Happy Christmas
The meal seemed an ideal opportunity to publish our photos, as I am sure there are some staff who customers have only spoken to over the telephone or by email. From bottom left around the table, they are Prathibha who started the Caseworks Mapping facility, Kitty, Selvi's five year old daughter, Selvi, who built all the Caseworks Web Pages, Me, Arlene who does the accounts and a spot of Caseworks training, David who does most of the Caseworks training and a great deal else besides, Krish who created the email facility, mobile working and finished the mapping facility and Manish, whose Oracle skills power our various Revenues and Benefits Applications.
Absent, were Kishore (who took the picture) and colleagues in other countries, David Scott - in Scotland, Zareena - in Saudi Arabia and Chris Parker skiing in the Alps.
EMAIL TheBlog@hubsolutions.co.uk with the snap of your ASB Team Christmas party - we would all like to see it!
Finally, Christmas is more than anything about children, whether you are religious or not, and I couldn't resist including this sweet picture of Kitty, the first (but not the last) baby to be born to a member of staff while working for HUBSolutions.
Happy Christmas and New Year!
Men in Red
The Caseworker is Out!


Christmas Cheer
The Caseworks Newsletter is going out soon, with a rather impressive picture of Christmas in Glasgow on the front page. It seemed a good idea to include it here, to cheer up anyone feeling a bit depressed by the Credit Crunch. Whatever the weather, and whatever the financial situation, Glasgow is determined to have a good Christmas, and I have no hesitation in recommending readers to come here for a Christmas break Check out their website to see the rest - http://www.winterfestglasgow.com/
mmm, has this got anything to do with HUBSolutions or Caseworks or are we going a bit off message here? Well slightly. I have been spending most of my time in Glasgow for the last six weeks, so when I say the city, shopping, night life, cultural events and surrounding countryside are great, I am talking from experience. More importantly, I have recruited our first Scottish employee to help me out with the volume of work.
There is quite a lot of job satisfaction up here right now, with Glasgow Community and Security Services expressing delight with the new Mediation Database and other goodies which my colleague, David, and I have delivered. Then South Lanarkshire has gone live with the Mobile solution, and yesterday declared it to be a success worthy of publicity. I am hoping to get a photo of one of those wardens working in wintry conditions, keying some vital piece of information into his smart phone, for transmission to Caseworks Notify and Respond. All credit to my colleague, Krish, for this achievement, having taken the prototype Mobile solution to pieces and rebuilt it as a completely robust and sophisticated piece of software.
A sign?
Well I took a holiday from the Blog, largley because of the workload crisis caused by Leeds, so it is perhaps appropriate that the most interesting feedback I have had from my Blog has come from that same Yorkshire City. Remember this sign post, I bumped into on my first trip to Leeds - features in an earlier Blog?
Seemed like a pretty strange thing to put in the city centre, especially when it is so far from the sea. Well the truth is even stranger. Apparently it is a quote from the bible (Luke).
Leslie, who has been a trusty intermediary at Leeds, between HUBSolutions and the Leeds ALMOs sent me this fascinating piece of research.
"I was having a look on your website to see if I could find anything about the user groups - we're going to set up an internal user group here for Caseworks.
I got sucked into the blog & came across a question about the throw yourself into the sea signpost. Please see below, if you're still curious. Two Christian artists, Pippa Hale and Stuart Tarbuck, have been posting unusual lines from the Bible around Leeds to mark a city-side festival of the visual arts. Their project is called Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin -- words from the story told in Daniel (Daniel 5: 25-30) which appeared on King Belshazzar's palace wall and warned him of his impending death. There are 13 of these Biblical quotes, which include some of Jesus's sayings, posted on signposts, paving stones, park benches, shop widows and billboards. The public are likely to be taken aback by some of the lines chosen, which include: "Go throw yourself into the sea," and "Blessed are the breasts". The latter is taken from Luke 23: 29: â??Blessed are the barren women, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed,â?? (NIV). Outside Toni and Guy's, a fashionable hair salon in one busy shopping street, appear the words:
"The hairs on your head are numbered".
So now you know! Lesley Aird"
Oh, and by the way in just three months Leeds have entered several hundred cases, and yes it is the time of the year to plan the next Northern User Group.
Thanks Leslie for getting me back into Blog mode - feedback makes it all worthwhile!
Thankyou to South Tyneside
Memory for Caseworks

Day 10, 100% success ratings
Definitely a success. There were 5 representatives from the 3 ALMOs present on day 10.
Score for "Was the amount of time spent about right" - 5 out of 5 said YES.
Score for "Do you feel Caseworks can accommodate your needs" - 5 out of 5 said YES.
Any doubts?
One delegate indicated a desire for more understanding of the system before the session started. One regretted not having worked out their own procedures better before the two weeks started. One delegate wanted more individual time for his ALMO, rather than everything being a team activity.
General Comments?
Maddy Edwards, East North East Homes, said "Time spent on customisation was quite intense at times, but was necessary in order to achieve the desired outcome"
Our thoughts?
Very hard work! It felt like doing two jobs at once - a day of workshops, followed by an evening of customisation and enhancements.
Very difficult to deal with, effectively three customers, in the same workshop. Each ALMO could easily have justified their own database. I had a great deal of sympathy with the representative who would have liked one-to-one time. I hope we can provide some of this in subsequent meetings planned in Leeds.
Customisation might have been easier, if everyone had better understood the system and if they had got together and found more common ground on their procedures and forms, before we started.
Is there anything in this for other customers, who have had to wait for upgrades / enhancements?
Definitely. We have implemented many enhancements, most of which will be of general interest. Here are some of the more significant ones.
- An Interview Preparation Screen, which will compliment the planned mobile solution
- A Counter Allegation facility, which will save everyone a lot of time
- A Tension monitoring database, previously requested by two customers
- Action Plan enhancements
- Context sensitive Help facilities
- Numerous enhancements of Notify and Respond, to make it suitable for Estate Inspection
Day 9, Leeds Cafe culture
Night 7 in Leeds
Its nearly 10pm on Night 7 - and this is the view from my hotel window. Yes, the HUBSolutions Office Manager, Arlene, has put David and myself in a hotel right next to the giant Tetley's Brewery. Was this deliberate? We may even have indulged in a glass or two this evening.
The day shift worked hard today, testing the new data entry forms, and the Action Plans. I must confess, I took time out from the workshop to cross the city and pick up a fresh property extract from the NLPG team - hopefully, with all the properties included this time around! Now I have the rest of the night to import it ready for tomorrow's testing.