Solution upgrades focus on improving connectivity and maximizing safety in the “New Normal”.
Austin, TX, August 25, 2020 – Accruent, the leading provider of solutions to manage the built environment, today announced an enhanced collection of solutions purpose-built for higher education that will support a safer return to campus. These enhancements to Accruent’s EMS, FAMIS 360 and Analytics platforms further strengthen the existing capabilities that have also helped corporate customers facilitate a safe return to the workplace.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, 22.5% of higher education institutions are currently planning for a primarily in-person Fall semester, while 48% expect to adopt some degree of virtual or hybrid learning and 24% are undecided. These statistics highlight both a significant degree of uncertainty and the increased demand for both safer campus operations as well as improved remote work and learning technology. Specifically, there is a heightened need for campus-wide connectivity and visibility into space utilization and facilities management that provides a new approach to risk management and campus safety.
Accruent’s EMS room and resource scheduling platform enables campuses to schedule, track and report on the use of physical space across their facilities. In the latest release, EMS announced powerful integrations with popular video conferencing solutions Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which will provide easier connectivity for the hybrid classroom model.
Accruent’s FAMIS facilities maintenance and space planning solution, which helps facilities managers optimize maintenance operations and cleaning, also released an integrated Accruent Analytics dashboard to help universities see a heatmap of active COVID-19 cases to create more informed re-opening plans.
Using these solutions, universities and educational institutions can:
- Facilitate a hybrid campus experience where some students, faculty and staff will participate virtually while others are present in person using native integrations with Zoom and Microsoft Teams
- Quickly set seat-fill limits on existing classrooms to create an optimized course schedule while accounting for social distancing
- Easily include historically non-classroom spaces in academic planning scenarios to maximize capacity for each course section and integrate with existing SIS/ERP systems
- Ensure campus spaces are clean, safe and available by making them reservable, tracking their usage and coordinating with custodial services for more targeted cleaning activities
- Manage space allocations based on availability, need and budget to accurately track occupancy and identify opportunities for optimization
Additionally, as universities explore virtual and hybrid work and learning opportunities, they can gain insight from best practices learned by Accruent corporate customers’ return to the workplace. These same strategies, which leverage existing EMS and FAMIS functionality, are also available to campus users.
Office hoteling strategies, in particular, can be easily adapted to manage self-service bookable spaces on campus, such as study rooms or group meeting spaces, to provide the increased control necessary to enforce social distancing policies and facilitate effective cleaning and utilization reporting.
“As campuses adapt to the challenges and realities of the upcoming semester, they will need to make the health and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff their number one priority,” said Ruthbea Yesner, Vice President, Government Insights and Smart Cities at IDC. “Space management solutions such as Accruent’s EMS will play a critical role delivering helping colleges and universities manage and analyze how they use their spaces to deliver on their mission in a manner that protects the health of their communities.”
These latest developments serve to highlight Accruent’s expertise and continued commitment to supporting the higher education industry. Accruent serves more than 10,000 customers worldwide, spanning the breadth of real estate, facilities and physical asset management. Accruent’s EMS software, in particular, supports more than 1,200 corporate and higher education clients, including more than half of the top 100 U.S. universities.
“Accruent has been focused on serving higher education for more than 30 years, and we continue to invest in solutions that help meet the ever-evolving needs of this community. Now, we are helping universities swiftly adapt to some of the most significant changes in modern times,” noted Greg Rivera, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Accruent. “These latest product improvements are the direct result of purposeful, concerted efforts to add value to the education market and ensure that campuses are ready to support students and employees no matter the circumstances.”
Accruent (www.accruent.com) is the world's leading provider of intelligent solutions for the built environment — spanning real estate, physical and digital assets, and the integrated technology systems that connect and control them. Accruent continues to set new expectations for how organizations can use data to transform the way they manage their facilities and assets. With major office locations in Austin, New Orleans, London, and Amsterdam, Accruent serves more than 10,000 customers in a wide range of industries in more than 150 countries around the world.
