Scottish Borders Housing Association has completed the final element of its mobile workforce programme with the use of NDL’s AWI integration technology to allow remote workers to close jobs while in the field.
Scottish Borders’ original mobile working platform comprised Xmbrace Opti-Time for dynamic scheduling and Cognito for PDA-based mobile working. However, Scottish Borders’ staff were unable to close jobs remotely in the Northgate housing management system and had to do so manually back in the office, leading to delays and affecting performance indicators.
Scottish Borders decided to use NDL’s AWI integration technology to integrate the different systems, providing a seamless flow of information between them, taking the place of multiple proprietary APIs.
Paul Bonser, IT manager, Scottish Borders Housing Association, said “It was becoming critical that we removed the time lag between finishing and closing a job because this was significantly affecting our performance monitoring. NDL developed a solution for us which delivered exactly what we wanted. It’s now been working successfully for over a year, it’s very stable and there has been almost no need for intervention.”
Scottish Borders’ operatives in the field can now view, update and close jobs in the central housing system, eliminating not only the need for staff to re-key the information, but also the time lag between finishing and closing a job. Records in the Northgate application are now automatically updated within minutes of a job being completed.
Bonser said, “We recognised the scope NDL’s AWI integration technology had in other areas of our business and this was a key reason for selecting it in the first place. We’re now confident that it’s going to support us in our future plans to automate housing inspections, enabling us to streamline the entire process.”
