tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 27+ years working with over 140 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. (c) No reproduction without prior/express permission 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

Monday, 1 November 2021

As One

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

Few things stand still and its not unusual for councils and housing organisations to merge together ‘as one’ for so many reasons. Efficiency, savings, looking to deliver services in a shared way with higher levels of satisfaction, or better self-service.

Recently, I have been involved in Asset/housing system solutions including where two councils merged in the West Country, a couple of RSL’s in North East Scotland and Torus Housing Group, on my doorstep when GGHT and Helena came together. As can be expected, this is a crucial time to review existing system solutions in both organisations coming together and also have a weather eye on future fit for purpose.

I am occasionally asked, “Is there a template for doing this, we can use”?

The honest answer to that is ‘No’, every case needs to be taken on its merits, particularly in the light of how we aim to work flexibly these days, post-Covid19. Existing housing or other systems that rely on olde-world Client-Server, clunky Citrix or Terminal Services, will be possibly top of the list for replacement. These may indeed be solutions that have been in use for many years and be on a rolling annual contract by now. Consider any contract penalties, that might mean the remaining contract costs may be payable if either organisation terminate.

In one recent project I was involved in up in Scotland, both organisations were on the same solution. There it was a no-brainer to merge into a third instance with the current HMS, which was relatively low cost. That enables the merged organisation to continue on that platform or review future possibilities, with only one system to work with. Beware changing your name or location however. Some existing contracts could trigger hefty novation fees, for suppliers effectively doing nothing at all. Keep an eye on these types of clauses, in new and existing supplier contract T's & C's.

In another project, during a long project at Torus Housing Group, which involved a deep dive into all existing applications in use and drawing up a detailed specification of the future functional requirements, 27 applications were originally in use. A rapid pre-market analysis determined the art of the possible, including future budget costs indicating combined savings of at least over £1.5m over five years. I was involved in a successful HMS/Finance procurement and implementation, slimming down to just seven applications. In that procurement, only one of the current HMS providers engaged in the procurement and the preferred option was a third supplier. I was involved as a Critical Friend throughout.

Its fair to say that sometimes I have seen two councils or RSLs merge and choose a new third solution when procuring to merge into, as that is a clean slate for both. I have never seen a merger deliberately go out to do this, but it can happen a lot. This approach does enable a new start as regards transformation and also a chance to move to a new SaaS/browser delivered basis for the future. Be aware that a few housing system suppliers now have SaaS/browser options, that can be migrated to.

There are also some hybrid paths to consider too. For councils this might logically utilising a Digital Platform to provide an integrated and unified view on existing systems, effectively hiding them. This year I was involved in procuring a Digital platform for a couple of councils, with at least one most likely accessing their HMS for retained housing stock in this way.

So, I hope if you are part of an organisation looking to merge, there has been some food for thought here. Feel free to get in contact if you are starting out on this journey, pre-scoping whats available, ready to procure, or may need just a little help in managing your supplier to get your new solution happily live.

Don’t forget if you are going in the other direction de-merging, rather than merging, we can help with that too!

Catch the blog monthly archive at
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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.

Merge Of Equals – As One.
(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.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica 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Wednesday, 27 October 2021

Tinder

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

We are often used in everyday life being sold a dream, or over-sold to. Whether its in a glossy brochure, a fancy webpage, or a slogan on the side of a big red bus, mostly these things come out in the wash. We are familiar with cars offering 68mpg and them delivering 56mpg instead.

Perhaps we make the problem worse when some of us use that 20 year old image as our thumbnail on Linkedin and Twitter, cropped from our wedding images. I was pulled up the other week and reminded that my Twitter image looked different to me in real life. In opening it up and expanding it, I asked what the difference was? They said, “We usually see you wearing glasses”. I get the point, although I only generally only wear them if reading at work or using a screen. (So I thought that a little harsh).

Sometimes in the procurements I get involved in, some sales staff seem to see every name in the CRM system is a potential prospect and every tender must be responded to. This is not good for the organisations selling, nor the contracting bodies looking for the right solutions. The qualification stage is an important one and crucial for saving time for sales and also in the inevitable evaluation, if a full ITT response is returned. Spending too much time on bad prospects means sales losing precious moments for engaging qualified leads instead.

Occasionally, I see ITT responses which occasionally are ‘borderline delusional’.

Weasel words, references to ‘see above’ or other information elsewhere, all ring alarm bells for me. While I often provide my clients, some first time evaluating ITT’s to defined ways we have declared they should be scored, with a custom crib-sheet to help make a fair judgment. Even then, some of the conversations often move when evaluating to “why are they saying subject to requirements” or “needs scoping”, following four weeks of clarification period, provided to allow them to clarify what the scope would be.

The best way I described it recently, is that the contracting body can evaluate the ITT answers submitted as best we can, on face value. This is a bit like reading a biog on Tinder, without being able to swipe left or right on our tenderer. However, the demonstration event is like going on the actual Tinder date. That’s when you find the system (like a date) is 20 years older than it seemed, slow/clunky or its just not living up to its biog!

There are plenty of tips on getting the most from demonstrations on this blog (as regular readers will know). One of the best I find is being able to issue an advance version of the required demo scenario. At least then it’s not a surprise when your ‘Tenderer date’ is asked to back up their many claims and be moderated based on the performance. I am no longer surprised when the odd supplier finishes an hour or more early, as there is a lack of overall finished product to show. A sure sign of something being oversold.

On the odd occasion I have had the surreal experience, of a supplier telling us that they are not going to follow the issued scenario and will be showing us something else. I love the look on their face(s) when they are told we will only be scoring them on what we have asked, as per the tender. As all tenderers then have a level playing field.

At a recent demonstration I attended, the suppliers came with incompatible kit to demo, did not have an up to date version of the remote access software loaded and could not access the open wifi either, starting 25 minutes late. Not my, or my clients problem. During the 4 hour demo they often asked, "Do we want a 15 or 30 minute break?". On the second one, I reminded them that they were burning into their own time. "Are we?" they said. I had to say, "Yes afraid so. If you are not done by 2pm, we are all out of here and you will only be scored on what you managed to show". They wisely opted for a 5 minute comfort break.

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

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

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

Thursday, 14 October 2021

Buying Time

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

I work mainly with landlords, councils and charities across the UK, with many pieces of work involving procurement. Spookily enough, this is one area where the EU has had an influence for a couple of decades, one that must surely change in the post-Brexit world. Clearly when I do work (as I occasionally do and immensely enjoy), in Southern Ireland (Deisceart Éireann), OJEU still rules.

If a public body made a purchase, SocialHousing landlords being regarded as ‘Public Bodies’ for this legislation, OJEU (Open Journal of the EU) rules and legislation kicks in.

Putting my cards on the table, the rules are there to help contracting bodies make considered decisions and be fair to tenderers taking part. I believe that level playing fields are important, having been a supplier in the past and maybe feeling at times, I had been led down a garden path on occasion. Days, whole weeks, maybe months of time wasted on occasion, that I will never get back.

So, used correctly, OJEU rules are a safeguard, a fair way to choose appropriate supplier and a useful tool for a social housing landlord or council, if they are spending £1.2m on software or £13m on a planned maintenance programme, with one or more partnering contractors.

Since the 1st Jan 2021, the UK and its public bodies, can have more freedom over procurement. One of the ‘sunny uplands’, so to speak. Just to curb the excitement, we do seem to have a current government better doing the spin than the delivery. A bit better at talking about it, rather than getting it working, in the recent Green Paper, the forward proudly declares “The end of the Transition Period provides an historic opportunity to overhaul our outdated public procurement regime”.

I am sure that was in everyone’s minds as all that Covid19 PPE was procured, in contrast I think Housing Associations and Local Authorities will still in the future be strictly held to account. There is plenty of rhetoric on it being more “Innovative, flexible, transparent and green than the current European Union regime”. There is also talk of boiling down many hundred of rules to a simpler framework. While this sounds good, there is scant evidence that industry feedback have actually currently been taken into account as yet. Westminster can currently feel like a black hole for business its fair to say, so this is no surprise.

The Green Paper does make reference to “decisive shift away from awarding contracts based primarily on price”. In my experience of looking for software and applications solutions recently, creating a new foundation for future transformation, its rare that price accounts for more than 30% of scoring. For one client I remember a very heated discussion about, “Well Tony what if it costs us another £100k over 5 years?”. My answer was, “Look outside the office here, four people represent £100k costs in a single year. With 135 staff, saving 4 people or transforming their jobs, makes that saving in year one”. Now forgive me if that sounds brutal, but these are potential savings that good transformations can bring. Obviously good demonstrations flesh out any smoke & mirrors.

Buying software, application and platform solutions, is very different from buying repair services or kitchens in bulk. Currently blanket T’s and C’s on frameworks may work for bulk materials, but even those often work badly for software. Penalty clause caps are a common discussion area for me currently with multiple suppliers for example. Contracts need to fit the product being procured. So I would like to see innovation around areas like that, particularly for software, SaaS and integrated systems. Hopefully, suppliers have fed that back into the process, so far. We should see the outcome from the “Consultation Response”, by the end of December.

Legal folk in the know who I work with closely, seem to be hoping for a “New Competitive Flexible Procedure”, to be in the pipework. This should allow greater engagement with suppliers where appropriate. Less popular with a few contracting bodies I have had informal chats with, is the suggestion that publishing of advance “pipelines of future procurement” has been suggested. In some cases this could work well, in others less so. I still think that PIN’s (Prior Information Notices) and structured pre-market engagement, will be the best link with software suppliers and the whole ‘warm up’ process. I know how this generally works in my projects. Please feel free to get in touch to let me know how its worked for your organisation, or not.

The key to this, is that to be effective, the new rules need to cut red tape, not create more overheads, as other areas of Brexit clearly have. Burden on procurement and legal staff needs to be reduced, not increased.

I am going to look out for the fully formed, hot and steaming final recommendations, hopefully we will see in December 2021. I would recommend that your procurement specialists do too!

Related Post: Pre-Market Engagement, Scope properly before you procure

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Lucky Daye – Buying Time.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Tuesday, 5 October 2021

Lets All Tilt

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

Around Housing management Solution providers, no one can deny there has been some serious consolidation over the last decade. NEC bought Northgate, MRI bought a smorgasbord of softwares, Civica have hoovered up Keystone and Abritas. If you are a supplier out there, you better be a good disrupter or prepare to manage half a decade of decline (so my contacts tell me).

While distracted by these consolidations, some including lots of legacy solutions, liberal sprinklings of Silverlight, old skool Client-Server and other non-Cloud first demons, some suppliers are quietly buying in Cloud ready solutions under the radar. Why would you not? Exactly what I would be doing if I had deep pockets available to spend. Why buy legacy solutions that will cost an arm and a leg to move to full Cloud & browser presentation?

EU wide housing software and mobile supplier Aareon, have been really canny recently in buying up FixFlow, Arthur Online and Tilt’s Affinity in Northern Ireland, who have capability to support Differential Rents in southern Ireland. The nice thing here is that these are all written for cloud already, their challenge is only to integrate. So with well targeted resources, we should only wait 9-18 months to see a nice offering here, if done right.

Of course, the danger with buy-ups is always that existing directors can be enabled to ‘cash-in’ and if not well managed, experienced staff run to the hills and take better jobs elsewhere. Lets hope Aareon manage this better than others have historically. Notable is that back in August 2020, Aareal Bank in Mainz (a lovely city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany), sold 30% stake in IT subsidiary Aareon. This software arm in all the EU and UK sectors it operates, must pay its way.

Aareon have a significant footprint in the UK social housing marketplace with its Client-Server solutions. As we know, markets and organisation needs have changed drastically over the last 18 months of Covid19. Maybe its new acquisitions will keep it desired and relevant. More important, if I were managing Aareon, I would hope that these new acquisitions would be a means of accelerating getting the existing customer base onto a new Cloud and browser journey in a cost effective manner. Potentially there is more modern raw material here than from some other suppliers at the minute.

Lets see what its management makes of it. Potentially some hard leg-work to do here, that might result in good outcomes for better social housing solutions.

Related Post: Go-Live, making it a success (or not)

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Christine and the Queens – Tilted.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Wednesday, 15 September 2021

Reference

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

How often in life do we ‘ask a friend’ to get some impartial advice or opinions on something we are planning to do or buy?

It can be fantastically useful in confirming our feelings or stoking up our fears of making a mistake, one which maybe we would better want to avoid. We are used to following references when looking to employ new staff and occasionally provide one. In the case of employees and employers, its often more telling when people refuse to provide any reference, good or bad.

So how important are references, when choosing/procuring new application solutions?

Often its easier to find some useful references prior to a procurement, rather than during or afterwards. Procurement professionals will generally cite ‘references’ quite rightly as being part of ‘looking back’ in the tender process, rather than ‘looking forward’ as per the ITT, hence dissuade doing scoring on references. This often frustrates clients I have worked with, although as I will come on to later, maybe for scoring, references are less inciteful than you might expect. When spending six or seven figure sums on new systems, its natural to want to get reference insights.

Taking reference insights from people you trust, rather than ones that suppliers connect you to, are generally more useful to you. Often with systems applications and software, organisations rarely want to talk about bad decisions they made. This is not helped by suppliers writing up a case study, almost before the ink is dry on the finalised contract. A story you read in Housing Technology magazine three years ago, might not have actually gone live as yet. I see many types of projects, including a good few across a wide range of software suppliers, who have an interesting story behind them. As a critical friend to my clients, I do my best working to prevent repeat of those mistakes wherever possible.

We are all used to suppliers regaling us with PowerPoint slides packed with their customer logos, at the start of their demonstration pitches. The unaware might reasonably assume that any of those sites with a logo, might make a good reference site. Many reading this will be familiar recognising a logo and knowing work or social contacts at that site. Often even at this stage the pitch isn’t reflecting known solutions in use. The precise question to probably ask, is which of these has been live for a while on precisely the product/version being pitched, plus another option currently implementing that is nearly at go-live.

Skip these precise questions and you might well get in contact with a reference, although not one that reflects what is being pitched. I have seen lots of examples where the only reference site that has been pitched, that was just starting to implement. One client I worked with had this experience and never got the solution working effectively. Strangely enough, I knew people at the site they visited and could reassure my client that they never really got it working either! Its no laughing matter, as public money was wasted at both sites. Tenant improvements, like new kitchens, bathrooms and rewires, that never took place, as that budget was squandered on poor ICT instead.

When reference sites make themselves available, they generally are rewarded with freebies, such as free development days etc. So it is in their interests to participate. It was the same at my old shop, even fans of the solutions, still picked up a free onsite or development day. Beware when the same reference sites are used time after time. These might be the only sites actually live or seeing significant rewards. Its not unusual for these sites to eventually start to refuse to be reference sites, particularly where they might start to struggle to see progress with their problems or development/roadmap issues.

When I was MD at a major HMS software supplier, back about nine years ago, often I would respond to tenders that asked for 3 reference sites. At that time, I and my team put so much effort into customer care, I was confident enough to respond with three matched ones, plus the full customer list, for prospects to contact anyone they like. How many application/solution providers these days might offer that to you? Do ask the question, see how confident your supplier really is!

With reference sites, firstly work to find a reference site similar to yourselves (not way smaller, or nowhere near experienced enough in the solution being considered). Beware the difference between cloud hosted and on-premise versions of the solution under consideration, particularly as is common these days, you are looking for full cloud hosting.

Expect the reference site to be positive about the supplier and solution. However, key questions to tease out how long the solution actually took to implement, problems/issues and importantly how they were resolved by the supplier, should be key. Many insights can be learned from references, particularly around how they tackled data migration, composition of the project or subject matter team etc.

Never skimp on contacting reference sites thoroughly. This element of the process is easier than ever, with the plethora of remote options available, so there is less excuse than ever. Also, if procuring, this reference site could become your ongoing peer and friend with the solution, so invaluable in terms of starting your organisations' networking, to get the best from the selected solution.

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Sainté - Reference.
(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.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Arthur Online,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Bynaric, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica Genero,Civica Saffron,Clearview,Clik,Cloud Dialogs,CloudDialogs,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Commontime,Community Reward Services,Company,Competitive Dialogue process,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Consultants,Contact Manager,Context,Contractor Systems,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,Crystal Reports,Customer Relationship Management,Cx, DRS,Deeplake,Designer Software,Development Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365, ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e, Facebook,Factorwise,Field Service management,Finance,Financial Systems,Financials,Fixflow,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion,Firmstep, Gas Tag,G-Cloud,Goss Interactive,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best from,GoTonySmith,Grasp,Grip,Group Apex,Granicus,GOSS HFI (Housing Financials interface),HG,HRA,Hardware,Hitachi 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Tuesday, 7 September 2021

(1st) Touch (has gone)

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

Many mobile working solutions within Social Housing, have often been linked by a quite extreme umbilical cord, to its founders.

Examples include Microsurveys that was linked only to Codeman, Total Mobile forms that was very linked to the other TM product stack, there was that strange thing created to link with Orchard way back (South View?), OpenMobile, Footprint?, plus does anyone remember ‘Wrekin Hand-e-work’? Apologies if anyone has experienced any unpleasant flashbacks there!

Its been a long tortuous road no doubt. But isn’t that the case when tech is settling down? You know, from GPRS to 3G, to 4G, 5G to goodness knows where?

One solution that was (for a long time anyway) pretty independent, managed a good sized footprint in Social Housing. 1st Touch, emerging from the uni-campus blocks in Southampton, it was free to be sold into all kinds of situations. Examples include with ROCC, Accuserv and other products for contractor applications, as well as with Aareon social housing products, the organisation who finally bought them out.

I was involved with quite meaty projects involving 1st Touch myself over the last six years and even suffered a three day (of my life I will never get back), training course to design forms and workflow. Which I have to be fair, was extremely flexible. With sufficient imagination and experience of Javascript, HTML, advice avec Roy Ménage à trois, you could achieve most things. A great little product, praise where its due.

Once Aareon purchased 1st Touch, they looked to have improved integrations into QLX Housing (or ERP as I often hear it described these days), and I know a number of recent satisfied customers. Unfortunately, as with any product purchase/buyout it often polarises competitors, who may decide to change tack, from past alliances. Early QLX adopters clearly encountered some challenges from what I have seen. Although as I would suggest to any of my customers looking to be application/software early adopters, as in those wild west cowboy films, pioneers generally suffer/die with arrows in their backs. If any of my clients wish to die that way, I do regard it as my duty to warn them first of the risk element.

The recent surprise with 1st Touch, is the newly announced end of life after October 2022, apparently due to MS Silverlight being used extensively in the forms designer. I remember a procurement in 2015 where Silverlight was identified and a forms designer rewrite was due by 2017. A rewrite like so many others on roadmaps, that never occurred. So much for software supplier roadmaps. Remember, Aareon are not alone, Keystone Asset Management also is one other product to be rectified before its MS Silverlight de-support date arrives, (or not as the case may be).

Of course, if the forms designer (Management Studio) requires no internal tweaking of forms, it no longer runs and Silverlight, no longer a significant vulnerability. Bear that in mind if you have 1st Touch now.

I have more than one current client, to who this poses a problem and are predictably cracking on with considering alternatives. A future migration product has been proposed, ‘Versaa’ (also a brand of Fitbit, although no-one is suggesting a Fitbit sized device will be sufficient for housing management and contractor solutions. So that might be an unfortunate name chosen there..). Versaa on the upside is promised to provide an enhanced workflow designer to be BPMN2 compliant, hopefully providing flowchart drag and drop support. There is a suggested migration path from 1st Touch to Versaa. Where sophisticated integrations and parsing of data is necessary, clearly we are unlikely to be looking at ‘drag & drop’ or ‘low-code’ here.

Software re-writes rarely come cheap, so inevitably some additional costs coming down the line too, for existing customers. Many QLX customers may well also be quite heavily embedded into 1st Touch mobile and its tenant app. Lets hope the replacement is a brand new product as promoted. A bit of tweaking around the edges, should not be a costly repurcase. Lets hope thats not what to expect here.

I have also already been asked by more than one contact, “what alternatives, can we easily drop in here to replace this Tony”?

It’s not an easy question to answer. There are plenty of options with rich form functionality, but the Achilles Heal as ever is integration. That is where complication creeps in.

Are you an existing 1st Touch customer? What are your plans? Will you be a pioneer or follow later with the ‘Women and Children’ like in the cowboy films later, in the ‘Covered Wagons’? Feel free to get in touch with your thoughts and lets see where we are in October 2022(!). As ever, feel free to get in touch with questions or if looking for help and advice.

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

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Magazine – Touch and Go.
(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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Systems,Hitex,HomeMaster,Hometeam,HouSys,House,Housemark,Housemark survey,Housing,Housing Contact,Housing Group,Housing Insight,Housing Management,Housing Management Consultant,Housing Partners,Housing Portfolio Management System,Hub Asset Management,Homeswapper,Housing jigsaw, Housing Support Pro,HousingIT,HousingSupportPro,HyperOptic, IMS,IT,IT Budget,IT Training,ITIL,Impact Response,In,In4,IEG4,In4Systems,Illumar, Promaster,InfoBoss,InHouse,InMotion,InMotion2015,InMotion2016,InfoBoss,Infoflow,Information,Information Technology,Information@Work components,Informix,Innovation, Informetis,Inphase,Inside Housing,Insight,Internet Portal,Internetalia,Invu,Ireland,Irish,itLab, Keyfax,Keylogic,Keypera,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera, Landlord,Ledgers,Linkedin,Liquid,Locality,Localz,Liberty,LowCode, M3,MAVIS,MD,MDM,MI,MIS,MIS-AMS,MISCS,MRI,MS Dynamics,MRI,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Microsoft365,microsoft 365,MWL,Management,Management Server,Manifest,Measuring,Mebus,Microsoft Dynamics 365,Microsoft dynamics GP 2013,Miracle,MobileIron,Mobysoft,Monopoly board images and pictures,Montal,Mr Void,MriEngage,MrVoid,MRI Socialhousing,MRISocialhousing, NDL,NINTEX,NINTEX workflow,NPS,NPS ASSIST,NPS Housing,NPS Job Manager Mobile,NROSH,Natural,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Nintexworkflow,Northgate,Northgate Codeman,Northgate Public Services,necsws,Notice,Netcall,Netcall Liberty,NEC Software Solutions OA,OGC Buying Solutions,OJEU Limits,ORS,Ohms,OmFax,Omniledger,One,OneAdvanced,OneServe,Open source,OpenContractor,OpenHousing,Opti-time,Options,Optitime,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OutSystems, PIMMS,PIMSS Data,PM,PRINCE2,Paloma,Pamwin,PanConnect,People Value,Peoplevalue,PfH,Pick,PlanForm,Planned maintenance,Plenfific,Plus,Portfolio Management System,PowerObjects,Pro,Pro-Points,Prodo,Progress,Promaster,Propoints,Proval,Providers,Pyramid, QL,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent Increase,RentSense,RentSenseLite,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,RobotAutomation,Rocket, Salesforce,Salesforce.Org,SAP,SASSHA,SDM,SHBVN,SM,SOTI,SP,SQL,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting,SQL Server,Saffron,Safron,Saturn,Scenario,Scotland,Scots,Scottish,Scout,Sequoa,Serengeti,Serros,Server,Service,Services,Servitor,Sharepoint,Sim,SimPro, Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Housing ICT,Social Housing Software Applications,Social Media,Software,Software solutions,Spotlight Service,Spotlightservice,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic,SunAccounts,Sunguard,Surveys,Streetwise, Swordfish,Sx3,Symatrix Human,System alignment,Systems,Systemwise, T-Files,TEAMS,TED,TFiles,TP Tracker,TSG,Tagish Casework,Tagra,Task,TAIM,Technologies (India) PVT Limited,Telecetera,Template,Terminal Services,That,Three Star,Today,Tony Smith,Tony Smith That Housing IT Guy,TonySmith that housing IT,TonySmithHou,TonySmithHousing, ,TonySmithHousingITguy,Total,Total 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