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

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

The Sound Of Silver

A funny thing happened to me at a meeting the other day. It was at a pretty large Microsoft Gold partner, they had the lumps of plastic and the several of the flags to prove it. I used to have a filing cabinet with all my MS plastic on it, a few flags filling up the bottom draw too. You know, with those serial cables and spare mice.

Conversation moved to upgrades to ‘standard’ Microsoft products and in particular how bespoke changes around the edges may cause issues. While in the past, this was pretty much ‘always’ a problem. These days any customer or supplier should be looking to use available technology to form an extraction layer from the core stuff under the bonnet.

Workflow is my preferred choice if it is available and particularly if it is main stream. Don’t get me wrong, ABAP and the like is a rich environment, but not many people are coming straight out of college with experience of it. So its skills and that of other very bespoke languages (such as the old Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains Dexterity) can be hard to find and then may have come at a premium.

The discussion moved to Sharepoint and Silverlight in particular. A product released like many others from Redmond with much fanfare and touted as the future of the web. One very much now with a future in doubt. Interestingly the Gold Partner had done a lot of development in Silverlight for a big part of their internal systems. Very disappointing as it was very nearly finished and it was only really recently that effectively quietly they were informed the plug had really been pulled.

Having been director at a Microsoft Gold Partner I felt for the company. So much effort potentially wasted, or at best they had developed into a cul-de-sac, that would need a re-visit in the future. Even worse though is the amount of effort many end users will have put in to Silverlight development, and will have to reconsider if that is still the best technology for them going forward.

A small number of IT people in housing will be aware of the new Civica housing management system just in development. Rumour has it that it will be named Cx (Customer Xperience - geddit?), is being based on Silverlight. That is one decision that surely will have to be re-visited, together with if the coding of the system continues in India. What this space, if I was a betting man, I would guess a move to HTML5 would be best and a look for a different off-shore partner. Vietnam looks likely.

Other popular housing solutions do have some Silverlight content, Keystone Asset Management, the 1st Touch forms designer and several portals for residents and contractors, all spring to mind.

Sadly, Microsoft and others are always very good at the big product announcements, the futuristic roadmaps and when those products die or are to be retired prematurely, it’s via a whimper rather than a bang. Being in this industry, change is a constant. You get used to it. Still, it never makes life easy as so many tools you rely on today, might often be easily bought up and killed off, or just retired for the next new and shiny idea, coming down the line.

A risk register of applications and connections can be very useful in quantifying exposure to this type of issue. You never know when a quiet obituary may be posted (from Redmond or other places...).

LCD Soundsystem, now I am sure they went through some software tools.

(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854655009

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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Saturday, 11 August 2012

Pleased To Meet You

Meetings, I am sure you get dragged in to a few. I do.

The worst are those with no or a shallow agenda. Time is soaked up and the thing that suffers is output. Yes, what we actually produce. That bug fix, that improvement to a report, that time saving in the customer service team that might squeeze one more home visit a week, to manage arrears or monitor ASB.

We do get hung up on keeping on top of email, keeping and looking busy. This week I was in a very unstructured meeting that wasted a good four hours of my time. Also cost the customer half a day when nothing really useful was generated.
Some meetings are important, but should always be called for a reason. While a regular 20 minute meeting to check and co-ordinate schedules might be quite valid, a meeting every fortnight to chew the fat in my opinion isn’t.

When will people realise it’s not about how many hours you put in it’s what you produce that really matters.

Threes and thirds feature a lot in my life. For photographic composition, the rule of thirds is a fundamental way to make images more interesting. Nature likes thirds and threes, so does the human brain. Famously, Steve Jobs always structured his presentations around just three big messages. That's all that most human brains can get their selves around. We are wired like that. No wonder we all bought an ipod, iphone and ipad.

I find it useful to just pick three things from my to do list each day that I aim to achieve. Always hardest first. That one provides maximum reward and output.
Email can also wait. It’s tempting to reply to everything as soon as it comes in. Resist that temptation, particularly if it was not sent just to you. In my book if you are only in the CC: or BCC: box, you are only important enough to know about it, not need to reply to it. So let it wait, read it later, (or maybe not at all in some cases).

Now, what to do with meetings? I would prefer to conduct them all on moving bicycles or at the very least standing up. Chairs make you too relaxed and extend the whole affair. Have a strict agenda and keep it to a maximum of 30 minutes. Another tick is to hold them before or after normal working hours. You stretch a little more out of your staff and they will be less inclined to stretch a meeting if it’s eating into their own home time.
There you go, rant over!

Related Post: Is re-badged software the bane of your life in #ukHousing ?

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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.

St Jude, it would be great to meet you.

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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

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Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Good Technology

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

How good and modern need our databases and systems be in our HMS solution? Well, many a great journey can be had in an old Moggy Minor. Watch out to pull out the choke to start it and remember to push it in once the engines warmed up. Just be satisfied with 4 gears too. Using some older systems can feel a bit like that too. There are plenty of old CTX, Saffron and other old green screen stuff still out there and much of it generally does the job.
Older solutions were designed for a different century in many cases (the 20th) and to meet modern demands, need some adaptation around the edges. Often screens and additional data fields can be bolted on. Although many do not properly relate to main screens or in fact store data correctly. Rather than tightly data typed, a more ‘stringly’ approach used to be the way. Even recording the strands of diversity or successions correctly can often be a challenge.

Older solutions can often have moved on at the database level, but still use a sometimes dated ‘common’ user interface. Compared with a modern, all-windows solution, it’s easy for individuals in a demo to quickly mark it down. The reverse can happen. A great GUI skin on an old database or schema can often sell itself over a really elegant design with a tired GUI. Well there is no justice for some suppliers I guess. If you suspect you are looking at a brand new skin, probe it to make sure it covers all the solution. Once you are implementing it you might find that less prominent modules, such as Planned Maintenance or Service Charges may be waiting in the wings for sometime, for the re-write.

I was chatting with some people recently implementing a new housing system. They were complaining about the type & costs of database the HMS sits on, the (lack of a) schema provided and reporting difficulties. These are all areas that I find essential to probe deeply when looking for a new system. These are key things and certainly should not be left to worry about until you have already paid for a quarter of it and putting it in.

Database licence costs are another element that can form an enormous proportion of costs. Legacy databases such as U2, Progress etc always used to clock up some hefty licence costs. SQL Server used to be the vastly cheaper option. Even this now needs to come under scrutiny since Microsoft’s recent announced price hike. Each user, hopefully concurrent, will be clocking up a licence cost. A merger or change to a group structure can be expensive when a system is rolled out into every corner of the organisation.

Sometimes, organisations do chuck the solution out with the dishwater. One new housing group I am aware of after investing over 6 years of effort into a perfectly stable, but workmanlike HMS are moving to a shinier one used by a smaller member of the group, where little effort has been made to get the most from it. So, another 2-4 years of effort will be needed and already some of the shortcomings are being revealed. My point is that sometimes if the system delivers all you need, maybe that’s enough. If you get your reports, interfaces with adequate mobile and internet links etc, great support and helpdesk, maybe that’s good enough.

Make sure you have a great reason to be hankering after ‘good technology’, consider the costs and risks. More important still, make sure you understand what problems it will solve and where your ROI will come from. If you are having trouble nailing that, be sure to seek some independent advice.

Read on to: Brass In Pocket

The Red Guitars had the measure of Good Technology.

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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

Sunday, 1 July 2012

Computer Blue(s)

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

It’s shaping up to be a rainy and expensive month for housing associations and housing groups as Microsoft have decided that these organisations no longer qualify as charity, for licensing purposes, unless at least 10% of income comes from donations. Now I haven’t seen a technical definition of ‘donation’, although I can guess which one might be appropriate.

This moves housing associations and groups into the public sector licensing agreement and for most a price hike of an eye watering 400% to the PSA12 framework. Changes take place in September, although already budgets will have been revised to take this incredible hit into account. A mad rush to buy cheap licences will surely take place for the next few weeks.

Microsoft said in a statement: “Microsoft's new discount frameworks recognise the increasing importance of the UK’s 70,000 social enterprises in driving public services. The new frameworks for social enterprises complement the discounts and free options already available to 174,000 UK charities, as well as public sector organisations and public sector mutual’s.

“Charitable organisations and social enterprises looking to buy new technologies from Microsoft will be entitled to different levels of discount depending on their levels of voluntary contribution or how they generate their revenue, if applicable.".

Microsoft will also be increasing private sector prices by at least 25% too this month, in order to “harmonise prices and licensing terms across Europe”. This is a major part of its world portfolio and as many others have said, it risks alienating some of Microsoft’s best customers.

So what are the alternatives? Many of the base components are out there, but how well would the mainstream HMS (Housing Management System) providers interface to OpenOffice or some of the other open source alternatives? Some food for thought here http://www.junauza.com/2010/06/10-best-free-alternatives-to-microsoft.html

We may not particularly like Microsoft, but housing has got quite hooked on its Office Suites, server software and other applications. Now we are all going to pay for it. Too late now to consider what else you could have bought. From now on, we all need to have every option on the table. Stretching software for longer, missing upgrades for example might help in delaying the pain.

There is still the CTX programme. See http://www.ctxchange.org/ . This would help many of the smaller organisations and even the community library project, which I am involved with in South Warrington, Cheshire. But you have to be a true charity. Even after an admin fee, savings of 92-96% on retail prices are claimed.

With these additional strains on budgets, many will be tempted to approach their bigger HMS and infrastructure suppliers for some annual savings. It’s certainly worth a try, particularly when you size up the cost of a new system compared with your existing annual maintenance. With 10 or more years of RPI adding compound interest every annum, you may be re-buying your system every 3 years. Come to think of it, that Microsoft price hike may not be that large after all......

Oh, and a last thought..... There is one big cloud platform supplier with a massive charity arm, with licences a real fraction of real world ones. Maybe Salesforce.org will prevail one day in the future, for #SocialHousing

The only thing for sure, cash spent on this will be just a little more having to be diverted from neighbourhoods, residents and front line services. Give it a few years and the Microsoft CRM product will be watered down within #SocialHousing so its true benefits cannot be realised, or some backdoor cheaper licence will need to proliferate on the platform, to bring it within reasonable budgets. Lets just see!

Read on to : Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger..

Prince. Now would he have put up with this?...

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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

On Her Majesty's Secret Service Charge

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

A certain minefield if ever there was one for most housing associations and UK housing groups. We have the ‘Iron Lady’ Mrs Thatcher to thank for most of our service charge woes, with her governments instigation of RTB (Right To Buy) legislation in the 1980’s. The aim of creating a home-owning Britain was pretty much achieved with very high levels of home ownership, while on the downside decimating quality housing stock.

Eligible residents in attractive and stable areas, (or often their sons and daughters stumping up the deposits after generous discounts) were fools not to take the leap of faith and purchase their own homes. Many of these properties are now in the hands of their second, third or fourth leaseholder, with many original social housing tenants having moved further upward in the housing ladder.

The majority of these properties would have been in communal blocks or at the very least, houses in terraced blocks. Very few are unconnected with a wider neighbourhood or RSL community. Hence at least external repair commitments should still form part of the lease, grass cutting, grounds maintenance, communal door entry etc also often feature. One of the reoccurring themes is that early RTB sales often had incomplete or badly detailed leasehold agreements, possibly omitting responsibility for certain types of service charges.

Systems long since gone failed to record many of these details, leading to many years of charges not levied and disagreements in the current day from recent leaseholders, challenging why they should pay service charges that their neighbours are avoiding (and have been avoiding for decades). Often it’s a long and fruitless battle in many cases to try to claw these back using old records.

Two main areas seem to cause problems for RSL’s in the service charge area are the way customer service staff deal with leaseholders and the whole calculation area, taking far too long and involving too many staff. Leaseholders are a different animal to general residents and they do like to be treated in a special way. Statements for example need to refer to ‘Charges’ not ‘Rent’. Not a big change, but important if you are a leaseholder. A simple change too for IT to manage for you effortlessly.

As soon as a leaseholder calls, the customer service team need to be aware of the fact and precisely what the repair responsibilities of the organisation are. Examples are; Just external repairs, responsive work in shared areas, repairs under a limit everywhere or only after consent after an already agreed limit. This is not information that should be blue-tacked to a wall or buried in a tray somewhere. Intelligent scripting software should be enforcing these rules, whether per leaseholder, the scheme they live in, owning body or area served. This reduces any expectation issues or any future difficulty with expenditure recovery.

A recent story I heard of was where a responsive repair was mistakenly done internally for a leaseholder, which should never had been offered or completed. A satisfaction survey was issued and customer service asked “is there anything else we can help you with”? The answer was another internal repair which could not be recovered. This all cost in excess of £674 plus VAT. Two of these each month could make scripting software to prevent it quite a bargain, not counting other benefits.

Calculation of service charges can often take a whole section of a finance team. If you work like this, ask yourself the methods they use. Excel spreadsheets by any chance, looked after by key personnel? This can make the task of calculation very expensive. Even more so when leaseholders query their bill and would like to know (as they legally can ask) where that charge for £8.71 every month for grass cutting comes from?

Your housing system may have a perfectly adequate service charge module that might satisfy your needs. Do you use it, does it fit your needs? Many do have modules, some are so prescriptive, they are unlikely to fit your needs until seriously tested. If you have the one that requires you to record how many windows each of your properties have, for example, it’s unlikely you are using it. I won’t embarrass anyone by naming it, however if you are in a province where you still have the window tax, it’s probably working pretty well for you!

Alternatives are out there that could more than likely reduce your service charge calculation and management team to a ¼. Look at some of the independents such as Blockwise from Systemwise. You may be able to increase your efficiency at minimal cost. Using your main HMS (Housing Management System) service charge module or having a good interface to a specialist like Systemwise, can also keep your customer service staff and others, plugged into this information. This helps better and consistent decision making to occur all-round. Good for your budgets to be spent in the right ways and for leaseholders to receive better and reliable service.

The propeller heads may have encountered service charges, maybe not quite as we know it.

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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

Thursday, 31 May 2012

Little Fluffy Clouds

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

Never a week goes by without someone, generally a user or department manager asking me about ‘cloud computing’. How are other housing associations and groups getting on with this and should all their computer systems be in ‘the cloud’. It always makes me frown a bit, I must admit. Having said that if I had £50 for each of those queries, I would have a useful top up to my pension fund!

The hype and advertising collateral has done a great job of confusing users and making many rash promises that in many cases are simplistic at best. “Put all your applications in the cloud and have them work together seamlessly, access them everywhere on any device, yadda, yadda, yadda...”. In many cases suppliers are offering what used to be the dull and boringly named ‘hosting’. IE move your data to their servers to host, offsite, rather than in your IT department or data centre. Depending on the application, this might not even make it more accessible on more types of devices; smartphones, tablets, ipads etc, without more expense.

Please however, don’t get the idea that I am anti-cloud, I am certainly not. Many applications (or ‘apps’ as the you’t would have it) work and belong in the cloud. Webmail, Spotify, Evernote all spring to mind. In the housing world, applications like TPTracker and EBS React are often delivered using a similar model, with no software required to be installed on PC’s, laptops or other devices. Integrated links with Housing Management Systems (HMS) can pose challenges, but are not insurmountable. Some HMS systems or part of them can be accessed via browsers, this is more a delivery method than use of the ‘cloud’ however. A true cloud app does not require local software to be installed. Microsoft’s Office365 breaks this rule where used in large business situations. For interfaces with the traditional HMS applications, fat client installs will almost certainly be needed.

Using cloud storage and services does provide scalability. Peaks in requirement can be easily managed, you just rent a bit more of the service, bandwidth or space. The lack of big upfront costs attract many smaller organisations. Rather than spend £30K on a little server area, a similar amount can be paid on more of a pay as you go model, over fixed term contracts, monthly. Strong SLA’s and guarantee of service are essential. Sometimes a ‘private cloud’ can be the best option, for larger organisations, particularly where vast quantities of data are being managed or generated. Costs based on data volumes or bandwidth can often be expensive. One other factor can be your bandwidth availability to the outside world. If you are on the edge of a town or conurbation, an upgrade to your local node might be a pre-requisite. If you cannot, it may derail your plans.

How fast applications run will certainly be affected by cloud hosting. While I don’t mind waiting 10 seconds to complete my Amazon or Ticketmaster purchase, you probably would not like your staff waiting around too long to update a rent account or a repair request. Use of a private cloud might be more controllable however.

The last elephant in the room is can you rely on your sensitive resident data being stored in the cloud, maybe not in the UK or even Europe. All those NI, HB numbers, DD sort codes and accounts, birth dates etc. Extremely useful if hacked. For me I would be reluctant to put sensitive customer data in the cloud or an application that provides competitive advantage. It’s a tough call and if you feel you want to, needs a reliable partner with some tight contracts!

Read on to: Why you need to name your projects well

Chillout to this.

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

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Sunday, 20 May 2012

Look to Your Orb for the Warning

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

It was a great feeling to see Orbit Group this week scooping Housing Heroes and the Housing Excellence awards. I would like to wish everyone from David Leach down, Angela Adderley and Roy Evans, the very best, it was so deserved.

I have rich experience of Orbit as a customer, departing customer and a returning customer during my tenure at MIS Active Management Systems. No legal restrictions bind me from talking about that, feel free to get in touch to discuss further.

I have worked personally with the IT team there at Orbit for over 14 years, during my previous life at MIS and have great respect for them. After over 3 years of trying hard to implement a rival housing system, they reconsidered options. I was there at every point of that really rewarding project and proudly was there the Friday, the new system was delivered live after just over 100 days.

I am not surprised that despite stiff competition that Orbit won through. I have no doubt that the Orbit IT team had also comprehensively underpinned the new CRM system delivery, a resident self-service portal which formed “a bursary for residents to improve their own lives or the lives of those living within their communities”

The Orbit experience reflects a number of factors that I am sure other organisations can take on board to leverage similar benefits.

Firstly, get your housing systems in order. The right degree of integration works wonders at the right price. Your IT team are valuable and expensive in equal measure.

Keep them content and let them contribute to your business objectives. That is one of the key areas where Orbit and David Leach has connected with the main business of Orbit and helped to deliver savings as well as efficiency.

One of the sexiest things that Orbit introduced was iPads. Now this is not new. DFS famously asked staff to purchase their own iPads, Orbit provided them with Citrix access to their main desktop systems. The savings of mileage claims alone were enough to cover costs within four months. Staff are more inclined to work from home, or not come via the office every day. It’s a fact, Orbit have the numbers.

Now, let’s not deny, Orbit at 39,000+ homes is quite large. Although, any RSL with Citrix already, could already deploy this type of solution at little more than the cost of an iPad or Samsung tablet, to deploy their full housing system . Why are you not considering this?

Monster Magnet knew what was going down...

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