Eptura’s integrated workplace management system, Archibus, received FedRAMP authorization in April, expanding government agencies’ access to the facility and asset management tools. The designation will make it easier for agencies to find solutions to manage occupancy levels, which has been an increased focus since the government mandated workers to return to the office, according to Meg Swanson, chief marketing officer at Eptura.
The authorization of FedRAMP, which standardizes risk assessments so federal agencies can adopt technology quickly, comes as federal agencies prepare to send the Office of Management and Budget biweekly reports on how much of their buildings are occupied as part of an effort to make better use of government facilities, according to a memo from OMB Director Russell Vought.
The OMB memo levies more stringent occupancy requirements than a law passed in the last year of the Biden administration, called the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies, or the USE IT Act, which sets a 60% occupancy standard and requires the General Services Agency – the federal government’s real estate manager – to move an agency into a different building or take other steps to address the underuse of buildings.
Agencies were required to start tracking occupancy earlier this month on May 4, with the first reporting deadline on May 19.
“At the end of the day, those dates are going to change and move. And for us, it’s really about three things,” Swanson said. “How do they drive efficiency around return to office and occupancy? The second is around understanding their space. Are they getting the most out of it?”
The third is about aging infrastructure and maintenance, she said. “The sheer volume that can be saved in proactive and preventive maintenance and how to prioritize that” is increasingly important to the government, she said.
That push for more effective use of the federal government’s real estate portfolio corresponded with an increase in speed to get FedRAMP authorization, Swanson said. “You still have the volume of questions that, as a vendor, you've got to answer. So none of that lightened up because it shouldn't … but we did see more rapid responses coming back when we submitted that information.”
Another space optimization and real estate management platform, FMS:Workplace, also received FedRAMP authorization in the past month. The solution by FM:Systems provides outlook integrations to unite meeting and room bookings, IoT sensor integrations to measure real workspace utilization, and data analytics tools to help operators understand what space is underutilized and under-performing, the company says.
“As federal agencies respond to new mandates emphasizing in-person work and tighter budget oversight, the public sector is accelerating its adoption of secure cloud-based technologies to improve space utilization, streamline operations, and reduce overhead,” Eptura said in the release.
