ERP & Finance

CMMS RFP Template (Free): Maintenance Software Requirements

Paste-ready CMMS requirements (work orders, preventive maintenance, offline mobile, assets, MRO inventory, purchasing), vendor questions that separate products, and a weighted scoring rubric.

14 pages Microsoft Word ★ 4.5 of 5 285 downloads Updated October 5, 2026
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CMMS RFP Template (Free): Maintenance Software Requirements

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What's inside

The sections in the document, in order.

  1. How to run a CMMS RFP
  2. CMMS vs EAM: which RFP do you need?
  3. CMMS RFP requirements
  4. Questions to ask CMMS vendors
  5. Scoring rubric
  6. Frequently asked questions
  7. Related RFP templates

Use this CMMS RFP template when you're choosing maintenance software to replace paper, spreadsheets or an older computerized maintenance management system for a plant, a facilities portfolio or a fleet of equipment.

It's written for the maintenance, facilities, IT and procurement team running the selection, and it covers the whole process: the requirements to send, the questions that separate vendors, how to score the answers, and when to choose an EAM RFP instead.

What’s inside this template

  • A step-by-step plan for running a CMMS selection, with an example schedule and when to issue an RFI first
  • Requirements for work orders, preventive maintenance, mobile and offline use, assets, MRO inventory, purchasing and contractors, each marked Must-have or Nice-to-have
  • Vendor questions that test offline sync, PM triggers, metric definitions, licensing by user type and AI claims
  • A short guide to choosing between a CMMS RFP and an EAM RFP
  • A weighted scoring rubric with 1-to-5 definitions
  • An editable Word RFP with response codes, a pricing table and a timeline

Download the editable Microsoft Word version below. Every requirement, vendor question and scoring weight on this page is in the document, ready to tailor and send.

How to run a CMMS RFP

A CMMS only pays off if planners and technicians use it every day, so involve them from the start and test the mobile app where the work actually happens. The example schedule below runs about 11 weeks from kickoff to contract award; stretch it if you have many sites or need to clean up asset data before vendors can demo with it.

  1. Define scope and gather your numbers (weeks 1-2). List the sites, asset types and maintenance processes in the first phase, and what the CMMS replaces (paper, spreadsheets or an older system). Record the numbers vendors will size and price against: sites, assets, storerooms, work orders per year, and users by type (planners, technicians, requesters, contractors). Check the state of your asset register and PM schedules now, because migration depends on them.
  2. Assemble the buying team. Include the maintenance or facilities manager, a planner or scheduler, technicians from different crafts and shifts, the storeroom lead, procurement, finance (for cost centers and the ERP link) and IT. Add quality or EHS if you have regulated sites. Technicians should help write the demo scripts and score the mobile app.
  3. Confirm CMMS or EAM, and decide whether you need an RFI (weeks 2-3). If capital planning, linear assets or enterprise-wide asset strategy are in scope, read the CMMS vs EAM section below before going further. Issue a short RFI first if your long list has more than five vendors, if you need industry features such as GMP validation and don't know who offers them, or if you haven't decided between a maintenance tool and a broader platform.
  4. Tailor and issue the RFP (weeks 3-6). Delete requirements that don't apply, adjust priorities, and add your environment to Section 1. Attach a sample of your data (part of the asset hierarchy, a few PM schedules and parts) so vendors demo with it instead of their own. Give vendors three weeks to respond, with a written question-and-answer window in the first week.
  5. Score the responses (weeks 6-7). Have each evaluator score independently against the rubric before comparing notes, and set aside any vendor that misses a Must-have. Check every 'yes' for whether the feature is available today in the edition being priced, or only in a higher tier or on the roadmap.
  6. Run scripted demos and a technician pilot (weeks 7-10). Give two or three vendors the same scripts: a request from a phone, approval, scheduling, offline completion, a meter-based PM, a parts reservation and a purchase. Then have technicians use the mobile app on real assets for one to two weeks, including in basements, plant rooms or remote sites with poor coverage. Call references with similar assets and team sizes.
  7. Negotiate and award (weeks 10-11). Use the pricing table to compare like for like, including what requester, contractor and read-only users cost. Settle renewal caps, add-on prices, sandbox access and data export terms before you sign, not after.

CMMS vs EAM: which RFP do you need?

A CMMS RFP fits when the goal is to run maintenance well: requests, work orders, preventive maintenance, spare parts, purchasing and technician mobility, across one site or many. Enterprise asset management (EAM) software covers the same ground and extends it across the whole asset lifecycle, from investment planning to disposal.

If your requirements stop at the maintenance and facilities teams, this template is the right starting point. If you find yourself adding items like the ones below, start from the EAM RFP template on RFPhub instead, or run an RFI that lets vendors propose either.

Signs you need an EAM RFP rather than a CMMS RFP:

  • Capital planning and repair-or-replace decisions across the whole asset portfolio are in scope
  • You manage linear or networked assets, such as pipelines, roads or water and power networks, that need GIS-based maps
  • You want reliability methods such as reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) or failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) built into the system
  • Your asset management planning, not just day-to-day maintenance, must align with ISO 55000

CMMS RFP requirements

Each line is written to paste straight into your RFP. Must-have means a vendor that cannot meet it is out; Nice-to-have earns extra points. Change the priorities to fit your situation, and delete what doesn't apply.

Functional

ID Requirement Priority
F1 Work requests from any employee or building occupant through a web portal, mobile app, email or a QR code on the asset or location, with status updates sent to the requester. State whether requesters need a paid license. Must-have
F2 A configurable work order workflow from request through approval, planning, scheduling, assignment, completion and supervisor review, with approval rules by work type, cost, site or asset criticality. Must-have
F3 Work order completion that records labor hours, parts used, readings, photos, notes, downtime and failure codes (problem, cause and remedy), with costs rolled up to the asset, location and cost center. Must-have
F4 A planning and scheduling view of the backlog by craft, technician, shift and date, showing skills, certifications and availability, with drag-and-drop assignment and rescheduling. Must-have
F5 Time-based preventive maintenance on fixed schedules (due on set dates) and floating schedules (next due date set from the last completion), with work orders generated a set number of days before they are due. Must-have
F6 Meter-based preventive maintenance triggered by runtime hours, cycles, distance or other counters, including 'whichever comes first' combinations of time and meter triggers. Must-have
F7 Condition-based maintenance: alerts or follow-up work orders created automatically when a recorded reading, such as temperature, vibration or pressure, falls outside set limits. Must-have
F8 Reusable job plans for preventive and corrective work, with task steps, estimated labor by craft, required parts and tools, and safety precautions, that can be applied to many assets at once. Must-have
F9 A preventive maintenance forecast showing upcoming PM workload by period, site and craft, and PM compliance reporting that shows work completed on time, late or missed. Must-have
F10 Digital inspection checklists on work orders (pass/fail, readings, photos and signatures), with a follow-up work order created when a check fails. State whether inspection rounds covering many assets can run as one route. Must-have
F11 An asset hierarchy (site, building or area, system, asset, component) with parent-child relationships, and a full history of work, costs, readings and downtime for every asset that stays intact when a component is moved or replaced. Must-have
F12 Asset records with nameplate data, criticality ranking, documents (manuals, drawings and certificates), warranty terms and custom fields, plus barcode or QR tags that open the record from a phone. Alert technicians when a work order is raised on an asset under warranty. Must-have
F13 Spare parts and MRO inventory across multiple storerooms and bins: min/max levels and reorder points, part reservations for planned work, issues and returns against work orders, cycle counts, and a spare parts list for each asset. Must-have
F14 Maintenance purchasing: requisitions raised from work orders or reorder points, approval routing, purchase orders and receiving, with costs posted to the work order and asset. If purchasing runs in our ERP instead, describe how the two systems share the process. Must-have
F15 Vendor and contractor management: vendor records, service contracts with terms and renewal dates, contractor work orders with completion evidence, and tracking of contractor insurance certificates and qualifications with expiry alerts. Must-have
F16 Safety procedures, such as lockout/tagout steps, isolation points and required protective equipment, attached to job plans and work orders, with technician acknowledgment on mobile before work starts. Must-have
F17 Dashboards and standard reports that the system calculates from work order and downtime data, including mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR), PM compliance, backlog by craft, planned versus reactive work, and maintenance cost by asset, site and cost center. State how each metric is calculated, and provide a report builder our administrators can use without vendor services. Must-have
F18 Multi-site operation in one system, with site-level security, shared or site-specific parts catalogs and job plans, visibility of stock held at other sites, and reporting across all sites. State the languages, currencies and units of measure supported. Must-have
F19 AI assistance, such as drafting job plans from equipment manuals, summarizing an asset's work history, or turning technician voice notes into work order text, with a person reviewing the output before it is saved. State which features are generally available today. Nice-to-have

Technical and architecture

ID Requirement Priority
T1 Cloud (SaaS) delivery hosted in [region]. State the hosting provider, the regions available, whether the service is multi-tenant, and whether an on-premises or private-cloud option exists. Must-have
T2 Native mobile apps for iOS and Android that work fully offline: view and complete assigned work orders, create requests, record readings, issue parts and add photos without a connection, then sync automatically when it returns. State how much data is cached on the device and how conflicting edits are resolved. Must-have
T3 Barcode and QR code scanning with the phone camera to open assets, locations, work orders and parts. State support for NFC tags and rugged handheld scanners. Must-have
T4 Configuration without custom code: custom fields, forms, picklists, workflows, roles and notifications, kept intact through upgrades. Must-have
T5 Performance at our scale: [number] assets, [number] work orders a year and [number] concurrent users across [number] sites. Describe your largest comparable deployment. Must-have
T6 Bulk import tools for assets, locations, PM schedules, parts and work order history from spreadsheets or another CMMS, with validation and error reports. Must-have
T7 A separate sandbox environment for testing configuration, integrations and new releases before they reach production. Nice-to-have

Integration

ID Requirement Priority
I1 Single sign-on with our identity provider via SAML 2.0 or OIDC, and user provisioning via SCIM. State how technicians sign in on shared devices. Must-have
I2 Integration with our ERP for cost centers and general ledger codes, vendors, purchase orders and receipts, part costs and fixed-asset records. State whether each connector is prebuilt, partner-built or custom, and who maintains it. Must-have
I3 A documented REST API with read and write access to assets, work orders, PM schedules, parts and meter readings, plus webhooks or event notifications. State any rate limits or extra charges. Must-have
I4 Condition-monitoring and IoT integration: sensor readings received through the API, an IoT platform, or industrial protocols such as MQTT or OPC UA, used to update meters and to create alerts or work orders when limits are crossed. Nice-to-have
I5 Alarms from building automation (BAS/BMS) or SCADA systems, and runtime readings from plant historians, turned into work orders or meter updates. Nice-to-have
I6 A connection for our business intelligence tool, such as OData, ODBC or a scheduled export to our data warehouse, covering all maintenance data. Nice-to-have

Security and compliance

ID Requirement Priority
S1 A current SOC 2 Type II report or ISO/IEC 27001 certification covering the proposed service, available under NDA. Must-have
S2 Role-based permissions by role, site and type of data (for example, hiding labor rates and costs from technicians), with administrator access through SSO and MFA. Must-have
S3 Encryption in transit and at rest, isolation of our data from other customers, and documented backup and restore. State backup frequency and your recovery point and recovery time objectives. Must-have
S4 An audit trail that records who changed what and when, with before and after values, for work orders, assets, PM schedules and inventory transactions. Users cannot edit or delete audit records. Must-have
S5 Schedules and audit-ready records for statutory and regulatory inspections (for example, fire protection systems, elevators and pressure vessels), with completion history by asset that we can give to auditors, insurers and inspectors. Must-have
S6 Electronic records and signatures that meet FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and EU GMP Annex 11, including signature meaning and reason-for-change prompts, with validation documentation for each release. Make this Must-have if you operate GMP-regulated sites. Nice-to-have
S7 Calibration management for instruments and test equipment: calibration schedules, as-found and as-left readings, tolerance checks, and follow-up when an instrument is out of tolerance. Nice-to-have
S8 A data processing agreement, a current list of sub-processors, data storage in [region], and a contractual commitment to notify us of security incidents affecting our data within a defined time. State the time. Must-have

Implementation and support

ID Requirement Priority
M1 A phased implementation plan with named roles and the effort expected from our team, identifying who delivers the work (vendor, partner or both) and the named team's relevant experience. Must-have
M2 Migration of our asset register, PM schedules, parts catalog, open work orders and [number] years of work history from [current system], stating which cleanup and mapping tasks fall to us. Must-have
M3 Role-based training for administrators, planners, technicians, storeroom staff and requesters, with train-the-trainer materials and in-app help. Must-have
M4 A service-level agreement for availability, with service credits. State the commitment and how availability is measured. Must-have
M5 Support hours and response-time targets by severity, including out-of-hours support for issues that stop technicians working. State your targets. Must-have
M6 Release notes and advance notice of changes that affect workflows or the mobile app, plus a public status page. Must-have
M7 Optional services to help build our PM program and asset criticality ranking from manufacturer recommendations and our failure history. Nice-to-have

Commercial and pricing

ID Requirement Priority
C1 Pricing by user type (for example, administrator, planner, technician, requester, contractor and read-only), module and term, showing list price, discount and net price. State which user types are free. Must-have
C2 Prices for adding users, sites or modules mid-term, co-terminated with the main agreement. Must-have
C3 A cap on price increases at renewal. State the cap. Must-have
C4 An itemized list of any charges for API access, integrations, data storage, sandbox environments or premium support. Must-have
C5 Pricing that ramps with the site rollout, so we don't pay for every site before it goes live. Nice-to-have
C6 A technician pilot at no charge, or a paid pilot credited against the first year's fees. Nice-to-have
C7 Exit terms covering export of all data, including attachments and history, in a usable format, and transition assistance at the end of the contract. Must-have

Questions to ask CMMS vendors

These questions are designed to separate vendors, not to collect brochure answers. Ask for evidence: a demo, a document or a reference.

  1. Using the sample asset data and PM schedules we provide, show a technician receiving, completing and closing a work order on a phone in airplane mode. Then show what happens on sync if a planner changed the same work order in the meantime.
  2. Set up a PM that triggers on runtime hours or a calendar date, whichever comes first. If the work is completed two weeks late, when is the next one due, and can we choose fixed or floating scheduling for each PM?
  3. Show a failed inspection reading creating a follow-up work order. How would the same limit work if the reading came from a sensor, and how do you stop repeated alarms from creating duplicate work orders?
  4. Which user types do you license, what can each one do, and what do requester, contractor and read-only users cost? Show us what a requester sees when submitting and tracking a request.
  5. How exactly do your standard reports calculate MTBF, MTTR and PM compliance? Which work orders and downtime records are included, and can we change the definitions?
  6. Walk us through the parts flow: a planner reserves parts for a work order, stock drops below its reorder point, a requisition is approved, the purchase order is received, and the cost lands on the asset. Which steps happen in your system and which in our ERP?
  7. A motor is removed from one machine, repaired and installed in another. Show how its history, costs and warranty follow it, and what each machine's history shows afterwards.
  8. How do contractors receive, update and close work orders, and how do you track their insurance certificates and qualifications? What does contractor access cost?
  9. Which of your AI features are generally available today, and which are in preview or on the roadmap? What data do they use, is our data used to train models shared with other customers, and how does a user review AI output before it is saved?
  10. Which ERP integrations do you have in production with customers like us today? Which are prebuilt connectors, which are partner-built, and who supports them after go-live?
  11. What data cleanup and mapping do you expect from us before migration, and what most often delays data migration in projects like ours?
  12. For our GMP-regulated sites (delete if not applicable): show an electronic signature with its meaning and reason for change, and describe the validation documentation you provide with each release.
  13. How often do you release updates, how much notice do we get, and can we test them in a sandbox before they reach technicians' phones?
  14. Describe your most significant service outage or mobile sync failure in the last two years: the cause, the customer impact and what changed afterwards.
  15. Provide a reference customer with similar asset types, number of sites and technician count that moved from [spreadsheets / a previous CMMS] to your system.

Scoring rubric

Score each criterion from 1 to 5, multiply by its weight, and add the results. The weights below are a starting point; agree on your own before any proposals arrive so the scoring can't be bent around a favorite.

Criterion Weight What a strong response shows
Work orders and preventive maintenance 20% Every Must-have met in a generally available release and shown with your data: request to close, time, meter and condition triggers, and reusable job plans.
Mobile app and offline use 15% Technicians in the pilot complete real work orders offline, scan assets and sync without lost or duplicated data.
Assets, MRO inventory and purchasing 15% A clear asset hierarchy with history that survives moves and replacements, and a parts flow from reservation to receipt with costs landing on the asset.
Reporting and maintenance metrics 10% Documented definitions for MTBF, MTTR, PM compliance and backlog, and reports your administrators can build without vendor help.
Integration and data access 10% ERP and SSO integrations in production with similar customers, an open API, and a credible path for sensor or building-system data if you need it.
Security, compliance and audit trail 10% Current SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence, granular roles, a complete audit trail, and Part 11 support with validation documents if you run GMP-regulated sites.
Implementation, data migration and support 10% A realistic plan for cleaning and migrating your data, an experienced named team, and clear SLAs and support targets.
Commercials and total cost 10% Transparent pricing by user type, affordable requester and contractor access, a renewal cap and fair exit terms over a three-year view.
Total 100%

Scoring scale

  • 5 Exceeds: meets every Must-have and most Nice-to-haves, shown in a demo or proof of concept, with a matching reference customer.
  • 4 Strong: meets every Must-have and some Nice-to-haves, with clear evidence.
  • 3 Adequate: meets most Must-haves; gaps have a credible workaround or a dated roadmap commitment.
  • 2 Weak: misses one or more Must-haves, or the answer is vague.
  • 1 Poor: does not meet the requirement, or no answer.

Frequently asked questions

What should a CMMS RFP include?

Your scope and the numbers vendors price against (sites, assets, users by type and work order volume); requirements for work orders, preventive maintenance, mobile and offline use, assets, spare parts, purchasing, contractors, reporting and integration, each marked Must-have or Nice-to-have; security and compliance terms; support and SLA terms; a pricing table broken down by user type; and the rubric you'll score with. This template includes all of them.

How long does a CMMS RFP take?

The example schedule in this template runs about 11 weeks from kickoff to contract award, including three weeks for vendor responses and three to four weeks for scripted demos and a technician pilot. Allow more time if you have many sites, need validation for GMP-regulated sites, or must clean up your asset register before vendors can demo with your data.

What questions should you ask CMMS vendors?

Ask questions that need a demonstration rather than a yes: completing a work order offline and syncing it, setting up a PM that triggers on a date or a meter reading, how MTBF and MTTR are calculated, and what requester and contractor users cost. Also ask which AI features are available today and which are still on the roadmap. The vendor questions on this page work with any CMMS vendor.

How is CMMS software priced?

Common models are a subscription per named user, often with lower prices or no charge for limited user types such as requesters and read-only users, or pricing by site, asset count or module. Integrations, API access and sandbox environments may be charged separately. Ask for pricing by user type and module, a renewal cap and the cost of adding sites, so you can compare a three-year total.

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