FSI Middle East, the region’s leading facilities management solutions software provider, is unveiling Version 5 of three of its top products – Concept Evolution, FSI GO and Intuitive BI.

The move comes after intensive research into what users are experiencing on the ground, best practice and market trends. The result is a suite of products that look and feel new, are even more intuitive and achieve greater integration.

Adrian Jarvis, director of FSI Middle East, said: “As a company, we are always looking to enhance the user’s experience, to work out exactly how people use the technology and to make their day-to-day job easier.”

“Our consultants and sales teams are constantly gathering feedback on the usability of the products and then we hold twice yearly international user groups, bringing together 100-plus clients to present our roadmap for the products and to find out their views.

“Whether for Facilities Managers responsible for universities, hospitals, office towers, or residential real estate, or a service provider with a workforce spread out over multiple sites, we live and breathe these products and advances in technology – it’s important to find out what the users are experiencing and what they need,” Jarvis added.

The Version 5 updates have all concentrated on updating the user interface and enhancing the user experience, as well as boosting efficiency and productivity. The updates also allow for easier administration, greater integration and instant access to required information via tailored views of data, including a reduction in user time.

“The updates may seem subtle and natural but this is exactly what the team at FSI have designed them to be. Basically, Version 5 gives a wholesale update to the product, while maintaining faithfulness to its 15-year heritage so current users have a seamless experience,” added Jarvis.

For FSI GO, the mobile app for engineers, expanding list views and tabs have been added to easily flick around the app, making functionality such as GPS tracking through job milestones, configurable completion questionnaires and filling out timesheets on-screen in the app more accessible.

With easier-to-use workplace technology, the focus is on boosting efficiency and productivity. This is why the changes to FSI’s premier CAFM/IWMS desktop product, Concept Evolution, initially focused on freshening up the appearance and improving the usability, before boosting the administration and technical power.

This is particularly important as the typical user of the desktop application – the helpdesk or dispatcher - wants as much information as they can see on the screen at one time so they can make informed business decisions.

With Intuitive BI, the data is presented in the simplest of ways so that users can easily access, understand and take action on the data that is relevant to their role in the FM process. The dashboards are designed to highlight areas that need action allowing users to focus in on those items which will help them achieve performance targets.

The product’s strength is in its ability to cope with different scenarios and share information, so everyone is working from the same data and knows how they are performing, rather than having data silos and bottlenecks caused by having one single owner of the information.

Paul Durant, head of product strategy for FSI, said: “The people who use the software six to seven hours a day for their main job, are the people who pick up on something that slows them down a small amount - and if they’re working on 100 tasks a day then that accumulates and impacts on productivity.

“We have looked at making it much easier and quicker to get to the data and see the things they want to work with. You don’t have to go through four or five pages to get there – it’s there at the click of a button.”  - TradeArabia News Service