enabling building owner-operators to digitize facility operations and analytics. Facility managers and building operators can now:

  • Navigate through models by Autodesk project in Autodesk® Construction Cloud® or BIM 360® Docs to easily search and find building models.
  • Visualize and work with custom 3D views from Autodesk® Revit® models so BIM Managers can focus on specific locations or asset systems in a building, eliminating the need to re-create visualizations when managing assets or planning spaces.
  • Customize BIM viewer display for data overlay preferences, from highlight colors and room opacity to zoom level for a more personalized view of key building data.
  • Streamline lease renewals at scale by automatically populating relevant information (location, contacts, lease type, suites, recurring costs, etc) from expiring leases to eliminate the repetitive process of copying these data to new leases.
  • Integrate VergeSense occupancy data to better understand space utilization and patterns to determine peak hours and workspace traffic.
  • Upload files in the mobile app and view attachments associated with work orders to provide more data to facility managers responding to tickets, and to build a more comprehensive work order ticket.
  • Ask and respond to questions within mobile service tickets to resolve issues faster and on the go.

The enhancements unlock new capabilities in Archibus’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) Viewer tool, allowing post-construction teams to more effectively manage their buildings. In the lifecycle of a building, 80% of the costs are associated with the post-construction phase, making it crucial for data to transfer smoothly from construction over to post-building operators and ensure lifecycle continuity.

Updates to BIM Viewer streamline navigation through Autodesk projects and grant facility managers more control over their preferred building models and views. Eptura is an Autodesk Strategic Alliance Partner, working together to deliver integrated solutions to help mutual customers be more successful.

Space utilization data has become paramount for planning teams that are tasked with recommending space consolidations and increases for their organizations. Through an integration with VergeSense, space planners can deploy sensor hardware and leverage IoT occupancy sensors to document the utilization of workspaces. By bringing these data points into Archibus, customers will have the most accurate measurements of actual space utilization to help them find more opportunities to optimize their space.

“Data is the ultimate driver behind space utilization decisions, and we strive to deliver the visibility and context on which our customers rely,” said Paul Phillips, CTO of Eptura. “In collaboration with partners like Autodesk and VergeSense, we’re able to rethink the way that organizations approach building operations and digitize components to more conveniently provide our customers with the decision-making tools they need.”

The user experience within the Archibus Workplace app has also been updated, building upon the service request functionality introduced to the mobile app earlier this year. Now with easy access to service request responses and document support, users can save time in the field by managing each step of the request process conveniently from their mobile devices.

“Autodesk customers are looking to maximize the lifecycle of their Autodesk Construction Cloud and Revit models beyond construction so that building management can efficiently maintain the space and assets,” said Susan Clarke, Senior Manager, Building Operations at Autodesk. “Building information modeling in Archibus is accelerating the digitization of building operations by making custom 3D views, asset and maintenance data, and access to documents and files intuitive for facility teams around the world.”

For finance and facility teams managing multiple properties, Archibus’s newest updates are also intended to simplify workflows for lease administrators. Juggling extensive lease portfolios, administrators may find themselves with 10 or more lease renewals to manage at the end of a fiscal year. Archibus is easing the burden with the introduction of bulk renewal capabilities that can automatically generate new leases within minutes.

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