FM:Systems, a provider of facility management software that was acquired by Johnson Controls earlier this year, has introduced a new data transfer tool to improve its users’ productivity. 

The tool is called FMS:Connect. It was developed through a collaboration between FM:Systems and its consulting partner AMS Workplace Technology. Jessica Boquist, the senior director of product management at FM:Systems, told Boardroom Insight that the tool will enable customers to “accomplish tasks more swiftly” in the company’s software and simplify data management workflows.

FM:Systems provides a platform called FMS:Workplace that organizations use to manage facilities such as office buildings and warehouses. The platform visualizes the manner in which each of a company’s properties is used. Using this information, decision-makers can find inefficiencies such as underutilized office space and address them to cut costs. 

The FMS:Workplace platform also helps companies with other tasks. It can be used to coordinate facility maintenance work and manage the process of moving teams from one office building to another. Additionally, the software provides visitor management features that make it easier for couriers to drop off packages at a corporate campus.

Many companies use FMS:Workplace together with other software products. Customers who take that route frequently require the ability to move data from FM:Systems’ platform to their other applications and vice versa. This is the task the new FMS:Connect tool is designed to streamline.

FM:Systems says that FMS:Connect can be used to move data between its platform and a range of external applications. Those applications include Workday, Salesforce and certain SAP products to name a few.

One task FMS:Connect can simplify is tracking office buildings’ space utilization. Companies often use HR applications such as Workday to store information on how many employees work at their facilities. With FMS:Connect, information on the number of employees at a building can be streamed into FMS:Workplace to provide a clearer picture of how well that facility’s office space is utilized. 

“FMS:Connect enhances the performance of data integrations, leading to significantly reduced processing time for bulk data operations such as HR data imports,” Boquist said. “This efficiency allows organizations to accomplish tasks more swiftly, offering a better and faster approach to these critical integrations.”

FMS:Connect is implemented as a REST application programming interface. It allows files to be moved between FM:Systems platform and external applications in the JSON format, which is widely used for data exchange tasks.

Boquist explained that “REST has faced challenges in accommodating the dynamic schema nature of FMS:Workplace. While SOAP, an older technology, has been the alternative, the demand from customers for a more contemporary solution prompted the development of FMS:Connect. This innovative feature bridges the gap, providing a REST API that aligns seamlessly with the dynamic nature of FMS:Workplace, addressing the challenges associated with other file transfer methods.”

One of REST’s main advantages over SOAP is that it’s faster. During a benchmark test, FMS:Connect extracted all the facility space data stored by an FMS:Workplace deployment in under 2.5 seconds. The API also managed to input 50,000 new records into the platform in just under a minute. 

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