Accruent CMMS - Maintenance Connection is a multi-site facilities management platform acquired by Accruent in June 2018 and now part of the Accruent IWMS portfolio of products.
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ServiceChannel
Score 9.0 out of 10
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ServiceChannel provides facilities managers with a single platform to source, procure, manage, and pay for repair and maintenance services from commercial contractors across their enterprise. The company aims to deliver transparency and data-driven analytics of service quality, across all trades, locations, and contractors, allowing facilities managers drive significant brand equity and ROI for their organizations without outsourcing or investing in new infrastructure. …
Everyone has assets, everyone has people, and everyone has to do some work on those assets with those people. Maintenance Connection strives to provide an efficient solution to help get the work done while making it simple to record that you did. Aggregate that data and make decisions for the future based on real information.
ServiceChannel is well suited for companies that have multiple locations or a few very large buildings. In my experience the system allows one person to manage 150 to 200 small retail locations but when you add restaurants and buildings with lots of equipment then it gets more complex and the number of locations that one person can effectively manage is greatly reduced. You can effectively manager 50 or 30,000+ locations with this system if you have the personal. There are several free or cost-effective programs available if you are only looking to manage a dozen or so locations.
ServiceChannel listens to me the user more than any other product I have ever been involved with. It seems like every few months there are some upgrades and improvements to an already great system.
They have some great folks employed who are very accessible and very knowledgeable in this system, they are eager to help out and jump in, and they are never trying to up-sell me during these times.
I believe they have some of the best practices around for helping out new vendors, who have never been exposed to any CMMS system, they help to ease the fear that contractors/vendors have from the onboarding process thru system training.
Sometimes the functionality of the software is slow.
Example...I insert a WO# into the home search box and it comes up with "nothing found". I return to the home screen and repeat the exact same process and it takes me to my WO. This happens at least 50% of the time.
They just finished up with a system upgrade (I think), and during the 3 week period I could not pull mass approved invoices for my AP department. That was a real hindrance.
I am not particularly fond of the new dashboard format. It's not as easy to move around in. However it's new and I'm sure I will get used to it quick enough.
They are timely, responsive, and resolve issues within a day. I only give them one less point because in their recent acquisition by Accruent they lost the MC Support portal they used to have, and in its place they are using Accruents version. Which is well, just not as good.
If you do not have a scheduler for the PM and work order program hire one first. They can help with the migration and know how everything works in your facility.
It is very easy to set up ServiceChannel but the one thing I believe they could make easier is the vendor portion of ServiceChannel. We get a lot of complaints on how difficult it is for them when trying to get set up.
It much more user-friendly and does not have a lot of wasted information that you would never use. I did a lot of research on other CMMS programs and questioned other users and was allowed to use the test module for 3 months. That pretty much sealed the deal for everyone except for those afraid of change. Eventually, they all fall in line and accept the new CMMS system.
Service Channel bridged the gap for us to issue work orders directly to vendors. Maximo Asset Management did not have a user-friendly way for us to do what Service Channel does on the vendor side. Also, at the time of our selection, Maximo was missing the site portal but has since developed a solution of their own.
Our parts cost overall has had a great positive impact on our ROI. We are able to track parts in a more efficient manner that helps us to optimize inventory and reduce stock outs, in addition to helping us identify items that have no turn over.
Equipment downtime with regards to Corrective vs Preventive type work orders has made a big impact to our ROI. With the use of the Preventive Maintenance Module in Maintenance Connection, we have made a good shift towards more planned machine maintenance and less corrective type failures.
It increased visibility on how much we were spending on HVAC repairs/replacements and allowed us to make changes to reduce costs
Before we were using paper invoices from the vendors, which creates a scenario of losing/missing invoices into AP. Then we start using the Service Channel invoicing and reduce errors to below 1%.
Gives you the capability to add trades and adjust to your needs, so you can get better tracking of specific items.
