CAFM RFP template and requirements checklist

How a CAFM selection runs, and how long it takes

For a mid-sized portfolio, plan on four to five months from kick-off to contract, or six to nine where a tender committee is involved. If you are still choosing between a CAFM and a CMMS, start with how CAFM, CMMS and IWMS differ.

1. Weeks 1 to 3

   Prepare

   Agree the scope, the budget range and the final decision-maker, and collect volumes: buildings, assets, users and work orders a month.

2. Weeks 3 to 6

   Requirements and long list

   Edit the requirements, write your demo scenarios and use a short request for information (RFI) to reach five or six vendors.

3. Weeks 6 to 10

   Issue the RFP

   Send the workbook with a portfolio profile and a commercial template. Allow three to four weeks for responses.

4. Weeks 10 to 13

   Evaluate and demo

   Score the written responses, shortlist two or three vendors and run the scripted demos in the same week.

5. Weeks 13 to 16

   References and final offers

   Call references, visit a live site and ask for best and final offers.

6. Weeks 16 to 20

   Award

   Finish the IT and security review, negotiate and sign. Implementation takes four to eight weeks for one building with clean data, or three to six months for a portfolio that needs an asset survey.

For the long list, our comparison of CAFM software in the UAE covers ten platforms and where each one fits.

Who to involve

Selections go wrong when the people who will use the system first meet it at training. Put them on the panel, and give one person the final say.

Head of FM or operations

Owns the decision and the business case.

Helpdesk, supervisors and technicians

They use it every hour and notice a slow app in seconds.

Finance

Billing, cost centres, VAT and e-invoicing.

Procurement

The process, the evaluation rules and the contract terms.

IT and information security

Hosting, single sign-on, integrations and data residency.

HSE or compliance

Statutory maintenance and inspection evidence.

Owner or provider side

Asset and owners' association managers for owners; contract managers for FM providers.

Writing requirements a vendor can answer clearly

Each line should describe an outcome you can test, not a feature name. “The system has a mobile app” gets a yes from every vendor. “A technician can complete a PPM checklist with photos in a plant room with no signal, and it syncs later” separates them.

Keep one requirement per row so it can be scored on its own, and put the context (buildings, assets, daily users, systems to connect) in the RFP pack. Avoid words nobody can test, such as user-friendly.

Setting priorities with MoSCoW

MoSCoW sorts requirements into four groups. The workbook uses the first three; leave the fourth out of the RFP.

Must

You would reject a vendor that cannot meet it.

Should

Important and heavily weighted, but a gap can be worked around.

Could

Useful if it comes at little cost.

Won't (this time)

Parked for a later phase, so it does not dilute the scores.

If more than half the list is Must, it has not been prioritised. About four in ten of the template's rows are Must by default.

Demo scripts built from your own scenarios

A standard demo shows the product at its best; a scripted demo shows it doing your work. Send every shortlisted vendor the same scenarios and a sample of your data a week ahead, and run them in the same order.

The Demo script sheet has 12 scenarios, from an out-of-hours leak reported in Arabic to a month-end penalty calculation that tests whether your SLA rules match the contract. Ask for one live configuration change and use the app on a real phone in airplane mode. Evaluators score alone, then compare.

Scoring and weighting

The Scoring sheet works in three layers.

1. Each requirement is scored 0 to 5 and multiplied by its priority: Must 3, Should 2, Could 1.
2. Points are totalled by module and divided by the maximum, giving a module score.
3. Module scores are multiplied by weights that total 100%, giving the technical score.

Price is scored separately: the lowest five-year cost scores 100%, and each other vendor scores the lowest cost divided by theirs. Many tenders in the region weight technical and commercial 70/30 or 60/40. Fix the weights before responses arrive, and treat a Must answered No as a decision: the vendor is out, or the requirement is downgraded for everyone.

Reference checks

Ask for three references of similar size and sector, one in your country, and call them without the vendor present.

• Did go-live happen on the planned date, and if not, why not?
• What still does not work the way the demo suggested?
• How quickly does support fix a critical issue at the weekend?
• What share of technicians use the mobile app every day?
• Would you choose the same system again?

Implementation and data migration questions

Disappointing CAFM projects usually go wrong in implementation, not selection. Get written answers before you sign.

• Who cleans the data, and who signs off each trial load?
• Which records are migrated (assets, open work orders, PPM schedules, history), and how many years?
• Who carries out the asset survey, and how is it priced?
• Which requirements need custom development rather than configuration?
• Who builds and maintains each integration, and at what annual cost?
• What happens to your configuration at each upgrade?

If your PPM programme will use SFG20 tasks, confirm whether the vendor includes SFG20 content or expects you to license it.

Total cost of ownership over five years

Licence price is the easiest number to compare and rarely the one that decides the cost. Ask every vendor to price five years on the same volumes, including:

• Subscription or licence, maintenance and the cap on annual increases
• Implementation, data migration, integrations and training
• Asset survey and tagging, often the largest single line in year one
• Hosting, extra storage and SMS or WhatsApp charges
• Mobile devices, tags and label printers
• Change requests and support beyond the included hours
• Your own staff time, and the cost of leaving

UAE and GCC requirements to include

Lists written for Europe or North America miss what causes trouble here. For a wider view, see facility management software in the UAE.

Common mistakes

1. Starting from one vendor's brochure. Its feature names become your requirements, and the RFP is decided before it is issued.
2. Marking everything Must. The scores can no longer tell the vendors apart.
3. Leaving technicians out until training. Adoption is decided on the mobile app, by people the panel never asked.
4. Underestimating the data. The asset survey and cleansing take longer than configuration, and decide whether people trust the system.
5. Comparing licence prices. Implementation, integrations and the survey often cost more in year one than the software.
6. Signing without exit terms. Data export and transition support are cheap to agree before signing and expensive afterwards.