Jump Start

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

From a housing systems viewpoint, I think its fair to say we are in very interesting times.

We have some existing suppliers already capable of providing SaaS & browser delivered systems, Also there are quite a few in transition to that state, and MRI, a new supplier group, recently assembled by its US owners. With that current mix, it’s no surprise that many social housing providers are looking at MS Dynamics 365 (D365) and Salesforce too, as alternative pathways to support future innovation, efficiencies and improved service delivery to residents.

D365 has been increasing in popularity recently, with landlords using Microsoft Resellers and/or internal ICT resources, to get the most from the platform. It can be expensive to rely purely on reseller resource and sometimes smaller ICT teams, certainly in my experience, always can benefit from ‘being shown the way’ or having a collaborative jump start, in order to get the most from D365.

We are a sector I have always found to be very generous with sharing skills, expertise, good ideas with other organisations, as this all assists with the central social purpose, of why we are here and improves lives of our residents

In this vein, I was quietly surprised to discover a new initiative to share a number of functional blocks for social housing organisations, using or looking to get a jump start into D365. The aim of Chris Roberts, who has worked in the sector twenty years, and ten with Dynamics CRM, is to provide useful templates to support Person, Property, ASB, complaints etc, absolutely free, via a brand-new forum and I would hope with Chris, a future community D365ForHousing. 

I’m liking what’s available (and planned to be coming) will need configuring, but reasonably will take organisations 60%+ towards where they need to be, to get working practically. This could clearly suit organisations looking to dip a toe in, without committing maybe £30k+ with a reseller, plus the obligatory Microsoft user licences (don’t get me quite on that one just yet!). The whole concept is a forum for sharing experiences, finding and exchanging advice. Without monetarisation, RSL’s and maybe resellers prepared to share for free, I think this is great for the sector.

I had a great chat with Chris last week and his experiences with AmicusHorizon, then Optivo and others have all gone into the openly available building blocks, which are all independent of those organisations. #D365ForHousing . I think its great that Chris wants to give back to the sector, after enjoying working in it and like me willing to step out and strive to make a difference.

Chris is well connected to contacts at Microsoft and clearly has received support for the project, as this is sure to bring more in the sector to D365. I think its something the SocialHousing sector would benefit from getting behind, as the whole thing can be set up in a trial within a few of hours for FREE, then used to kick start the project, support a business case or help bring people up to speed with the functionality available.

In the last 7 months, around 25 RSL’s have expressed an interest and two have spun up a trial, remarking how easy it was. I am very interested who this might be a good fit for. With my clients, maybe D365 is not a good fit, based on appetite for risk (particularly in Local Authorities).

Chris remarked, “If you're a decent sized RSL and up and running with D365 then this probably isn’t something for you (although you'd still be welcome to download the modules). Its aimed towards those starting the journey or are still trying to decide if Dynamics is for them, these solutions will help get you up and running and will significantly reduce implementation costs”. So for RSLs, that can only be a move in the right direction. If you are a Microsoft reseller reading this, possibly availability of this, will be a nudge in the direction of upping your game on productised solutions. If you are a traditional HMS provider, I guess it should really focus your thinking. Feel free you commercial guys, to comment.

I have seen a few D365 projects go well, crash/burn, seriously over-run etc, for all sorts of reasons. I was interested on Chris Roberts take on that. Are landlords tackling D365 properly?

He said, “I think they are now. A number of us have implemented Dynamics and are happy to share the good, bad and ugly, that's one of the great things about our sector. I think my advice would be make sure you take colleagues with you, spend time understanding them and their needs (while managing expectations). The technology is an enabler but its useless without user adoption. From a development point of view I'd suggest, where possible, to stay as close to out of the box functionality as possible. This wasn't always possible in earlier versions but D365 is a different beast altogether and should be considered with the rest of PowerApp and Microsoft 365 functionality. Finally, avoid a 'big bang' go live, its very difficult to manage and can have a serious impact on user adoption.”

Spookily enough, going for a MVP style of implementation is often how resellers frame D365 implementations. Where many of these go wrong is that the simpler aspects that D365 does well, form the early focus. Dealing with the Rent Accounting and in-depth Repairs, if they are going to be part of your project, need planning early, even if they are only expected to be delivered in 12 or more months time. These as experienced people know, are the really tricky nuts to crack. Perhaps if via #D365ForHousing, all the early simple aspects can be implemented, in a very quick similar way to what works for others, the real value-add that resellers can bring to the table, is the integration and difficult displacement of those two key housing modules. They are still the two main sides of the coin to most Social Housing landlords. IE how we collect and spend money.

On the spending of money, here I come back to those costs of D365 licences.

Both Chris and I agreed that Microsoft licencing could be fairer for Social Landlords. Maybe a multi-tiered license taking in concurrent or reporting users, only accessing data, could be considered. Contrasted to SalesForce for example, I have heard some of my clients, describe the comparison as ‘obscene’. For sure, fairer licencing may attract many smaller organisations to D365, the so called ‘NHF smalls’. A missed Microsoft opportunity, IMHO.

One last thought, on the subject of ‘opportunity’. Both Chris and I talked about the opportunity to combine the jump start building blocks with possible social purposes. We had both heard of similar ‘incubator’ type projects, where high school students, maybe even gifted residents from your own community, could gain valuable experience with D365. Now wouldn’t that be a wonderful potential win-win?

Go visit, check out #D365ForHousing at deliveringcrm.net

Related Post: Few projects are a 200metre sprint, strap in for the more likely marathon 

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.

Runaway Go - Jump Start.
(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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. . . . . . . . . . . .

Sales Forces of Victory

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


In social housing it might not be one of the first things you think about, but as CRM’s go, Salesforce is up there as authentic premier league. It’s been around since about 1999. I know of many software suppliers in the sector who use it for its traditional purposes, keeping track of clients, prospects and leads. In that capacity, for which it was originally developed, it shines. Several people have remarked over the years that it’s a wonder no-one has written a housing system within it.

In case you have not come across it before, it’s a SAAS cloud based solution with a (US) stock market value of over $50b. Spookily enough its NY Stock exchange symbol is ‘CRM’. How cute is that? 

SalesForce had one of the first application stores, the AppExchange, for third-party apps that work with and integrate to the platform. Over 2,500 apps are currently available, from free to subscription based models. It’s kind of at a place where many might wish Microsoft Dynamics CRM may one day be.

The SalesForce Economy

True charities are recognised too, for reduced licensing on the platform. Salesforce.org (formerly known as the Salesforce Foundation), is the philanthropic arm of Salesforce.com. Salesforce.org donates 1% of the company's resources (defined as profit, equity, and employee time) to support organizations that are working to "make the world a better place”. Now that’s an outfit I would be happy having as a supplier personally.

I came across one of the apps, a few weeks ago, called In-Form, which had been developed by the charity Homeless Link. It supports care & support processes, some housing, tenancy, repair and housing functions and is increasingly in use in quite a few organisations across the UK.

It’s simple to use, not hard to configure, has integration possibilities and a lot of third party SalesForce apps can supply a lot of the communication and self-serve functions, that a lot of the usual suspects in our sector, seem to struggle with.

We have very few true ‘developed for the web’ SAAS solutions out there currently. Too many to use, are a bit too much live our back office based systems too. Vast screens full of complex fields, difficult to understand and train people to use, on the whole. It’s rarely like the ‘friction-free’ environments we find on Amazon or when we buy travel tickets or hotel accommodation. 

SalesForce is not perfect, although can take us further to that place, without the constraints of getting connected via Citrix or remote access and provide an efficient environment to work in. It will be interesting to see if any more switched on software suppliers will consider SalesForce for more social housing related applications in the future.

It offers a different way to develop, in a proven environment with rich proven add-ins, and can be quite profitable too, as Homeless Link have discovered. Every sale, contributes to their work with Homelessness, in the communities in which they work.

Now that’s what I call, a virtuous circle.

Catch the blog monthly archive at https://archive.org/details/@housingitguy

Related Post: Are your ICT team always taking you forward? 

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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.

Linton Kwesi Johnson / LKJ – Forces of Victory.
(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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Sweetheart Contract

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

This week I added a comment on a forum discussion, over on LinkedIn. The thread was essentially about how social housing organisations might compare IT suppliers. IE good, average or bad. It was very interesting and points revolved around the following familiar themes:

• Software suppliers are perceived as greedy and charge too much (some taking a view they will charge what things are worth to you, rather than cost to develop)
• Suppliers in the (social housing) sector lag behind ones outside in the 'real world'
• Lack of standards might be a problem, maybe someone should suggest/commission some (e.g. CORA, HACT - that's two standards )
• Package vs Bespoke, Package vs big ERP
• Observation that organisations often leave their supplier, not their solution, (rather than the other way around).
• Speculation on a mass rebellion by customers (try getting odds on that at Ladbrokes...)
• Variability of suppliers on taking user groups, help desks and taking real growth & development of solutions seriously

Do any of these sound familiar to you, if you are a supplier OR an end customer of these systems? They are to me, also more stunningly stark when I work with two or more suppliers delivering in a partnership. You know, a lead supplier, who is contracted to be the lead for a mixed delivery of solutions. This can be a popular option, to try to obtain the best mix of integrated solutions, without the traditional ping-pong across help-desks as the contract says everyone is working together.

I have experienced this when I was the other side of the fence 4 years ago as a supplier. I will be honest with you, some partners I worked with were pretty bad. Others I recognised as doing & managing things better than we did, and as in my nature, I was always keen to learn what made them tick, so I could reach the same heights. I never enjoyed being regarded as anything less than supplying a solution that was flexible, nor being thought of as inflexible.

Out there, its perfectly possible to get excellent suppliers for your project and not get the best from them. Great functional requirements are the cornerstone of a good project. Without those, a supplier cannot confirm what could be delivered. Since your contract is based then on those responses, they are the where the buck stops for delivery.

Always have your functional requirements tight before going to tender. I experienced one customer who went to tender way too soon and as a supplier I won the deal. During early implementation the customer wanted to totally change the requirements, adding new ones and substantially changing others. As a responsible supplier, I flagged up that we were delivering on the days and price tendered to the legal contract agreed. It didn't go down well, but quite clearly the contract was there to protect both parties.

IMHO, where many organisations go wrong is that they don't do detailed functional's, then don't include them in the contract, then don't refer and measure delivery against them. Don't get me wrong, but it's like a GRN (Goods received Note). Check your items delivered against the contract functional's and you have a means of confirming you have everything you thought you bought originally. While at it too, make sure your users understand what's to be delivered, as that will set their expectations too.

Systems are complex animals however and decisions made along the way, will expose you to risk, taking ownership or closing doors on some of that specified functionality, during the project. I have known of books / courses to obstruct buyers, customers implementing etc, particularly being used in local government software supply, going back to the 1980's.

Social housing sector IT on the whole, finds it hard to think in a commercial way and act socially. To get the systems everyone thought we bought, we need to be firm and fair, like a commercial organisation would. Being accepting and flexible, is unfortunately seen as a weakness by some suppliers. That is behaviour that comes with our sector.

Rather than checking out the grass over there, what are we doing to get ours like prime Wembley turf? It's your job to keep your suppliers in check, bring them to account at user groups while bringing your peers to support you. Recognise when your supplier is not giving you love like your sweetheart and put your foot down.

Please don't kid yourself that someone putting some standards together will change this landscape, because it clearly isn't. Nor will big ERP or anything sold as off the shelf Microsoft Dynamics CRM be the silver bullet that a groundswell of RSL's should, can, will, move to. Believe me I have looked at them, often with suppliers pitching them into our sector.

 A lot of the areas highlighted on that original forum, bullet pointed above, are in YOUR gift to manage, control and influence. As I have said before, your functional's and contract are your greatest friend. Do your bit, read it, understand it and bring your supplier and users nearer to it.

Related Post: Do you realise, when you choose the right solution, KPIs come right too

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You can link with me on LinkedIn here - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy It would be great to connect !

Magazine - Sweetheart Contract.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, or you could benefit from any of our services please get in touch and let me know!

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Best In The (Housing) World

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

While doing some work at one of my customers the other day, during a spot of downtime I had a look at the Housing Technology IT Supplier Review 2013. I don’t know if you caught this, if you are in Housing IT I am sure George Grant emailed you to let you know it had been completed.

Two results that made me smile were the areas where my old shop MIS-AMS came top of the pile; CRM and Asset Management. In some ways I was not surprised as that's two modules and application areas I know like the back of my hand. Also I had a lot of involvement in the design, implementation and customer facing aspects of getting those two modules right. They are pretty good to be sure (as I recall two of the Irish customers telling us), but seriously are they that much better than specialist offerings?

MIS-AMS ActiveH comes out way better than Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Surely is that not cream of the crop, supported by one of the world’s leading desktop software authors? MS Dynamics CRM did score highly on value for money, but then surely it should be, due to volume discounts and the like. So did the respondents skew the results? Strangely I had this conversation with an old colleague at another housing management systems supplier later in the week. I didn’t think so.

The differences boil down in my opinion to that old chestnut integration and look and feel. Adding Dynamics CRM or maybe Civica’s Contact Manager to a vertical market set of modules, such as a HMS provides training and significant integration issues. Out of the box costs are quite low, plumbing it all together is where resource, frustration and compromises slip in. So I am not surprised that bespoke CRM integrations score currently below out of the box CRM with all its links with Rents, Repairs, ASB, Web Portal, Planned Maintenance, Service Charges, Care, Development and Financial modules. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has come a long way from its original ‘bag of integration tools’ approach of a few years ago, but for most I don’t think it’s quite there yet.

Asset management is another mystery area. How on earth can a generic asset management module from the smallest player in this sector score higher than a specialist module such as Keystone, built by a team of ex-surveyors around housing needs? If I were Keystone I would be a bit worried. If I were Promaster or PIMSS I would be calling a working party to ask why on earth that might be.

If you are an ICT manager reading this or an Asset Manager, you can probably guess why the responses looked like they did. What are your day to day difficulties with your modules in place? It’s probably lack of or inconsistent integration, maybe a silo style approach which does not bring the main organisation into the orbit of asset management. Visibility counts for a lot when your housing officers are on the scheme and cannot answer basic asset orientated queries. Off-shore islands of data held in a separate asset management system (some even in a foreign database that has difficulty talking to your main ones) are not conducive to efficiency.

Opportunities to integrate well with voids, planned works, response repairs both ways are laborious, unreliable and often just abandoned for just that reason. I would guess from experience that Keystone is the best integrated of the respondents, hence it’s up there near the top. The Capita (old IBS) module deserves to be up there too. Obviously with Capita or MIS-AMS ActiveH, integration consists of setting the right parameters and code tables, not calling in the plumbers!

No-one should take any of the above as an endorsement (...other HMS & bolt on modules are available, all trademarks acknowledged etc..). The choice is always down to organisation needs. Just because it works in one RSL does not guarantee it will work in yours.

If you have a badly performing Assets or CRM module, get in touch, you know where to find me!


You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Dr Feelgood - Best In The World.


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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