Ancoris has launched Maps for Housing, an online mapping and visualisation package for housing providers, available on an annual cloud-based subscription basis.
Maps for Housing gives housing providers’ workers access to live data from their existing systems such as property types, voids, rent arrears, housing officer patches, administration boundaries and maintenance status, which are then overlaid on a familiar Google Map.
Ancoris said that its online service would help housing providers to reduce costs, improve decision making and enhance tenant satisfaction. Its examples included increasing the number of property and tenant visits by letting, rent, maintenance and estate officers through improved travel planning, ensuring gas safety checks are valid and repairs are done on time by allocating appropriate staff based on location, reducing rent arrears by visualising information to plan and take preventative action, and allocating properties to the right tenants by matching tenants’ needs to local areas.
The solution combines operational data with location elements and is accessible from any device. This data can be filtered and analysed to identify trends and patterns to help improve operational performance. In addition, when staff are in the field, they can optimise travel planning from the map, and easily contact tenants, contractors and other workers.
Jon Cocker, director of business technology, Waterloo Housing, said, “Ancoris’s Maps for Housing has given our directors and housing officers a much clearer picture of our housing stock to help make smarter decisions and improve productivity. In addition, 94 per cent of our users said mapping would be a vital tool in future.”
Ancoris’s RoI model, based on customer data, suggests that a housing provider with approximately 22,000 properties could save over £100,000 per year in operational costs by improving housing officer productivity (£70,000), reducing rent arrears (£7,000), increasing estates officer productivity (£18,000) and optimising repairs (£18,000).
David McLeman, CEO, Ancoris, said, “We want to help housing providers experience the transformative nature of going digital with applications based on the simplicity of Google Maps. With continued pressure on housing, we can support housing providers with relevant information to help them make better decisions for tenants.”
