Dashboard Version 2 - last blog of 2009

On the last day of 2009, and getting close to the last hour, I thought I would do a "first" and publish two blogs on the same day. Why? Mainly to give due credit to my colleague Krish, who carried on working until 9pm on New Years Eve to work out the best dashboard option for Caseworks. Version 1 (the previous blog) looked nice, but the underlying software was going to be a severe limitation for future enhancements. Krish started again at lunch time today, and worked on achieving the same result by a completely different route. Nine hours later, I think it is a pretty good prototype, and bodes well for an exciting New Year for Caseworks.

All of us wish our customers all the best for 2010.

A new dashboard for Caseworks

Those who received The Christmas Caseworker Newsletter, will know that we are continuing to work on the system over the holiday period. As the final Blog of 2009, I thought I would share a prototype with users, of something which will become a big development in the 2010 release.

Having, perhaps, been a bit late into the "Dashboard" concept we are using our new toolset to catch up and create a better facility than anyone else. Below is a first prototype of what will be one of many Dashboards, which will be user configurable and user-selectable. There will be User Dashboards and Team Dashboards and the ability to nominate any of them to be the first screen when you log in, or otherwise access them from the new Menu under "My Work" and "My Team". Infact, this is early days, and my resident wizz-kid, Krish is, as I write, experimenting with a variety of options to give the best results for Caseworks Users. So keep logging into the Blog to be at the cutting edge, and dont forget you can add your own comments if you have a bright idea.

Finally, can I wish the people who log into this blog, a very happy New Year.

Happy Christmas and a new Newsletter is out

The HUBSolutions Team celebrated Christmas in a Malaysian restaurant near London Bridge this year. The restaurant was intimate and exotic, the food and service excellent, and we all had a good time - as this picture, hopefully, shows. Email photos of your ASB Christmas party to caseworker@hubsolutions.co.uk and it will join this one.

The crew around the table is unchanged from last year except for one on holiday and another off sick. Pride of place at the head of the table goes to Kitty, aged 6, daughter of Selvi and Krish who are next around the table. Then there is the author (Peter), Arlene, David and two of the four members of our Revenues and Benefits team - Manish and Kishore.

I feel I should give some positive publicity to the restaurant called "Champor-Champor" in Weston Street, London SE1. It is very accessible from London Bridge station so whether you are visiting London from afar, or live in the London area it is quite accessible and much recommended.

The main news for this Blog, is that we have launched a new e-magazine as the new format for the Caseworks Newsletter. If you havent received a copy, email caseworker@hubsolutions.co.uk for one. There is a competition in this month's issue.

Estate Management User Group

HUBSolutions had its first ever Estate Management User group meeting on Friday. Topics for discussion included; how people were using the system in different ways, the benefits and difficulties experienced by users at different sites, mobile working, and future developments. It seemed to work very well - much of the thanks for this must go to David Perry at Hyndburn homes for providing the venue and laying on an excellent spread for lunch.

Below you can see a couple of photos from the event; users from Leeds in conversation with Peter, and a display stand that Hyndburn Homes had made that we were delighted to see included our logo!

New Look and Feel on display

Readers, who have read the last Blog entry, will know that we are re-designing the "Look and Feel" of Caseworks to make it look more modern, more planned and more consistent. As promised I am including screen dumps in the Blog, when we pass a milestone, but the Nat Fed Exhibition will be your first chance to see it for real. Come to stand 18 and ask for a demo.

The good news is, the exhibition is completely FREE whether you register in advance at http://www.itinhousingexhibition.co.uk/ or simply turn up on the day. The website gives the exhibition opening times, and travel information.

Where have we got to with the re-design?

Well we have now done the Details pages - both View and Update - and our ".net specialist" is working on the main menu. This will be a complete rebuild, not just a cosmetic change. Here is our prototype so far:-

This screen has many options opened up, but in the final version, only one at a time will expand.
The intention is that the new menu will be fully user-customisable with user bookmarks and user search screen options.

Modernising the User Interface

We were all at it today.


Well, almost... I had a super-super urgent report which had to be set up for South Lanarkshire before 11am and David had a meeting at Enfield in the afternoon. Other distractions included a user locked out from Lewisham and some woman trying to sell me advertising space over the phone. All resolved satisfactorily then we got on with the main purpose of our meeting...


We have decided to modernise the user interface, bring it into line with Office 2007 and generally make it pleasing to the eye. A lot of trial and error and informal voting - "I quite like that..." , "I definitely dont like that" and unhelpful comments like "How do Microsoft decide on the look and feel of their products?" - "pay a graphic designer a fortune to play around with shapes and colours, and not write a line of code" was the cynical answer.


Well, it is definitely time to change the wallpaper. 18 months ago we introduced the new visually appealing Buttons, with a rollover hierarchy, but we never changed the background or thought about the impact on the eye of bold colours and numerous hyperlinks.


This is not a quick project, and while we consider ourselves to be software experts, we would not pretend to be graphic designers. Unfortunately we suspect, our customers - the readers of this blog - will want their system to be visually pleasing, and won't want to pay the premium for an art expert. Seems like a good use for a Blog, to invite opinion as the project unfolds. As a reader, this is your chance to have an impact on our thinking and on the system.


We started with the Case History, surely the central screen in the whole system. We have adopted the Office 2007 colour scheme, we have replaced the hyperlinks with icons, we have introduced roll-over highlighting. Outstanding items, get a red flag if they are overdue, and orange flag if they are pending.

What do you think? There is a "Comments" button at the end of this blog. The next blog episode will be the main data display page - what we call View Details.

What a week... and congratulations to Riverside

What a week, and probably worth a Blog, partly because people who have emailed me may have wondered where I was, and partly because the various meetings I had were important for HUBSolutions and its customers.

Monday, witnessed a meeting with Capita plc in Victoria, to plan a proposal we are making jointly to the DWP. Relevance to Caseworks? Well the reality is that for much of the last 10 years, Caseworks development has been subsidised by work on Revenues and Benefits.

Tuesday, got off to an early start (5:30 am) to get to the HITEX exhibition in York. A lovely venue, loads of stands, but not enough visitors. However, we made one good contact, which may yet lead to developments for Caseworks, as the approach was from an IT Department of a RSL with a very specific technical view.

Wednesday, 10am, and I was in Accrington, discussing future enhancements with my Think Tank, David Perry. In just a couple of hours we had planned the Fire Safety Checks enhancement to Estate Management, specified the proposed new Project Module, and set a date for the Estate Management User Group.

Thursday, 10am and I had driven to Glasgow and was discussing the new Mediation Module with the Mediation Team from South Lanarkshire Council. Very worthwhile hammering out of detail, which has given me another couple of weeks of work. Then a quick chat with Lynn about South Lanarkshire's statistics, and a short drive to East Dunbartonshire for a follow-on demo about the Estate Management Module in the afternoon.

Firday, was another early start, and (as it wasnt quite early enough), as very fast drive down the M6 to Liverpool to meet Riverside Housing Group. This was another very worhtwhile meeting, which has also given me two weeks of work to do to complete their upgrade. Best of all, they are keen to come to the Estate Management User Group meeting, I had arranged two days earlier. Also, congratulations to Riverside for winning the Social Landlord of the Year Award.




At the end of the week, I felt that quite a lot had been achieved. Maybe driving 1,500 miles wasnt the best way to preserve the environment however. Back to the trains next week I think!

Congratulations to Solihull

Solihull Community Housing, one of Caseworks longest standing users, has won a landmark victory in the Courts, by getting a "CRASBO", even though they are not a law enforcement organisation.

Having picked it up on my ASB News Search (something we will be trying to link into Caseworks one day), I thought I would give Mandy and her team the publicity they deserve. Maybe other Caseworks customers might want to go down the same road. The extract is from the Birmingham Mail, the link is:- http://www.birminghammail.net/news/solihull-news/2009/08/07/solihull-commuinity-housing-secures-crasbo-against-local-troublemaker-97319-24336765/
- its just a pity the paper didnt spell "Community" correctly!

A great night out at the Emirates Stadium

Its always nice to win something!

Last night at the rather splendid Emirates Stadium in London, HUBSolutions and a delegation from South Lanarkshire Council attended the "The Good Communications Awards 2009", having been nominated for an award under the "Mobile Technology" section.


Mark Williams from South Lanarkshire IT, dressed up in a traditional kilt, brought a PDA with our mobile Instant Capture software on it to prove it still worked! The look of delight on our faces, showed that we hadnt expected to win.

Above is Alison Moore with the award on her table.

Left is the Scottish contingent - Alison Moore, Annette Finnen and Mark Williams.

Below is the coveted glass trophy

The evening was great fun, with excellent food and a very funny introduction by Hugh Dennis.

Now we are wondering if we can submit another winner for next year.

Below is the official photo

South Lanarkshire storms into the lead

It's always more exciting when one of our customers take the lead in developing or promoting Caseworks, than when we do it ourselves.

South Lanarkshire certainly scored full marks this month, first going to a Conference in Aviemore, demonstrating and presenting their achievements with our mobile technology and then holding a follow-up seminar for interested parties in June.

On top of that, we have just heard that their Mobile Caseworks project has been nominated for a "Good Communications Award" (see http://www.gcawards.co.uk/) website to find out more.

It has been a real team effort; I previously showed readers a picture of some of the Wardens using our mobiles, but here you can see the people who pulled the strings - Alison, doing the presentation at Aviemore, and Mark Williams from IT making sure it all worked on the day. (Click on the photo to see it enlarged to full screen)

The Caseworker Issue 5 is out

The May edition of The Caseworker is out, and has been emailed to our Users. If you have not received yours - you arent a User, or your IT Network has gobbled it up, email us at Caseworker@hubsolutions.co.uk for your copy.
Already the magazine has invoked a response from an existing customer, which really makes it all worthwhile:

"I see that you have developed an estate management module. is this up and running yet or is it just in development with Hyndburn Homes? Does the module have all the elements of estate inspections, scoring and tenancy matters or are these separate components? I would be interested to have an idea of costs and for your to give us a presentation on the module. "

The answer to the question, is that it is up and running at Hynburn, the Tenancy Audit feature is up and running at East Durham Homes and Leeds are currently testing, with a view to go Live in July.

Red Nose Day in Durham

This year, Red Nose Day also marked the end of our week of Caseworks customisation at East Durham Homes.

East Durham Homes had decided to support the cause, by having a dress casual day, where everyone had to wear a funny hat and also making a buffet lunch, for which everyone made a small contribution.

As with previous "Blitz Implementations" at Leeds and Accrington, the week was pretty intensive but very productive. EDH already had an Access Database of ASB Cases and part of the challenge for us was to ensure that everything they had already recorded was fully included, as well as adding a lot of new features to make it all worthwhile.

By the Friday, we had a fully featured database, packed with all their case details ready for an all day work-in and training session. The funny hats added a bit of enjoyment to the process as you can see from this picture of my colleague David Roper showing the system to the ASB Manager, Amanda Fulcher.

Did we add anything worthwhile? Hopefully lots, but probably nothing shows this more graphically than the creation of the first ever map of ASB in East Durham opposite. (The map is obviously capable of street level detail with a colour key, but this zoomed-out, cut-down view tells you where East Durham is, without telling you exactly what or where any of their cases are!)

Now, the managers are looking very seriously at our Estate Management Module, with a view to working with us to develop the Tenancy Audit function. Watch this space..

ASB in the Caribbean?

Some readers will know, I am currently on holiday -

in St Kitts in the Caribbean. However, I am always on the lookout for evidence of ASB which might offer market opportunities for Caseworks.

On the face of it, the West Indies does not have a very noticeable problem, but I found this poster in several places in the capital, which maybe indicates there is an issue about what young people do with their free time.

I like the slogan "Get on bikes, not in fights" - maybe one of the British Local Authorities might like to adopt it.

Anyway, later in my travels I came to a painted rock which served as a reminder that graffiti is as old as the hills. Sometimes, with the passage of time, people view the things rather differently and see the establishment as the bad guys.

This is a drawing on a piece of rock by the Carib Indians (who were largely slaughtered by the French and English in St Kitts)

Its nice to be thanked

I couldn't resist copying this little exchange of correspondence into my blog. I often think that customers underestimate the importance of being appreciative if they want to ge the most out of their suppliers. Nic from Portsmouth gets full marks, not just for saying thanks, but also doing a good job for the Users, taking the trouble to disable user profiles, when staff leave and transferring their cases to others. This activity, was the background to this little exchange which took place through our issue log.

Hi
Selvi kindly sorted out our issue with inactive users and alphabetical
sort order, and this now works perfectly thanks. But would it be possible to be
able to see all those cases set to MONITOR also, as there are quite a lot of
these that often need transferring.
Thanks - Nic : Portsmouth on 28/01/2009
09:46:59

I have modified the page such that the cases that are active and are on monitor are listed for you.
: Selvi on 28/01/2009 12:52:11

Subject: RE: Issue Id: 1680 - UPDATED with new Notes.
Selvi, you are wonderful. I no longer have a fear of developing carpal tunnel syndrome!
Thanks for your help.
Nic
Sent: 28 January 2009 12:52

The story of The Hound of the Glasgow Ville

I thought my readers would be amused to see this dog, which is strategically located in the offices of Glasgow Community and Security Services.

He has pride of place by the lift and I literally bumped into hin, while liaising with staff on the 6th floor. When I enquired about him, from staff, I got a somewhat mixed reaction. One officer told me that it was a school project to tackle ASB - Dog Fouling in particular, and was clearly impressed with the efforts of the children who had created this human-sized monster out of papier mache.

The ladies, I was actually going to see seemed rather less impressed with the work of art, and suggested I might like to take it away!