The 2012 Version of Caseworks is out and Android is on the horizon
23 December 2011 10:31 | Austerity, 2012, Android, Caseworks Mobile | Permalink
Caseworks is destined for an exciting time as we start to roll out our Android Product. I thought it was time to lift the covers and give readers a glimpse of what is coming.
We have been much more ambitious with the Android project than we were (or were able to be) with the previous Windows product. This one is not going to be locked into any single function, not even going to be useful only for ASB Casework. By looking at the broad range of functions which our customers will want, we are looking for a completely customisable product which will work for Environmental Issues, Estate Inspections, Estate Scoring, Tenancy Audit and ASB Interview recording.
Readers may be asking why we are investing in new products, when it is clear that we have entered an Austerity Age, which could well last for the next 5 years and will kill Public Sector spending.
We believe, that despite the cuts - and possibly because of them - government will have to keep on investing in the latest technology in order to deliver the same services with less resources. Mobile Technology has the potential to make much better use of staff time, by getting rid of those hard cover note books, and the time spent keying into a computer system in the office. It has to be the way forward, and Tablets (probably not iPads), are bound to become the mobile computer of 2012.
However, we arent stopping at rebuilding our Mobile Application. We are also going to release the next major version of Caseworks during 2012. This will NOT be an upgrade, but a complete rewrite, based on .net technology, more flexible, more customisable, more modular than the current version and potentially not restricted to the principle of "casework" - maybe we will find a niche for it in the Private Sector.
Comments
New ideas
It really is the case, that every new customer - and even those who have decided to re-customise their system, like Lewisham - adds one or two bright new ideas to the Caseworks system. Lewisham is one of the oldest users of the system, but following a complete turnover of staff decided to recustomise the system this year, to better match their organisation and policies.
One of the managers came up with a very neat idea, which was to include a Mail To option, on all pages, so that if a user wanted to draw a Case, or a Page on a Case to the attention of another officer they could easily do so. The button brings up the user's email client, embeds a hyperlink and a summary of the page in the email and allows it to be sent.
One of the managers came up with a very neat idea, which was to include a Mail To option, on all pages, so that if a user wanted to draw a Case, or a Page on a Case to the attention of another officer they could easily do so. The button brings up the user's email client, embeds a hyperlink and a summary of the page in the email and allows it to be sent. The recipient, has only to click on the hyperlink, and wlll be taken to the login screen, and after sign-on will be taken directly to the page in question.
Not complicated, very neat and very useful - it gets my prize for the best idea of 2011.
Congratulations to Contour Homes
05 November 2011 12:36 | Victim Support, Risk Assessment, SLCNG Conference 2011, contour housing group | Permalink
Its always nice when one of our customers wins a prize for their work.
We were thrilled to see Eddie Vickers and his team at Contour pick up the Best Practice Award at the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group Conference for their "Victim Champions" project.
Contour were the first customer to introduce us to the Risk Assessment scheme when they went Live a year ago. Since then, many have followed suite, but I beleive Contour is almost unique in going through the entire assessment over the phone at the point of first contact, requiring us to build it into our data entry form.
Microsoft hits back
20 October 2011 06:52 | Android, Windows 7 Mobile, Open Office, Microsoft | Permalink
I was fascinated to read the bad tempered (The Times said "bullish") performance of Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CE) in the Web 2.0 summit this morning in which he chose to criticise the Android operating system compared to his new Windows 7 Mobile. I expect some people reading this have never even seen a Windows 7 mobile phone, which says it all. I have yet to see a single advert for a commercial product supported by a Windows 7 app, always they say "download apps for the iPhone and Android", sometimes Blackberry gets a mention.I wonder if Steve realises how much developer good-will he threw away, when he decided to scrap Windows Mobile 6.5 and rewrite the operating system without any backward compatibility or any compatibility with the main Microsoft development language - .net. Like many - probably most - developers, HUBSolutions has abandoned the company which first abandoned us and we have gone over to writing Android apps for our customers.
Our conclusions - the Android operating system is brilliant, much better than Windows 6.5, and now we are really not interested in anything Steve might do with Windows 7. Also, if Steveis reading this, I am not interested in a phone which can only synchronise with my Outlook, via hotmail, and none of our customers would be either. More than that, there is an issue of principle, and standing up against the naked commercialism of Apple and Microsoft, who have tried to control the app market with their exclusive online stores, whereas Android is an Open System, and will always have a much more vibrant development community as a result.
Steve also praises Bing as being every bit as good as Google, and perhaps it is. Has he tried looking up almost any of the multitude of issues which users have with Office 2010, and found that Google is actually far better than the built-in Microsoft Help? I don't even bother to click the F1 button anymore, just copy and paste the error message into Google, or type in "where is xxx in Word 2010".
While I am on a roll, Steve will find numerous references on Google to the instability of Access 2010 compared to earlier versions, leading to the latest crass Microsoft error message "Microsoft Access has stopped working" which is followed by an automatic backup of an obviously corrupt file. A sort of electronic version of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted (and died).
Looking at the Microsoft Web Site (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2625046) I see this is a "known fault for which a fix is promised in October 2011 - well that leaves 9 more days. Looking at the Wikipaedia website, I see that Office 2010 was released on 15 June 2010, and as of July 2011, more than 100m copies had been sold. Elsewhere on the web, it is quoted that Microsoft earned a staggering 10.8bn dollars from sales of Office. OK Steve, so why has it taken over 12 months to come up with a fix to such a critical problem? As a software developer, I cannot imagine making my customers wait that long for a crucial fix. Of course, my customers have a choice, and because of that margins are low, and turnaround on issues is very fast. There used to be a choice for Windows PC Databases, called Foxpro, but Microsoft bought the company and closed it down, many years ago.
Finally, just a comment on the sales tactics of this US giant. Almost every PC which is sold these days, comes with a "free", but time-limited version of MS Office. With posters all over the place suggesting that Office costs only £90, no doubt some customers leave the shop thinking they have got a bargain. When their Office dies on their PC (after they have had fun creating all sorts of Powerpoints, Excel graphs and newletters), they will find that unless they are a bonafide student, the actual price is between £240 and £430, depending on the version they buy. Given that you can by a PC in TESCO for this price, I wonder how many customers realise they will be paying the same again to Microsoft within 90 days. In addition, if they buy the "unlock code" to revitalise their dead software, they only get ONE license, so cannot re-install the software on their next PC. It will only last as long as the PC, which for many laptops is about 2 years. I doubt if many customers realise that for just an extra £20, they could have bought a boxed disk which gave them THREE licenses.
All this coercion to buy a Microsoft product, when there is a completely free alternative, called Open Office, which would meet all the needs of the vast majority of customers and produces files which are completely compatible with Office. Of course, retailers are not going to tell customers about Open Office, because they make money out of selling MS Office. It is an irony, that in our so called "free" market economy, nothing can be free, because then there is then no money to pay for marketing and retailing!
Gang Culture
15 August 2011 13:40 | Riots, Gang Culture, Woolwich, Gang Module | Permalink
Pressure of work has stopped me writing a blog entry for a few months, but I am sure I am not alone in finding myself motivated to express some comment on the extraordinary events of recent days, which seems directly related to Anti Social Behaviour.
Our team has been working hard in Woolwich, setting up the ASB Module for London Borough of Greenwich. It is impossible not to feel horror and outrage at seeing the Weatherspoons pub which we have several times visited reduced to a burnt out hulk after the inferno shown in this picture.
However, much self ritious disgust has been expressed by one and all into the effects of the riots, and now the debate has moved on to why, and what next.
Before all this happened, a prospective employee suggested to me that a "Gang Module" might be a good addition to the database, as there is a need to monitor the members of Gangs, whether or not they have been linked to ASB and work with them to get them out of this evil culture. Her remarks seem all too prophetic and Mr Cameron's speech that he is going to "Wage War on Gangs" made me think that there might be mileage in such a product.
Unfortunately I then read the rest of his speech today, and learned that Mr Cameron was going to "fix 120,000 problem families" (not families with problems), by 1. Giving all 16 year olds some sort of Community Service sentence, whether or not they engage in criminal activity 2. Further restrictions on Benefits for the jobless 3. Ending the "chilling effect" of human rights and Health and Safety legislation 4. Reforms of school discipline.
Mr Cameron might have taken the time to read the other reports in the same papers which showed that the Met had arrested 1,580 people of which only 330 were juveniles. It may be that much of the problem is dishonest adults who are leading our children astray. It may be, we should take more time to understand the problem.
Microsoft
08 May 2011 03:30 | Office 2010, Windows 7, Windows 7 Mobile, Open Office | Permalink
I am not sure whether it is me getting older, or Microsoft being past its peak, but it really feels that every new piece of software which Microsoft brings out is "almost as good as the thing it replaced". I thought I would share a few frustrations with readers, in the hope that it will be of use.
I have recently bought a Windows 7 laptop, running IE8 and installed Office 2010 finally replacing my Windows XP machine running IE6 and Office 2003. Well obviously the graphics are better, and maybe it loads faster (though that could be just the effect of a new machine).
But I quickly discovered that so many pieces of software didn't actually work, and far from being "simpler" as the adverts claim, almost everything is more complex due to an added security layer.
Two really vital tips which should come with the instruction manual
1. If you want all of your Office programmes to run as they did before, you must run them as "Administrator". This is not always obvious - click on Properties for the Office Application and select "Compatibility" as in this picture and tick the box for "run this programme as an administrator".
Macros / vb code may not run normally otherwise.
2. If you want to run software not intended for Windows 7 - particularly establishing VPN links - you must run the "Virtual XP software" which, amazingly, brings back your Windows XP and IE6 as a window on your machine. The download link is
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
If you are using Office 2007 or 2010 for the first time, you won't know where any of your tools are - just put your problem into Google - loads of other people have had the same problem, and it is much quicker than the Microsoft help.
ALSO, remember that some of the people you send emails to may still have Office 2003 and they wont be able to read your Office 2007 or 2010 documents. Always use Save As and save as 2000-2003 version if you are emailing out.
Office 2010 is more impressive, but from my point of view, all of the gains are wiped out by the fact that auto-complete of email addresses isn't working on Outlook. Also, there is still no indexed search facility on Outlook, making text searches of emails painfully slow and the Contacts section is still a load of rubbish, giving no way of easily copying and pasting full contact details out of Outlook.
I have recently bought a Windows 7 laptop, running IE8 and installed Office 2010 finally replacing my Windows XP machine running IE6 and Office 2003. Well obviously the graphics are better, and maybe it loads faster (though that could be just the effect of a new machine).
But I quickly discovered that so many pieces of software didn't actually work, and far from being "simpler" as the adverts claim, almost everything is more complex due to an added security layer.
Two really vital tips which should come with the instruction manual
1. If you want all of your Office programmes to run as they did before, you must run them as "Administrator". This is not always obvious - click on Properties for the Office Application and select "Compatibility" as in this picture and tick the box for "run this programme as an administrator".
Macros / vb code may not run normally otherwise.2. If you want to run software not intended for Windows 7 - particularly establishing VPN links - you must run the "Virtual XP software" which, amazingly, brings back your Windows XP and IE6 as a window on your machine. The download link is
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
If you are using Office 2007 or 2010 for the first time, you won't know where any of your tools are - just put your problem into Google - loads of other people have had the same problem, and it is much quicker than the Microsoft help.
ALSO, remember that some of the people you send emails to may still have Office 2003 and they wont be able to read your Office 2007 or 2010 documents. Always use Save As and save as 2000-2003 version if you are emailing out.
Office 2010 is more impressive, but from my point of view, all of the gains are wiped out by the fact that auto-complete of email addresses isn't working on Outlook. Also, there is still no indexed search facility on Outlook, making text searches of emails painfully slow and the Contacts section is still a load of rubbish, giving no way of easily copying and pasting full contact details out of Outlook.
AND FINALLY, and actually what has prompted this Blog, is that I received a phone call today from an acquaintance who has recently purchased a Windows 7 Mobile, and discovered, that as a matter of policy, there is no Active Sync and no way to synchronise with Outlook and other documents on your PC. You are intended to use "Zume" for media, and hot mail for emails / contacts etc. We now have a situation where you would be better off buying an iPhone or Android phone if you want to synchronise with a Windows application - but Windows 7 does sync with XBox!
Overall, there is a common thread to all of this, and that is that since Bill Gates' departure, Microsoft has been taken over by the Media department and the Finance Department and is no longer the technology driven company it once was.
In these difficult financial times, all of us, especially Local Authorities should be looking to migrate to Open Source software - Open Office and Android -rather than paying more money to US corporations.Royal Wedding and Royal Borough
30 April 2011 13:24 | Royal, Key Performance Indicator, Greenwich, RIPA | Permalink
A title which seems to have no connection with Caseworks, but wait!
This is the email I sent to half a dozen customers who make extensive use of our KPI facility:-
"I have added the Royal Wedding to the Caseworks Calendar and advanced all KPIs so they allow for it.
This will let you relax and enjoy the event, without the fear that your KPIs are expiring!"
Well, I hope they did enjoyed the wedding! This is my favourite picture from the event...
This is the email I sent to half a dozen customers who make extensive use of our KPI facility:-
"I have added the Royal Wedding to the Caseworks Calendar and advanced all KPIs so they allow for it.
This will let you relax and enjoy the event, without the fear that your KPIs are expiring!"
Well, I hope they did enjoyed the wedding! This is my favourite picture from the event...
And the Royal Borough?
This is a quote from Greenwich.co.uk
"The London Borough of Greenwich will join an elite group of “Royal Boroughs” as part of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it has been announced.
The Queen’s gracious decision to bestow this rare honour on Greenwich was announced today by Lord Mandelson in the House of Lords. It will come into effect from 2012 – the year that marks Elizabeth II’s 60th year as Queen."
This website has the good news, that if you are enjoying these extra holidays, another one is coming our way "Lord Mandelson also announced today that there will be an extra public holiday in 2012 to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee."
And the connection with Caseworks, is that the Greenwich project is my current big project, which has probably been the biggest implementation of any we have done. Greewnich has worked out in fine detail the fields needed to match their procedures, and as a result, the system now fully provides for RIPA, Surveillance, for preliminary stages of ABC and ASBO and - probably useful to many - we now have the ability to create correspondence from all Action pages - including the ability to send correspondence to each subject and involved agencies. Here is a sample of the Action Buttons on a Case History screen.
It has been a massive task, not yet complete, and if it were our only project it would be demanding enough. Infact it is far from the only project as we are also half way through an implementation at Westminster and an add-on for East Durham Homes and still finishing off a complete recustomisation at Leeds. And the sheer pressure of so many overlapping projects has been the main reason for the lack of a Blog entry for four months - just not enough hours in the day.
So maybe a little Royal nonsense has been a welcome break!
A record breaking year
30 December 2010 03:36 | Tenancy Support, Estate Management, Domestic Violence, Mobile, Supported Housing | Permalink
This is the last Blog for 2010. This is the time to look back at the year and see how Caseworks has developed in just 12 months.
Here is a summary of our achievements.
Four new customers signed up
A new DV module
A new Gateway Module
A new Supported Housing Module
A new Tenancy Support Module
A new Estate Management Mobile application
A new ASB mobile web site
In addition, numerous new fields and new pages in the existing modules have been added and many customers have commissioned new reports, full or partial upgrades and new correspondence.
Several milestones have been passed. We passed the 1.5 million case pages earlier in the year and are now very close to 100,000 cases entered by our 3,000 registered users. Behind the scenes we are also breaking records. The number of database tables is nudging 500, the number of customisation records has passed 50,000 and the number of Lookups has now passed 1,000.
Perhaps the most visual demonstration of the size and scope of the system is the amazing number of Transaction buttons - now numbering 570 between all of the modules.
Christmas is a time for playing with new toys, so I used my new iPad to create this Blog, and to put together a combo of some of the Transaction Buttons in the system. Have a good New Year!
Here is a summary of our achievements.
Four new customers signed up
A new DV module
A new Gateway Module
A new Supported Housing Module
A new Tenancy Support Module
A new Estate Management Mobile application
A new ASB mobile web site
In addition, numerous new fields and new pages in the existing modules have been added and many customers have commissioned new reports, full or partial upgrades and new correspondence.
Several milestones have been passed. We passed the 1.5 million case pages earlier in the year and are now very close to 100,000 cases entered by our 3,000 registered users. Behind the scenes we are also breaking records. The number of database tables is nudging 500, the number of customisation records has passed 50,000 and the number of Lookups has now passed 1,000.
Perhaps the most visual demonstration of the size and scope of the system is the amazing number of Transaction buttons - now numbering 570 between all of the modules.
Christmas is a time for playing with new toys, so I used my new iPad to create this Blog, and to put together a combo of some of the Transaction Buttons in the system. Have a good New Year!
A Winter Show
15 December 2010 07:17 | Tenancy Support, Domestic Violence, Northern Housing Consortium, Supported Housing, Caseworks Mobile | Permalink
The Northern Housing Consortium, describes itself as "The Voice of Housing in the North" and at their conference in York in December, it certainly lived up to that label. Below is the sight which greeted exhibitors and delegates in York on 1st December.
Inside was warm and hospitable, food was excellent. Surprisingly, plenty of delegates turned up for the conferences and to see the stands. On the right is the new HUBSolutions stand, boasting "more functions than your iphone" .
Some people reading that boast may think it is a little over-the-top, but as we near the end of 2010 the rate of development of the Caseworks product has never been greater. In this year alone, we have created the Domestic Violence Module (live in Portsmouth), the Gateway Module (testing almost complete in Portsmouth), the Supported Housing Module (testing almost completed at Riverside Housing Group), the Tenancy Support Module (testing almost complete at East Durham Homes and Leeds City Council), the ASB Mobile (testing about to begin at Solihull) and a new flagship product, the Estate Management Mobile (commissioned by East Durham Homes, Hyndburn Homes and Riverside Housing Group).
The SLCNG Conference 2010
07 November 2010 01:13 | SLCNG Conference 2010, Anti Social Behaviour Legislation, ASBO, MARAC | Permalink
I have just returned from, what we thought was a very good SLCNG Conference this year.
Good, because it was well attended by enthusiastic delegates keen to participate, many of whom use Caseworks. Two of our customers where up for awards. Congratulations to Amanda Fulcher from East Durham Homes and Vickie King-Lowe from Gloucester City Homes for making the effort, sadly neither won the award for which they were nominated.
Good, also because the Conference was very informative. We heard a speech from the new Crime Prevention Minister, which went some way to answer the questions which most of us must have had about the future of Anti Social Behaviour Legislation in this country. I think that there was some re assurance that, while there might be a bonfire of the old tools, there will be new powers to deal with ASB and during this period of consultation and review we were not expected to give up on the current legislation. I was slightly surprised by how long this process of review was going to take. We were told that we are currently in informal consultation, formal consultation would start in the new year, and primary legislation would not be put before the House until the middle of next year, and this might take a further 12 months to become law. A long time to wait, and, of course, what wasn't mentioned was that during this time Local Authorities, the Police, the Home Office and Voluntary bodies are all being scaled back substantially. All families with children are going to be put under greater financial stress, parents who are looking after them are going to be compelled to get full time work and youth facilities are going to be under financial pressure, doubtless many will close.
The obvious concern to me is, that the knowledge that the main piece of legislation - the ASBO - will probably be scrapped, will undermine those working in ASB and their attempts to retain the resources they currently have. I also feel constantly uneasy about the assertions from ministers that ASB is a crime, when some is, but some is not. I fear for the re-definition of ASB and the elimination of large elements of it from the realm of requiring intervention.
Moving on, I also attended a Workshop on Domestic Violence - the MARAC process - hosted by delegates from the Peabody Trust which was excellent, and informed me about further enhancements to make to the DV Module.
Finally, I must say that the venue was excellent, and the interest in HUBSolutions was impressive, the more so because everyone was a bit depressed about the economic situation. And on that note, the distribution of Inside Housing with a headline about the death of Social Housing did seem to create an atmosphere of "we are all in this together ... fighting the forces of darkness".
For those who came to our stand and socialised or made enquiries, many thanks. For those who didnt see our newly revamped stand, this is our picture of it.