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What Is FMS?
The Apogee Facilities Management System (FMS) modules are optional utilities that can be
utilized to track non-usage aspects of the telecommunications environment such as physical
structures, inventory items, cabling, work order transactions, and trouble tickets. When
deployed in conjunction with the Apogee Call Accounting System (CAS) the FMS system can
provide consolidated billing for all aspects of common telecom expenditures in large campus
environments with customizable export to typical general ledger systems.
The FMS modules utilize non-banded hierarchical grids to improve efficiency and reduce the
learning curve necessary for your technical staff to execute adds, moves, and changes within
FMS tables. For example, the Directory Grid shown below delivers an instant, up-to-date,
corporate-wide snapshot of employees within the enterprise and their associated extension,
alternate numbers, publishable and non-publishable home, car, fax, pager, DID, email, and
related personal information that can be accessed quickly and tagged for assignment from
other FMS tables.
The Locations Grid is a banded hierarchical grid that can be populated simply by dragging and
dropping employees from the Directory Grid shown above into their desired position in the
Location Grid.
This is achieved in a highly graphical manner by arranging the grids in a convenient
“horizontally tiled” representation that allows simple “copy and paste” functionality to
transfer the required information between one Facilities database and another.
Combined with additional drag-and-drop functionality the FMS grids help to substantially
reduce operating costs and ongoing maintenance compared to manual methods or competitive,
older generation, products that are more textbox / data entry oriented.
Import Wizards
Convenient import wizards are also available to initially populate the FMS grids with
facilities information:
Inventory Management
The Inventory Management module can track a wide variety of infrastructure items such as PBXs,
phones, and PCs as well as any user-defined class or category of parts. This tool quickly
surveys all items available, reserved, assigned, damaged, in repair, or retired. Parts can be
assigned as recurring or one-time charges back to any organizational level through association
with the Directory Grid. This module also maintains part / serial / PO Numbers, manufacturer,
vendor, alternate vendor, model, minimum stock level, warranty, and lease information.
Inventory Items can be conveniently entered into the FMS tables via the Import Wizard and are
represented in the FMS system in a pictorial manner as shown below:
And graphically in the hierarchical Inventory grid as:
Inventory items can be assigned to specific locations or users within the organization by
horizontally tiling the Inventory Grid and the Location Grid OR the Inventory Grid and the
Directory Grid and dragging and dropping Inventory items to assign them to their desired
locations or responsible individuals.
Cable Tracking
The Cable Tracking system similarly uses drag-and-drop functionality to track cables, pair
assignments, ports, jacks, frames, shelves, cards and MDF/IDF routing. You can easily view an
entire circuit from port of entry to the desktop. Voice and data network tracking conform to
TIA/EIA 606 standards
The Cable Grid graphically represents the physical wiring connections between the various
elements of your telecommunications infrastructure
By conveniently displaying the connections in a Cable Grid
and allowing the user to visualize the connections by dragging and dropping cable pairs to
the desired Nodes.
Work Orders
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SDT’s Work Order Management & Consolidated Billing system is an Apogee
module designed for medium to large size campus settings that require an easy
management and bill-back system for service tickets - parts and labor.
Don’t rely on lengthy paper trails or antiquated systems to piece together your
telecom billing. Maximize your resources with SDT’s fully integrated, web-enabled
Work Order Management module.
System automation achieved through SDT's software reduces operating costs
beyond the industry average 30% decrease over manual systems.
<<Click here to enlarge photo.
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Work Order Management
The Work Orders module manages service functions from minor user reported network problems to
pre-planned major projects. Each work order can have up to 19 independent suborders tracking
multiple technicians and a variety of tasks. Each suborder can be completed while the entire
work order project remains open.
Work Orders integrate with the Inventory system and the associated charges can be reflected in
Consolidated Billing reports to manage tenant billing. Work Orders are particularly useful in
campus settings utilizing FMS Location identification and in situations where a number of mobile
telecom installation personnel need remote access to records from the field.
The Work Order module integrates all the FMS grid databases into an easily manipulated format
represented by a customizable image of a typical Work Order. By allowing simultaneous access
across your intranet or through the Internet the FMS modules make data entry simple and improve
reliable as the Work Order is created at the point of contact as services are rendered.
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SDT’s Asset Management & Consolidated Billing system is an
Apogee module designed for medium to large organizations that require
an automated bill-back system for equipment charges.
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SDT's Asset Management System will automatically interface with your
telephone system to determine each users' assigned telephone type and other
equipments charge, and import this information into Apogee's relational
databases. In Apogee you can assign a charge to the different types
of telephones and other equipment.
These charges can be one-time or recurring every N days, weeks, or months.
In addition, these charges can be distributed to users equally or
based on their portion of phone usage. Prorating for mid-month
transfers can be automatically calculated.
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Consolidated Billing
The Consolidated Bill combines phone usage, credit card and cellular charges,
equipment expenditures, and monthly service fees onto one bill.
The auto bill scheduler lets you run, save, post, and print your user designed
bills automatically to any file or printer on your network, as well as, distribute
your bills via e-mail on a scheduled basis. The new email merge feature
makes life easy. Instead of running individual bills for every department,
you can run one bill over the entire organization and the system will automatically
email only the correct portions to the appropriate departmental managers.
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