BldgHelm
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Solutions for campuses

Higher education facilities management software

BldgHelm is facilities management software built for colleges and universities. It keeps every building, room and piece of equipment in one record, and runs your work orders, preventive maintenance, punch lists, contractors and capital plan from it.

Request a demoSee the three workflows
BldgHelm home screen for a facilities manager: a blue Work orders panel with new reports, open, emergency and past-due counts, and a green Maintenance panel listing overdue tasks such as filter changes and an elevator inspection.

Sample data. Northfield University is a fictional campus.

The problem

Why campuses outgrow spreadsheets and generic tools

A campus is not a factory or a single office tower. It is dozens of buildings from different decades, residence halls that turn over every summer, labs and kitchens with their own inspection requirements, and a facilities staff that is never quite large enough. The people reporting problems will never be trained on your system.

Most facilities departments cope with a patchwork: one spreadsheet for equipment, another for preventive maintenance, email for repair requests, a binder of inspection certificates and a phone call to the elevator vendor. Each piece works until the person who keeps it up leaves, and questions like how much deferred maintenance the campus carries take days to answer.

Generic maintenance software is often built around one plant and a trained requester. Campus teams need a request form anyone can use without an account, contractors who work for several campuses, and the capital planning numbers that boards ask for.

How BldgHelm handles it

One record for the whole campus, and the work done against it

BldgHelm organizes everything around a four-level space tree: campus, building, floor and room. Equipment, warranties, punch items and work orders attach to it, so every record answers where, what and what happened before.

A technician's phone home screen: their open, emergency or high, and past-due work order counts, and their open work orders with priority and status.

  • Work orders

    Students and staff report problems from a QR code or a campus link with no account. Your team approves, assigns and tracks each one to closing. See campus work order software.

  • Preventive maintenance

    Recurring schedules by days, weeks, months or years, overdue alerts and an on-time completion rate. See preventive maintenance software for universities.

  • Punch lists

    Walk a residence hall or a renovation, capture items with photos and close them out with a manager's verification. See punch list software for facilities.

  • Contractor portal

    Vendors log work from their phones with one login across every campus they serve, and see only what is assigned to them. See the contractor portal for facilities.

  • Capital planning and FCI

    Replacement cost estimates, a deferred maintenance backlog and the Facility Condition Index by building. See facility condition index and capital planning.

  • Compliance records

    Code-required inspections with results and certificates, and a report ready for a fire marshal or an insurer. See compliance inspection tracking.

  • Warranties

    Coverage tracked to the day, reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days before it ends, and a "may be under warranty" banner before anyone pays for a covered repair.

How it works

From setup to a working routine

  1. Step 1: Import your campus

    Upload buildings, floors, rooms and equipment as CSV or Excel. A preview flags problems before anything is saved.

  2. Step 2: Label what you maintain

    Print QR labels for rooms and equipment on standard label sheets. A scan opens the asset for staff, or the report form for everyone else.

  3. Step 3: Set the schedules

    Add recurring maintenance and code-required inspections to equipment, and assign them to technicians or contractor companies.

  4. Step 4: Invite your team and your vendors

    Give each person the role that fits: Owner Admin, Facilities Manager, Technician or read-only Viewer. Invite contractor companies by email.

  5. Step 5: Run the day from one place

    Work moves through the queue, reminders go out daily, and the capital plan and compliance reports come from the same records.

A guided checklist in the app walks your team through setup. Request a demo and we will show the workflows with sample data and talk through how your spreadsheets would come across.

A staff member with a tablet walks down a residence hall corridor.

Illustrative photo.

Who uses it

Built for everyone who touches a building

  • Facilities directors and managers

    Directors and facilities managers triage new requests, assign work, watch what is overdue and build the capital case from the same data.

  • Technicians

    Technicians work from their phones: open work orders, log hours, parts and photos, and complete jobs with large buttons and a dark mode for dim mechanical rooms.

  • Contractors

    Contractors see only the work assigned to their company, log their own hours and photos, and use BldgHelm free.

  • Finance and leadership

    Finance and leadership get a read-only Viewer role, with the capital plan, FCI and cost reports in PDF or Excel for budget meetings.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is higher education facilities management software?
It is software that helps a college or university facilities department track its buildings and equipment, handle repair requests and work orders, schedule preventive maintenance and inspections, manage contractors and plan capital spending. BldgHelm is designed around campus needs such as no-login repair requests, summer turnover punch lists and the Facility Condition Index.
How is BldgHelm different from a general maintenance system?
General systems are often built around one plant or building. BldgHelm is built for a campus: anyone can report a problem by QR code, contractors keep one login across several campuses, and deferred maintenance, replacement planning and FCI sit next to the daily work.
Can we import our existing spreadsheets?
Yes. Upload buildings, floors, rooms and equipment as CSV or Excel files. A preview shows any problems row by row before anything is saved.
Does it connect to our finance or ERP system?
Not today. There are no direct integrations with systems such as Workday, Banner or Colleague. You can export the capital plan, FCI report, punch lists and compliance reports to PDF or Excel, and an Owner Admin can export all of the organization's data and files at any time.
Is there a phone app, and do you support single sign-on?
BldgHelm runs in the browser on any phone and can be added to the home screen. Native apps are planned after the pilot. SAML single sign-on is on the roadmap but not available yet; people sign in with a password or a one-time email link.
Do you have a SOC 2 report?
No. BldgHelm does not have a SOC 2 report and does not claim one. Access is enforced by role in the database, and there is an audit log and daily backups. Read the security overview.

Keep reading

Related solutions

See your campus in BldgHelm.

A walkthrough of the three workflows with sample data, and a plan for bringing over your buildings, equipment and schedules.

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A brick college quad on a clear day, with lawns, crossing paths and a few students in the distance.