What workplace strategies for safety can you use today?

Learn how to ensure the safety of your places and your people as you consider reopening facilities

By Laura Langendorf

Where and how we work has never seemed so complicated. As organizations grapple with when to ask employees to return to the workplace, some things are obviously out. Gone for now, are tightly packed seating arrangements, cozy collaboration spaces and crowded elevators.

Now, your “return to the workplace” strategy has to ensure the safety of your places and people as you consider reopening facilities. If you’re looking for advice on how to build your own “return to the workplace” strategy, join “The journey back to work: Business continuity and occupant well-being across your facilities“.

This session on the pragmatic “return to the workplace” is part of the TRIRIGA Academy. It’s a free and on-demand online learning platform. We know that the way you need to manage your real estate and facilities has changed. So we’re changing the way you can learn more about it.

TRIRIGA Academy replaces our annual face-to-face experience and gives you the real estate and facilities management knowledge you need… anywhere, anytime.

[Admin: This post is related to the 04.18.20 post about monitoring space with your existing wireless network, and the 03.22.16 post about the former Watson IoT Academy, now moved to the Skills Gateway.]

How does IBM reimagine the workplace experience?

By Laura Langendorf

2020 was poised to be a banner year for “workplace experience“. IBM, with 78M square feet of space spread across 110 countries, was hard at work creating that engaging environment… Then, almost overnight, the world changed. Suddenly, an unprecedented 95% of the IBMers found themselves working at home…

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How does EY expect the unexpected disruptions?

By Laura Langendorf

Ten years ago, Ernst & Young (EY), took an in-depth look at their workplace… EY realized that how and where people were working was changing… They also put an emphasis on technology to make people more mobile. The result was EY@Work, and the transformation of more than 150 locations around the globe…

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How do you equip your TRIRIGA chariot with fierce stallions?

There’s an old metaphor originating from Plato that compares the soul to that of a chariot with a pair of winged horses. Chariots of the gods were equipped with two good horses, while us mere mortals were given one good horse and one bad, unruly horse, depicting the conflicts of the soul. Due to this imbalance, we would always face hardships. But those of us who could put that unruliness to use could potentially rise high enough to hang with the gods.

What does this have to do with IBM TRIRIGA and hanging out at TRIMAX this week? Not a whole lot, I just like to throw out fascinating metaphors. However, if you’re looking to power up your facilities “chariot” with the fiercest of good stallions, and corral the unruliness of unused data,  you may want to read on.

The five fierce stallions of 2017

When it comes to fierce stallions, why have 2 when you can have 5? And when you’re talking about investments around TRIRIGA, the more the merrier.  Here are the top 5 stallions driving the chariot of your facilities management efforts this year:

• 1. New lease accounting standards drive compliance domination…
• 2. Analytics help you understand the performance of your chariot…
• 3. Cloud isn’t just for mythical gods…
• 4. Mobility enables the business to soar from anywhere…
• 5. User experience (UX) drives Herculean engagement…

[Admin: What does TRIRIGA mean? A tririga (trī-ˈrē-gə) is a team of three horses yoked three abreast, commonly associated with the use of chariots during the Roman Empire. To see other related posts, use the TRIMAX tag.]

Verdantix: SpaceIQ seeks to disrupt the IWMS marketplace

SpaceIQ, a provider of IWMS and CAFM solutions, announced its official company launch. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, SpaceIQ offers a workplace management platform that supports customers with space planning, move management and real estate data management. It aims to bring a next-generation IWMS solution to market which is employee-centric, prioritizes user experience and responds to the latest real estate trends such as worker productivity and employee engagement…

SpaceIQ’s focus on user experience feels very in line with market requirements. Verdantix finds that SpaceIQ could also consider developing broader functionality into areas such as maintenance management or lease management. Our research shows that large customers are keen to implement a platform from a single vendor with multiple modules spanning real estate and facilities management, as they rationalize IT systems and look for the benefits of centralized data…

[Admin: This post is related to the 08.01.16 post about the competitors of IBM TRIRIGA, and the 08.22.17 post by Verdantix about IWMS competition intensifying. To see other related posts, use the Verdantix tag or IWMS 2.0 tag.]

Verdantix: Are user-focused apps the new focus of IWMS innovation?

In recent months, there has been a hive of activity across employee engagement apps in the real estate and facilities management software market. For example, iOffice launched “Hummingbird”, an employee-centric layer for IWMS, IBM and ISS are piloting a digital concierge service which assists occupants in managing everyday workplace tasks such as room booking or organizing catering, and MCS launched a virtual personal assistant “Sumi” that can support the booking of rooms.

The latest product launch from UK-based software firm FSI is “Concept Advantage” – a series of user-focused apps which can be used alongside FSI’s Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) software. The initial range of apps includes “ChatLog” – a facilities help-desk that resembles common social media platforms, and “OurSay” – a crowd-sourcing and voting tool to enable workers to contribute to facilities management decisions. FSI believes the app will also reduce the time that facilities help-desks spend receiving calls around building issues.

The recent innovation around purpose-built user-focused apps represents a break from traditional practice. For many decades, the user interface of IWMS and CAFM software has largely been built around the needs of “power users” such as Real Estate or Facility Directors. Whilst it has been possible to configure the user interface to simplify it, the result is not always a clean and intuitive user experience. The recent user-centric product updates are likely to be welcomed by customers.

We continue to hear that buyers look for a high-quality user interface from their facility management software…

[Admin: This post is related to the 06.06.17 post about employee-facing tech in the workplace. To see other related posts, use the Verdantix tag.]

FM:Systems: Five new features of the FM:Interact 2017 release

We are very excited to announce the release of FM:Interact 2017. With this release, we’ve enhanced previous functions to improve user experience, and created brand new ones in order for organizations to get the most effective utilization of their space. So let’s get to it. What are the new functions?

1. Scenario Planning

You’ve been hearing some whispers about it, but now it’s fully developed! The Scenario Planning module provides you with the ability to create, visualize and “try on” potential space situations, such as build-outs, expansions, reorganizations, consolidations or reconfigurations — so you’ll be prepared no matter what happens…

2. FMx5 Markup & Measure

Markup and Measure provides users with the ability to draw and create spaces DIRECTLY on the FMx5 floor plan. After you save, you can see those changes reflected in AutoCAD real-time. This one is my personal favorite…

3. Data Change Request

To maintain the integrity of your Space Data, the ability to make changes are usually limited to Power Users and Space Planners. With this release, general users can now request changes to space while allowing planners and administrators the ability to review, accept or reject those changes before they ever hit production…

4. Data Auditing

You now have the ability to track everything that happens to your FM:Interact data by having visibility into all data actions performed by system users. This gives you insight on why a record has been modified, who modified it, and when…

5. FMx Sensors

Get real-time space utilization analysis on your facility data with our integration with seat utilization sensing technology and 3D Stereoscopic cameras. This gives you an unprecedented level of insight on how their facilities are really being used…

[Admin: To see other related posts, use the FM:Systems tag.]

Are you going to watch Deloitte LeasePoint live at InterConnect?

If you are attending IBM InterConnect 2016, come by Tuesday 2/23 at 8:30 am to Mandalay Bay South, South Seas F, for the session “Strategies for Lease Accounting Compliance in Nine Months or Less”.

• Strategies for Lease Accounting Compliance in Nine Months or Less
• Tue, 23-Feb, 08:30 AM
• Mandalay Bay SOUTH, South Seas F

You will see Deloitte LeasePoint, powered by IBM TRIRIGA, live. Working with the Deloitte Consulting Innovations group, we have created a product that links seamlessly to TRIRIGA and enhances the user experience. The opportunity to be Product Owner and given full reign to design the product is the reason why I joined Deloitte. Don’t be that TRIRIGA guy or lady who was at InterConnect and only heard about what others saw. Come to the session and say “Hello” afterwards.

[Admin: This post is related to the 02.19.16 post about Deloitte LeasePoint.]

Why doesn’t the security group record show the Save or Clear actions?

The ‘Save’ or ‘Clear’ actions in the Access tab within a Security Group record does not appear. You have to scroll over or highlight the area to see that there is text. Because it is white text, it blends in with the white background

This is associated with post-upgrade behavior. In order to resolve this issue, you’ll need to re-apply the stylesheet.xml file (located in the {tririgaInstall}/userfiles/skin folder) in the Site Style manager. Instructions for how to do this can be found in the document, TRIRIGA Application Platform 3 User Experience User Guide, starting on page 124 under the heading ‘Restore Default Settings’.