I’ve lived with Archibus for four years across two companies (I even wrote up a full, hands-on breakdown right here). Office moves, lease audits, floods in the basement—yep, all of it. I ran Space, Maintenance, and a slice of Lease. I also used the mobile app during snow days, which was a whole thing. Let me explain.
Where I used Archibus (and why)
My last team managed three office towers, two labs, and a warehouse. About 2,100 people total. We needed one place to track space, seats, repairs, and leases. Email and spreadsheets kept breaking. People sat in the wrong spots. Work orders got lost. The fire marshal yelled once. So, we chose Archibus by Eptura. For readers wanting the source straight from the vendor, the official Archibus site lays out the modules and deployment options in detail.
Setup week: the CAD mess I still remember
We kicked off by loading floor plans from AutoCAD. The polylines were messy. Some rooms weren’t closed. One floor had two “Room 534” labels. Archibus, to its credit, caught the errors. But I spent a long Friday night fixing those lines, sipping cold brew. I learned to keep layers clean and names simple. It saved me later when we ran chargebacks.
We set up SSO with Azure AD, and that went fine. The tricky part? Roles. The “Craftsperson” role threw folks. Techs got confused by the naming. We tweaked labels to “Technician” for them. Small win, big sigh of relief.
Daily life: what clicked
- Space: I could drag seats on the floor plan and assign people fast. It felt a bit old-school at first, but it worked. I liked the color themes—by team, by floor, by building code. Clear and calm.
- Maintenance: We set rules so tickets hit the right shop. HVAC jobs went to HVAC, not carpentry. We tracked response and fix time. We used parts lists, too. Stock counts stopped being a guessing game.
- Lease: Date alerts saved us. Clauses and rent steps sat in one place. I could see which suite had a weird load factor. And yes, it caught one rent error in Q3 that paid for a chunk of our license.
If you're curious how other CAFM platforms stacked up over twelve months of use, I captured the practical wins and misses in a separate write-up you can skim here.
You know what? The little things stood out. Like clicking a room and seeing who sat there, what team, and who had special gear. Simple, but it helped, a lot.
Moments it actually saved my bacon
- The 142-person shuffle: We did three move waves in six weeks. I built seating plans with distance rules (this was during the return-to-office push). HR kept changing headcounts. Archibus let me push new layouts and send move lists fast. No one lost their monitor. Well, one person did—but that was on the cart, not the software.
- The flood on P1: A pipe burst in the garage. We marked the zone red, created 18 urgent work orders, and tracked parts and outside vendor costs. Insurance asked for proof. We printed the log and photos from the mobile app. Claim approved. I slept that night.
- The lease clause hunt: Our finance lead needed a co-tenancy clause by noon. I searched, tagged it, and exported a PDF. That used to take me two days.
Things that bugged me (and I told our rep)
- The UI looks mixed. Some screens feel modern. Others feel like they came from 2013. It works, but it could look cleaner.
- Queries get tricky fast. If you want a nice custom report, learn some SQL or bring in a partner. I got by, but I did grumble.
- Permissions are too deep. I love control, but I clicked through six screens once just to fix one role. Felt silly.
- Mobile offline is okay, not great. In the garage, sync lag hit us. Techs got double tickets once. We added a quick check step to avoid it.
- It’s not cheap. It saved us money, yes. Still, small sites may feel the cost. Be clear on modules you need.
If you’re after a third-party opinion before diving in, the detailed Archibus review on Research.com summarizes strengths, limitations, and pricing considerations.
For shops where regulatory change control is front and center, I tested a management-of-change platform and wrote my real take here; it highlights a few gaps Archibus doesn't try to fill.
Real results we saw (plain and simple)
- Open work orders fell from 312 to 97 in 60 days after we cleaned routing and SLAs.
- Average response time for urgent calls dropped from 3 hours to 1 hour, 12 minutes.
- Seat use went from about 68% to 82% across two towers in Q2, after we fixed seating rules and closed ghost seats.
- We caught a rent overcharge of $14,600 from a bad factor on one lease. The audit came straight from Archibus.
Not magic. Just steady tools and a team that cared.
Reports that helped me stay sane
- Space chargebacks by cost center. No more hallway debates.
- Tech performance over 30/60/90 days. I used a simple chart. No finger-pointing, just trends.
- CapEx punch list with photos. Our project manager loved it.
- Fire life safety roster by room. The marshal didn’t yell again.
What surprised me
The move tools are stronger than they look. I could plan a big shuffle, hold a draft, and share it with managers in a view-only way. People fought less because they saw the plan. Also, the lease area rules are strict, and I’m glad. It stopped messy math.
Who I think should use it
- Great for: Multi-site teams, busy campuses, labs, any group with a lot of seats, work orders, or lease terms to track.
- Maybe not: A small office with one floor and a handyman. You might be fine with a light tool.
If you're still surveying the market, check out the comparison guides over at Qusoft for a clear view of features and costs. And when you're ready to publish your own findings or boost visibility for a facilities blog, consider tapping a focused SEO playbook from 10xseo where you'll find actionable checklists, keyword research templates, and site-audit tips to help those case studies rank higher. Another shortcut I found valuable was attending a rapid-fire showcase—picture a row of five-minute demos from competing workplace-tech vendors. The Speed Dating Summit packs all those bite-sized sessions into one event, so you can leave with a vetted shortlist and zero long-winded sales pitches.
Quick tips from my notebook
- Clean your CAD. Close your polylines. Label rooms like a human would.
- Keep roles simple. Rename labels your techs don’t like.
- Start with fewer modules. Nail Space and Maintenance first. Add more later.
- Pick three KPIs and stick with them. For us: response time, seat use, and overdue work orders.
- Train one champion per site. Lunch-and-learn works. I used pizza and one silly trivia question to keep folks awake.
Final take
Archibus is not cute. It’s a sturdy toolbox. When we set it up right, it paid off—time saved, fewer fires, cleaner audits. Some screens feel old, and custom reports can be a bear. But when the pipe bursts or the VP wants a move plan by Friday, I trust it.
Would I use it again? Yes. I already have my CAD layer checklist ready. And a fresh cold brew, just in case.