You asked, we delivered

I got this slogan from a visit to South Tyneside Town Hall, and it did seem pretty appropriate to any public service organisation, or one which seeks to serve its customers. Now that we have set up User Groups, it is encumbant upon us to deliver the changes requested.


One of the best ideas (but most complex) , came from Sefton Council when they attended the Northern User Group. It appealed to me because it was obviously bourne out of frustration familiar to all of us, of trying to do work on something, and being interrupted by the telephone. This user wanted a way to (1) do a quick search while in an existing case (2) have an easy way of getting back to the original case when he put the phone down.


We have done just that, which will be released in a new version with new-look buttons. Quick Search, is itself, a snappy utility which has been on the Menu for a month now, and lets you key in anything meaningful - Reference, Name, Address, key word like "ASBO" and shows you a case or a list. This is now on every page, with a built-in memory, which allows you to click a "Retrieve" button. Here are the pictures:-

(click picture to see enlarged)

Jim'll Fix It!

Sometimes working on Caseworks feels like doing an episode of Jim'll Fix It. Clearly some users also think like this. This is an email I received this afternoon from one of our users, who manages team leaders. That means she was not able to see Team Statistics for the end users. This is how she worded the request for an enhancement:-

"Can you fix it for me please, that i have access to cases for all teams"

This was the 10 minute fix (on my Test Database needless to say!)

(Click on the image to enlarge)

A sighting of The Gonk

Today, was one of the better days for Team Caseworks.

We actually had a sighting of the extremely rare Gonk - a creature, as far as we know, which lives only in captivity in Solihull. Here is a picture of it, with two of its keepers. Sarah, on the left, is our "CASEWORKER" prize winner for her outstanding piece of photography of The Gonk trying to use Caseworks. She is now the proud owner of an IPod Nano.






The runner up prize of chocolates went to Pat Brown's Team for its outstanding literary contribution to the Caseworks publicity material.

See the rest of the photos in our photo gallery by clicking here

We did do some work as well! The day was an opportunity for a delegation from Hackney Council to see how ASB is handled in the Midlands, and it was also an opportunity for Krish and myself to show off the new ASB Data Capture tool, which Solihull are considering. Finally we talked about a number of new developments - does anyone else need a page on Parenting Orders?

Leave Your Comment

Its good fun to write this blog, but even more fun to know that someone is reading it!

"Comments", is a small link at the bottom of every blog, and until last week, no one had noticed it, or thought of using it. The Gonk changed all that, and some readers lost their inhibitions and let loose with their opinion.

Now I know what turns you on!

Keep it up! Just in case you haven't noticed the comments, here are the ones left for the Gonk.

The Gonk has won!

At last January is over, and our photo competition has closed. The winner? A Christmas party entry (I suspect) from Solihull which made us all laugh. Just as funny, though not strictly within the scope of that competition was the poem submitted by a whole team of staff in Solihull. Both the poem and photo are included here. I dont think there is any more I can add to this, except to say that the iPod Nano has been bought and will be presented to the winner shortly. The poem will qualify for a runner-up prize. Watch this space to satisfy yourself that the winners are real people, and the whole thing is not just a publicity stunt.

The Poem
"Keepin it real with the 'HUB' by perpetrating the perp!!

Our 'Omage' to the Hub


B 4 the Hub what did we do?

Most of us really had no clue

Now the HUB has come our way

We are organised every day!!

WE LOVE YOU HUBxxx



(listen long enough and you'll hear the applause from us all!!)

Warm welcome on a cold day

At the start of February in Hamilton in Scotland, the wind is very strong and the temperature very low. This was the venue for our first Scottish User Group, but despite the climate we and South Lanarkshire's guests received a warm welcome in their brand new Whitehill Neighbourhood Centre.

Our formal write up is in the Scottish News Page(http://www.hubsolutions.co.uk/Scotland/page72/page72.html).
The pictures of the Centre and the Meeting are more interesting, in our picture gallery (http://www.hubsolutions.co.uk/photos/scotusergroup1.html).

I try to find an informal angle on things for the blog. Two things to mention. One, is nothing to do with our Company, but the Centre really is one of the best one-stop-shops I have seen, and should be better publicised. Hopefully our picture gallery will do that.

Secondly, there are always good ideas which arise spontaneously and completely unexpectedly at these meetings. At the Northern User Group, a delegate from Sefton came up with the idea of quick search from any view page, so that you could nip into another case to deal with a phone call and then return to the original case. We are working on that. At this meeting, Pat Kelly from North Ayrshire, seeing the User Divert facility for diverting your caseload to another user when going on holiday, suggested that you may prefer to divert the caseload to the whole team, randomly allocating the cases out. Nice idea, we will definitely take on board.