FOM Software Features

Professional

FOM is not a general purpose calendar. FOM is specially designed for the management of scientific instruments.
FOM is designed and programmed by real facility managers who specialize in electron microscopy. When you talk with us about customization or new features, you will have no language barriers like you may have with pure computer science majored programmers.
FOM is written in Java and uses the Microsoft SQL engine. FOM is highly modularized and easy to expand and customize to meet your facility's needs.
FOM has a clear and concise user structure: System admin, Facility admin, Instrument manager, Supervisor, and User. Every user role has its own privileges.

Reliable

FOM was designed in 2002 and has been installed on more than 50 universities in the United States alone.
At Northwestern University, one FOM server is used to control 18 shared facilities all over the campus. More than 3000 users are using the same server to schedule time on 220 shared instruments.
With the optional remote control switch box, FOM keeps the most accurate accounting of instrument usage. With the box, users can not use the controlled instrument without logging into FOM.
FOM database is automatically backed up every day with FOM's internal backup function.

Flexible

FOM provides the most flexible schedules and fee structures. For each instrument, managers may configure different schedule increments, when the day starts and ends, schedule limitations, billing policies, and more.
Instruments may be charged per reservation, per time actually used, or a combination of reserved and actually used time. Charge calculations are rounded to the nearest minute.
FOM provides fairly complicated yet very flexible rules to validate users' financial accounts. For Northwestern University, FOM validates user's account numbers dynamically against Northwestern's financial system.
Managers have complete control of usage records. Manual insertion of service records, modification of users' records, or a batch import of large numbers of usage records from other databases are all possible. All these functions are available on a single web page.

Thoughtful

All scenarios are carefully considered. Reservations, cancellations, modifications, early logons, late-comers, extended sessions, conflicting reservations, no-shows, forgot logoffs, auto logoffs, reserve for users, training sessions, service sessions, repair sessions...
With fully customizable PDF service request forms, various group of collaborators may shared information and upload/download results after logging in FOM. Managers may apply pre-defined service charges per hour, per sample, or per collaboration.
FOM provides complete management of consumable sales and inventory. Consumables may be associated with certain instruments or sold separately. Warning messages are sent to managers when a consumable is running out.
Unlimited operation manuals and other documents can be linked to each instrument. Users can browse documents by facility, instrument, and description of the documents.
FOM provides numerous reports for many purposes. Customized reports can easily be added upon request.

Customizable

FOM has been customized for Northwestern University to use a centralized NetID login. FOM developers will collaborate with your institution's IT support staff to implement your facility's single sign-on system.
FOM has been customized for Northwestern University to be fully compatible with its financial system. We will customize FOM for your institution to provide data transactions that are fully compatible with your accounting system.
FOM supports an unlimited number of instruments in a facility. It takes just a few minutes to add a new instrument and configure its parameters.
FOM supports an unlimited number of facilities on a single server for the whole institution. New facilities can be added with just a few clicks.
From free online hosting service to complete enterprise solution, we provide four different license types that you may choose from. Click here to see the four license types