Riverside Group, one of the UK’s largest housing groups with 50,000 properties under management, is in the middle of a project with South View Systems to index its tenant and property records and integrate its document and housing management systems across 17 offices.
Richard Lyon, IT project manager, Riverside Group, said, “The challenge was that our OpenText document management system had become outdated and was no longer even a supported product. Also the integration between this and our Academy housing management system had been lost following an upgrade.”
This was a problem for Riverside as it had been using scanned records for some time and was now increasingly focusing on providing more accurate information to residents at the first point of contact via its dedicated call centre.
Difficulties with a cumbersome pick-list process were exacerbated by this loss of integration, leading to a fall in both data quality and staff confidence. It became clear that what was really needed was greater flexibility and the ability to search on property and tenant information without being limited to one or the other.
Lyon visited another housing organisation which also used the same document management system. He explained, “Their implementation of SVSIndex gave them flexibility and the ability to search on both tenant and property information – exactly what we wanted in terms of indexing – as well as ‘wild card’ searching. We could see its operational benefits immediately and also knew that it would help get our staff back on side.”
SVSIndex is a customisable integration tool that enables scanned documents to be rapidly indexed and stored in the document management system using information held in the housing management system. This allows any staff to quickly search for and view documents using any information relating to a property, tenancy or tenant.
After discussions to confirm the technical requirements, an implementation plan for a total of 17 offices was agreed. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this summer.
Lyon explained, “We knew that with the appropriate upgrades we would have a good system in terms of the integration between the OpenText document management system and the housing management system. But by enhancing the process, SVS’s contribution made it an excellent system. We also know that there is demand in social housing for simplifying processes and saving time, and SVSIndex delivers both.”
Riverside is now considering extending its use of SVSIndex to its call centre as well as its HR and payroll departments.
