Orchard Information Systems has been working with Greenfields Community Housing to improve the efficiency of the housing provider’s voids. It has done so by modifying the standard voids processes within its housing management system, Orchard Housing.
Amy Deer, business solutions manager, Greenfields Community Housing, said, “We have significantly improved our processes using Orchard’s voids and lettings module and bespoke workflows. The module gave us the ability to add bespoke events into the process, to move the sequence on from ‘keys’ through to ‘ready to let’, and provide visibility of the status of voids to different teams who manage the various processes.
“We have created a workflow using Orchard’s business process management suite so that we could adapt the voids process to meet our requirements. Using this, we have developed ‘worktray’ items that notify teams of particular void events. Throughout the life of the void, alerts are used so that teams are notified of the progress so there are fewer delays and shorter void periods.”
Anna Paxton, neighbourhoods and lettings team leader, Greenfields Community Housing, said, “Orchard has given us much more transparency between teams. We can now see what stage each team has reached in the void process and the system has helped us to all communicate much better.”
