Which Is Best Desktop Or Web-based CMMS, And Will It Integrate With My Existing Applications?

There is no clear-cut answer to the first part of this question. It really depends on the size of the company and its business needs. On balance, though, desktop CMMS software will usually work out cheapest for very small companies with few maintenance staff and only one site location to worry about.

Bigger concerns or those companies with a network of geographically diverse sites and/or a large maintenance team should definitely consider web-based CMMS. This will give real time information to users out in the field and avoids the need to download information from laptops onto network servers back at base.

In addition, web-based applications also allow non-maintenance staff to raise work tickets via their browser and be kept updated on progress.

Integration, meanwhile, should not pose much, or any, problem. One of the big selling points of CMMS is its ability to support Microsoft Access and MySQL, enabling existing databases to be imported, updated and managed. The same is true of web based CMMS applications.