tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 25+ years working with over 100 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. Also a healthy music knowledge music over the last 5 decades Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Friday 17 December 2021

Data On The Move

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

As anyone who knows or have worked with me over the many years I have been involved with Social Housing ICT systems and processes, I have been involved in many data conversions, as well as a few data merges. Of the latter, once 4 housing system databases merging into just one new system.

Now most new suppliers you might procure a system from, will typically have you, dig all your old data out, and provide loaders to take those spreadsheets, text files or base SQL tables, into the new system. The exception to this assumption is clearly where your existing supplier is to be your new one. In this situation, you may well be charged a little more, but a lot of the process is dealt with for you. Which can at times be a valuable investment!

Over the years I have helped RSL’s, Councils and Charities dig data out of all types of diverse sources. Who would have known that my knowledge of 1980’s & 90’s databases, would be useful 30 years later? Usually 5 or 6 days of my time is much more economic, than getting three temps in for 4 weeks. Although ICT is not always the answer (and we need to recognise that).

However, as in a conversation I had with a RSL I am working with currently, just last week, a number of decisions need to be made. It is perfectly admissible to bring all your data across, as is to bring pretty much none of it. I have done both and pretty much everything in between. No approach is right or wrong, or anywhere on that spectrum. Its always about what’s best for the organisation.

One big factor is often what access will you have to that historic data. Your ex-supplier would probably love to let you keep access to that old data, through your current system as read only. Probably because you will most likely be paying up to 50% of your current licence to access it. Now you might be migrating to something else to save money. If this is the case maybe the key consideration is either to migrate most of it OR migrate maybe just some of it (maybe a snapshot of two financial years). Agree on this decision first and potentially save yourself some brass.

Where your cut off is, may depend on the time of cutover to the new live system. A big reveal, most new go-lives do not occur at financial year end. Most however in my experienced are synchronised at a quarter end. This enables some continuity of quarterly KPI’s etc. Clearly one ‘Gotcha’ is making sure that you have new KPIs in place and can UAT them before go-live. I have some sites wait 6-12 months to achieve some of that. No-one buys a new system to plug lots of data into it. They buy one as it should be driving transformation, insights and decision making.

Clearly, (getting slightly techie now) any data entities that are ‘open’, need to be brought over. By that I mean open repairs (from whatever requested date), or any rent accounts with a balance (credit or debit, current or former) etc. These are all clearly reconcilable from old to new system (although this more often than is sensible, seems not to be done to the penny).

This might also be a good opportunity to slim down or transform your structures, as part of the data move. As left as a task to ‘come back to later’, will it ever really happen? Also, old long unused suppliers/contractors/users could be dropped at this point. Sometimes these can be just scripted in data to a generic ID, if this data needs to be carried over.

So what’s to be done if you decide to migrate only two years (or so) of old system data?

Well you can start by thinking what you already have in a physical form. For example 6 years of PDF rent statement documents in a EDRMS solution, or archived monthly reports for areas such as Repairs, Lettings or Case Management. Bear in mind that if your data is already in a database, such as SQL, Ingress, Oracle, Informix, Access, Foxpro, Progress etc, you can retain a copy to query natively. Alternatively, if a non-SQL Server database is in use, it can usually be exported/unloaded and transferred to a standalone SQL Server Database, capable of being easily queried.

If your data calculations are done right, it should be expected that within 3-12 months of having your new system, queries on the old data should dramatically reduce. Not withstanding that, it is also quite likely that specific data will have been left behind unintentionally and this will need to be (hurriedly) transferred over, in the first 3 months. A good quality of UAT should really shake out that one.

Of course GDPR and the direction of your Data or Information manager, needs to be taken fully into account in all of these data migrations. I would suggest that organisations should already thinking about data migration, before contracts are finalised for new systems. Ensure sufficient data conversions are costed in your contract (if costs are applicable), particularly the weekend go-live at double time.

I hope there are a few useful takeaways here for organisations pondering this conundrum. Get in touch if you need help with this or the procure prior, or project assistance as Critical Friend afterwards.

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

The Record Company: On The Move.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Thursday 9 December 2021

My Perfect Cousin

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Interesting recently to hear the recent discussion on ‘Digital Twins’, particularly in regard of the Social Housing space. One where sometimes we have not managed data particularly well, or done a sterling job of turning it into practical ‘information and insight’.

In many cases this is not down to a lack of places to store it coherently in our integrated (or not so integrated) housing solutions, its often down to a plain lack of data. Too often its in the heads of staff long since retired, plans tucked away at this or that councils archives, from the 1950’s/60’s, or just never ever collected. Another thing I have seen over the years is the habit of engaging external surveyors for asset surveys and leaving that data in an inaccessible format, often (in over 50% of cases I see), never getting it into primary systems of record, attached to assets or properties.

I like the idea of Digital Twins, and did some work a few years back with some developers doing ‘Smart Cities’ work in the South East of England, where it totally fitted what we were working on. It worked a treat because everything being proposed was brand new development. IOT and Smart Data Controls were all part of the development and data was being captured as part of BIM from the early designs. An ideal situation for the technology.

The inevitable elephant in the room for most SocialHousing providers, is that for the majority, over 99% of managed stock was built prior to 1980 and is not new build. Affordable new build these days tends to be more closely aligned to the expectations of traditional mortgage house owners, making capture of data more possible as a ‘Digital Twin’ and providing potential for enhanced management, transformation at lower costs, leveraged by higher efficiencies. I have seen this recently with some work I am undertaking in a London Borough.

Shiny & lovely, ‘Digital Twins’ are, so what is to be done for the 99% of much older stock?

All is not lost, but in all seriousness, dreams of building ‘Digital Twins’ for this stock is a challenging goal, maybe too difficult. Hence ‘Digital Cousins (once or twice removed!) might be a more practically achievable aim. More work using what we have, consolidating in our systems, so future data AI can draw conclusions and similarities together for your stock, is the starting point. As said in the ‘Good Friday Agreement’, agree with your asset teams to ‘put their spreadsheets beyond use’ and prevent any more being created, is the first step for many.

Secondly, identify the gaps that really must be filled and would add value to data analysis and insight. For example, can really simple things be determined, such as what number flat sits above the resident in the flat now reporting water coming through their ceiling? Do we even have a simplistic textual data view of the building structure? Storage of the most elemental of these types of things is enabled already by most HMS & Asset Management solutions out there (if RSLs care to make use of them). Reporting (although rarely out of the box) is possible with a little imagination, to give a helicopter’s eye-view.

ESRI's concept

Thirdly, consider some of the services that some surveyors are now providing to provide ‘fly throughs’ of stock, such as pre-1970’s tower blocks. While not cheap, if focus is made on potentially troublesome stock, this can pay dividends in shoring up safety regimes and future reducing repair costs. I have seen good examples from West Midland based RSL’s, which add additional insight way beyond what a conventional asset condition survey might provide.

A shame no-one had even considered ‘Digital Twins’ back in the 1960’s. I wonder if even the ‘Gilbert Strip’ had even been invented by then?

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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The Undertones – My Perfect Cousin.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here