The School
Louisiana State University (LSU) is a top public land, sea, and space-grant research university headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Founded in 1860, the school now has a student population of over 39,000. It has also grown to encompass over 500 buildings and over 15 million square feet of managed space.
The Challenge
LSU was operating on a dated enterprise system that was originally scheduled to be sunset in 2017. Nearly every department – including athletics, residential life, finance, the registrar’s office, and space planning – was utilizing that system, and they were given notice that they would have to find a new solution.
The departments did so in a somewhat siloed, ad-hoc fashion, with the Planning, Design & Construction (PDC) office implementing FAMIS 360 and maintaining the legacy system.
The problem? These systems were largely siloed and did not offer automatically updated space insights in real-time. This presented several challenges. For one, the university’s space team had to maintain both systems and did not have access to current, consistently accurate information. Additionally, they had to do most of their reporting in the old system. As a result, they faced issues like:
- Inaccurate space data across multiple systems
- Outdated, static information in FAMIS 360 and Space Survey, resulting in inaccuracies
- Outdated record drawings
That’s why, in 2022, PDC decided to move away from this legacy mainframe and commit to making FAMIS 360 the system of record.
The Solution
To consolidate systems and make FAMIS 360 their system of record, the team partnered with Accruent, ACAD-Plus, and AppTree. This migration project was to include:
- Space data/drawing clean-up and standardization through ACAD-Plus
- Space data integration into FAMIS 360
- CAD updates/standardization
- Training (AccruentCAD, Space Survey, Analytics)
This multi-phase project is still underway, and there is still a nightly integration into the old system due, in part, to the fact that other departments remain tethered to the legacy system. Phase one of the migration project – completed in June of 2024 – focused primarily on integrating floor plan data, tying record floor plans and live drawings to FAMIS 360 space data.
Future phases will include further integration with other systems like Workday.
The Results
Overall, this integration will provide one system of record and one source of truth in FAMIS 360. This will not only help LSU PDC with report generation, but also provide the real-time data needed to obtain funding and make the right space planning decisions. Some more detail:
Space Planning Insights
Over the last several years, LSU has been in a period of growth, with many large new buildings, including the construction of multi-floor and multi-unit residential life buildings, with plans for a new library. LSU PDC needed to gather and share information about these spaces quickly and identify department locations in those spaces. This information was previously consolidated via a spreadsheet, but it was not tied to live data or to drawings. Now that this information is consolidated, this data provides accurate insights.
FAMIS 360’s Bulk Uploader tool is key to consolidating this large amount of information quickly as the campus grows. Accruent has been an important partner regarding this tool. ACAD-Plus also took most of the CAD drawings and put them in a format that allowed them to be uploaded into FAMIS with room numbers and square footage. ACAD-Plus then input the drawings, and the LSU PDC team used the Bulk Uploader tool to add large blocks of information at once.
As Gregory LaCour, Director of Campus Planning at LSU PDC, explains, “It is exciting to have drawings that are connected to the database from which we can pull information. This will help our department plan for changes and renovations in the future as the school continues to grow. It will also help with funding.”
Funding
Expanding on this point, accurate reporting is crucial for funding in various areas.
As an example of reporting and funding, the Office of Research and Development needs to know how much research space is on campus, where it is, the quality of the space, and if it is being used efficiently.
Prior to this integration, quickly identifying research space across campus, for example, could be challenging. Now, LSU PDC can tie data to the drawings to produce PDF floor plans of every floor with research space. Their next step is to audit 1.5 million square feet with a consultant team to look at each research space and determine if it’s in good condition, if it’s still being used as originally intended, the type of research it can accommodate, and how much renovation is needed. This insight will help verify what space is available, and can be used for funding and future research space planning.
Additionally, LSU sends an annual report to the Louisiana Board of Regents, which distributes funding for public institutions. The Board looks at metrics like space, number of buildings, and class utilization. The registrar’s information ties into the space data in FAMIS, is reviewed, and is measured against other institutions to submit to the Board. Having accurate data for this report is key, and the latest integration provides a more reliable source of truth.
Future Plans with FAMIS 360
Looking toward the future, LSU is interested in using the Space Survey module to enter and validate space data. The institution is also exploring Analytics. As Walta Ghebreiyessus, Space Manager, explains, “We’re also excited about Analytics. Now that the space data is in FAMIS, we can start using it for more in-depth custom reporting."
Finally, the team is looking to rebuild reports and surveys within FAMIS 360 for more accurate and actionable insights.
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