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.