Best Practices: A Checklist of 6 Things IT Will Ask About Your SaaS IWMS

There’s a reason Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions are so popular amongst today’s businesses: a good SaaS solution is not only scalable, responsive and user-friendly, but can also reduce the workload and resource needs of internal IT teams. That said, a saturated market can make it difficult to separate the good solutions from everything else out there. For businesses on the hunt for critical solutions—like an effective integrated workplace management system (IWMS)—the number of options available can be overwhelming. And that’s if you know exactly what you need; if not, you could be in for some serious research hours.

The best SaaS products strive to improve efficiency for everyone who interacts with them, not just end users. When you’re making the shift to a full-feature, high-powered facilities management solution like OfficeSpace, getting buy-in from your IT department is a critical step in rolling out an improved system. Integration, security, flexibility, and scalability are all front-of-mind for your company’s tech team, so be prepared to answer their questions with this handy guide.

1. How easy is implementation?

SaaS platforms have a reputation for being easy to get up and running because they are based in the cloud. From an implementation standpoint, being cloud-based means the difference between configuring a given piece of software on all relevant workstations and providing logins to the relevant personnel, or centralizing software via a web-based portal and offering instant access. That said, not all SaaS solutions are equally easy to implement. Even though they are cloud-based, some platforms and applications are still incredibly complex and tricky to get off the ground, so it’s important to look at each individual case.

With OfficeSpace, our IWMS is designed with the goal of rapid deployment, with substantial out-of-the-box flexibility and an initial setup that takes hours, not months. The result is a good first impression for everyone: facility managers get to test out their new functionalities that much faster, and IT gets a product that considers their unique needs from the earliest moments.

2. Will it work with your existing solutions?

Interoperability—the capacity to extend functionality, share data and productively coexist with other software and systems—is another major potential SaaS benefit. It is also a feature all professionals, including those in the facilities management world, increasingly need as their jobs become more tech-dependent.

If you’re implementing OfficeSpace, your IT team will be pleased to hear you can connect to other business solutions and unify your technology suite. Its list of integrations covers today’s leading communications, identity and directory solutions. Connecting it with Active Directory or your current HR solution, for example, allows changes to seating on one end to be reflected instantly on the other end. Other integrations like Slack and Skype for Business also provide the opportunity to handle FM-related communication within your organization’s existing collaboration tools. Moreover, if your company needs an integration that isn’t currently on our list, just reach out: chances are we can incorporate your most-needed solutions, too. For example, we are actively developing integrations with sensor companies for some clients at the moment.

3. How flexible and mobile-friendly is it?

Flexibility, as one Harvard Business Review study notes, is a workplace perk employees value highly. Employers have responded in kind, with flexible hours, flexible workspaces and, in the case of remote work, flexible locations becoming the standard. The resultant need for software that moves along with employees plays to a natural SaaS strength.

With its device-agnostic approach and diverse browser support, OfficeSpace’s IWMS is built for flexibility and mobility. This agility does away with the need to update and maintain apps across multiple devices, which can be a serious time suck for IT teams in flex-friendly workplaces. Employees can access OfficeSpace Software any time, anywhere, and from any device they choose.

4. Is it secure and reliable?

The ever-increasing presence of vendors in the SaaS space can, understandably, give companies pause. Every organization wants as much data under its own control as possible, and while vendors obviously aren’t inherently bad at security, there’s also little doubt that some are better than others.

With our IWMS, OfficeSpace never puts customer data at risk. Integration with popular authentication security solutions like Okta and OneLogin allows you to protect the IWMS with the same login and authentication measures you use on your other systems. On OfficeSpace’s side, servers hosting customer data contain onlythat particular customer’s information, reducing risks inherent to cohabitation. Then there’s reliability: data is hosted with Google, backed up frequently and held for long periods, further putting your IT team at ease.

5. Is it properly maintained and supported?

One of biggest strengths of a cloud solution is a continually-updated product: instead of paying for new licenses every time a bigger, better version of the tool comes along, those versions come to you as a matter of course.

OfficeSpace doubles down on this basic idea. Our codebase ensures you will always have the latest features, and our history of improvement reflects a company that knows how to make an excellent product even better. Besides continually benefitting from product improvements, IT is also freed from manually running updates and dealing with the support tickets and password reset requests that so often come with a custom in-house IWMS solution. OfficeSpace also offers phone and email access to our client services team, as well as web-based access to extensive tutorials and training materials.

6. Is it scalable?

OfficeSpace suits your business from the get-go. Our IWMS’s front-end performance and back-end architecture, combined with years of refinement, provide a product that works perfectly whether it’s managing facilities for a company of 200, 2,000 or 20,000. As your organization grows and your needs increase, OfficeSpace can evolve alongside your FM team to meet new challenges and demands—whether that’s optimizing space utilization on a much larger scale, adding the latest integrations or helping to deploy a new office strategy like hot desking.

 

SaaS is a great concept that doesn’t necessarily lead to the best solution for a particular organization. Make sure your IWMS is adaptable and primed to lighten the burden on your IT team. Instead of sifting through a flooded SaaS market, the smart money’s on a product that knows its core users and the IT teams making things work behind the scenes. Our IWMS works to suit your process instead of forcing your process to adapt to the limitations of a particular SaaS solution.

Register for a free OfficeSpace demo and see what a responsive IWMS can do for you and your IT department.

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