VFA introduces VFA.auditor 2.3 mobile data collection for guided self-assessments

by Ann Withanee — March 18, 2011—VFA, Inc., a leading provider of end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and asset management, announces the release of version 2.3 of its guided self-assessment solution, VFA.auditor with mobile/offline survey support.

VFA.auditor is a Web-based guided self-assessment solution that provides facility and building managers with surveys to rapidly collect data about the condition of facilities and major building systems. With more than 600 professionally engineered and designed systems included in the survey library, VFA.auditor leverages VFA’s building condition domain expertise to guide and standardize the collection of facility condition data. The surveys can be as wide-ranging or system-centric as needed. Additionally, guided self-assessments enable organizations to easily reassess condition and maintain existing data. Consistent data collection leads to less “stale” data, as well as the validation that previously captured deficiencies have been addressed.

This latest release of VFA.auditor supports the flexibility and versatility of condition data collection using mobile tablets. Mobile surveys speed data collection by providing a secure, offline means of information gathering. Facility managers can create surveys and assign them to facility staff and property maintenance personnel who can check-out the surveys to a mobile tablet and walk the facility easily collecting data. For data maintenance purposes, existing building condition data is included in the mobile survey providing a quick and cost-effective method of assessing buildings that may have been deferred for budgetary reasons. Surveys and collected data can then be uploaded to the VFA.facility database for review and analysis.

VFA.auditor with mobile support continues to transform how facility managers and capital planners can utilize technology and software solutions to optimize the management of capital investments. Employing a guided self-assessment process, whether it is a complement to a professional assessment or an alternative approach to capturing asset data, provides organizations with efficient and cost-effective options to best address facility condition assessments.

A demonstration of VFA.auditor v2.3 with mobile support is available on the VFA Web site.