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Latest news and innovations for councils and the public sector from the SocietyWorks team.

Integrating FixMyStreet Pro with Microsoft Entra ID for Transport for London

A new integration has been completed between FixMyStreet Pro and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) for Transport for London (TfL).

Using an OpenID Connect-compliant endpoint, the integration enables TfL staff user accounts on FixMyStreet Pro to be securely linked to TfL’s Entra ID. 

Screenshot of TfL's Single Sign On gateway on their FixMyStreet Pro service

This makes it easier and faster for authorised staff to log in to the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, from which they can access different features depending on their account type permissions. 

It also means that roles are automatically synced between the two systems, with a user’s assigned role and account access on Entra ID automatically reflected in FixMyStreet Pro. This increases security and decreases the administrative burden for authorities who provide access to large teams. 

FixMyStreet Pro’s administration features include:

  1. Viewing all reports
  2. Editing or updating reports
  3. Making reports on behalf of members of the public who call or email the contact centre
  4. Assigning reports to inspectors
  5. Creating and editing response templates
  6. Viewing and exporting report data for analysis

Helping care for London’s streets

TfL’s FixMyStreet Pro service, known as Streetcare, allows members of the public to report problems such as potholes, faulty street lights and damaged bus shelters on London’s roads straight to the highway authority. 

Through FixMyStreet Pro’s connection to the national FixMyStreet service, it is capable of triaging reports of problems that are not the responsibility of TfL to the correct borough council or, in some areas, the responsible housing association. 

Screenshot of TfL's Streetcare service, which is powered by FixMyStreet Pro

Users who don’t realise the problem they want to report via Streetcare cannot be addressed by TfL will be diverted to the national FixMyStreet site. Meanwhile, reports of abandoned hire bikes and scooters are sent directly to the correct operator

FixMyStreet Pro works this out on behalf of report-makers according to the location and category of the problem, mitigating against the creation of failure demand. This is particularly helpful in places like London where a vast number of authorities are responsible for overlapping issues. 

Vice versa, it is possible for reports of problems that are the responsibility of TfL made via a council or other authority’s own instance of FixMyStreet Pro to be automatically diverted. See below an example of how this works on the London Borough of Bexley’s FixMyStreet Pro service, which allows users to make reports using Bexley’s site, but sends them to TfL:

Image shows a desktop and mobile example of Bexley Council's FixMyStreet Pro, with 'red routes' highlighted, which send reports to TfL

Wherever you are in the UK, FixMyStreet Pro can help you to provide a more efficient, intuitive and streamlined reporting service. Find out more


London boroughs of Kingston and Sutton take requests for bulky waste collections with WasteWorks

Following the recent implementation of WasteWorks in the London boroughs of Kingston and Sutton, both councils’ versions of the service can now be used by residents to book bulky waste collections online.

WasteWorks was chosen by Kingston and Sutton in 2022 as part of a programme of ongoing improvements to residential waste services for both boroughs. The service is already used by residents to easily and conveniently access information about their bin days, report problems with collections, request new containers and subscribe to green waste collections.

The addition of the bulky waste collection functionality incorporates another aspect of the councils’ waste service into WasteWorks’ user-friendly interface, which was designed in collaboration with Bromley Council to simplify access to residential waste online and reduce avoidable customer contact.

Image shows a desktop and mobile version of the bulky waste collection service of WasteWorks for Kingston and Sutton

For Kingston and Sutton, WasteWorks is integrated with the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, which is used by Veolia, the waste contractor for both councils. This integration enables a seamless two-way flow of data between residents and Veolia, sharing up-to-date information about waste collections, such as when a bin will next be collected, or why a collection was missed, and enabling residents to reserve available collection slots for bulky waste.

To allow residents to pay for their collections within the same workflow, WasteWorks is also integrated with the Capita Pay 360 payment system for Kingston, and the Barclaycard system for Sutton. 

Residents can also use WasteWorks to report a missed bulky collection and submit cancellation requests.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “The delivery of WasteWorks for Kingston and Sutton has been a significant collaborative effort between SocietyWorks, Kingston and Sutton, Selected Interventions and Veolia. All parties share a dedication to improving waste services for residents, and we are thrilled to be able to support them with this with scalable, citizen-centred technology.” 

Find out more about WasteWorks here


Integrating FixMyStreet Pro with Abavus My Council Services for Buckinghamshire Council

Buckinghamshire Council has been using FixMyStreet Pro to manage inbound street, highway and environment fault reports since 2018. 

Last year we shared the news that two new integrations had been completed into Buckinghamshire’s FixMyStreet Pro service: one into Causeway’s Alloy asset management system and the other into DWF’s EvoClaim system. 

Following this, a third integration has been implemented between FixMyStreet Pro and the Abavus My Council Services (MCS) CRM system, which was introduced by Buckinghamshire for handling customer queries, such as street cleaning and other environment reports.

Designed for optimal display on desktop, tablet and mobile browsers, users can quickly ‘Add FixMyStreet to Home Screen’ on their mobile device to use the service as an app.

Integrating the MCS system with FixMyStreet Pro means residents will now be able to enjoy the same user-friendly experience when reporting street cleaning and environment problems as they do for other local issues, while staff can manage the relationship from MCS in the background.

“This project has made such a difference to our staff. It’s truly innovative and significantly enhances the ease with which people can work. The impact has been really positive.”

– Callum Lynam, Buckinghamshire Council’s Customer Improvement Manager

As with all integrations into FixMyStreet Pro, the MCS integration provides a two-way exchange of data, with changes made in one system automatically updated and reflected directly in the other.

For residents, there is no difference in the user experience when reporting an issue that will be sent to MCS or to Alloy; all of the complicated triaging is handled by FixMyStreet Pro behind the scenes. 

For more information about FixMyStreet Pro, get in touch.


New category search functionality added to FixMyStreet

Users of FixMyStreet can now select an appropriate category for their report using a newly added search bar.

After locating the problem they want to report, either by typing in a location or locating themselves automatically using GPS and dropping a pin on the map, users can type in the search bar to find an available category.

The search functionality will begin to suggest available categories to the user, who can either select one, continue searching or choose from a list of all available categories, the latter of which was previously the only option.

It’s important to note that categories are set by each individual council or authority to reflect the issues they can deal with. 

Improving accuracy and user experience

The category selected by a report-maker is responsible for the routing of the report and dictates any automated messaging sent to them, making it a very important thing to get right.

We carried out some independent user testing with members of the public to see if using a search bar to find a category made things easier and more accurate. 

Image shows how the FixMyStreet search function works on both desktop and mobile devices

 

We found that searching for a category on FixMyStreet does in fact make it not only faster for users to find the category they’re looking for by narrowing down their options, but also assists them in finding the best one to help the responsible authority respond appropriately.

For example, should a member of the public type in the word ‘sign’, FixMyStreet will display a list of available subcategories relating to problems with and adjacent to signs, helping them choose the exact problem they have found.

Next steps: local language and controlled vocabularies

A challenge we’re currently exploring solutions to is how we teach the search functionality to accommodate the fact that there can be multiple words for the same thing. For example, what the council calls a drain, might not be the same as what a member of the public calls it. 

There are also linguistic differences in terms of what something is called in one area of the UK versus another. 

To mitigate the risk of confusion and improve accessibility we are prototyping the use of controlled vocabularies to organise search terms, including attaching variants and related terms to so-called  ‘preferred’ or ‘standard’ terms. 

Whatever we do, we need to make sure the search functionality doesn’t produce an unwieldy list of potential matches. 

It’s a work in progress, and we’ll hopefully have more to share soon!

For councils or other authorities using FixMyStreet Pro, the search functionality will be rolled out to your individual instance of the service soon. Please speak to your account manager if you have any questions.

For everyone else, here’s where you can find more information about:

  • FixMyStreet – the national reporting service for local problems run by civic technology charity mySociety since 2007;
  • FixMyStreet Pro – the fully integrated version of FixMyStreet, run by SocietyWorks (the wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety) and developed in collaboration with councils.

Groups and multiple categories added to FixMyStreet Pro dashboard filters

Councils and other authorities using FixMyStreet Pro can filter and export all of their report data via the administration dashboard. 

Reports can be filtered and exported by date, category, ward, state (eg. open or closed) and role (eg. as well as reports made by citizens, some might be made by customer service operatives while others might be by on-the-ground engineers and officers).

A new update to the dashboard means staff users can now do more with the category filter, having the option to select groups of reports via parent categories or even select multiple categories at once for export.

This update should make it easier and faster to refine data selections. For example, if you were interested in seeing all reports about problems related to street lighting, instead of clicking each and every street lighting category you can simply select the parent category  ‘All street lighting’.

Here’s an example of how it looks on Oxfordshire County Council’s FixMyStreet Pro:

Screenshot of Oxfordshire County Council's FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard showing the category filter drop down menu

Alternatively, you might want to view all reports of faults with drains and bollards, so you can select both at the same time. See below an example of how this works on Camden Council’s FixMyStreet Pro:

Screenshot of Camden Council's FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard showing the category filter drop down menu

Data exports can be accessed via the dashboard web page or by programmatic access via the API, the latter of which can be used to import the data straight into a business intelligence platform.

Want more information about FixMyStreet Pro? Find it here.


What do we mean when we describe our solutions as ‘citizen-centred’?

At SocietyWorks we describe our digital solutions as ‘citizen-centred’ – unusual wording in a world full of ‘user-centred’, ‘human-centred’ and other similarly phrased products that all essentially boil down to meaning “made with people in mind”. 

So why do we choose to call our solutions ‘citizen-centred’, and what does that mean in practice? We asked Bekki Leaver, our Head of Product, to explain.

What makes us and our products citizen-centred?

When talking about our citizen-centred digital solutions, it’s impossible to do so without acknowledging our history and connection to our parent charity mySociety, whose goal is to help people everywhere be active citizens by engaging in civic society. 

To us, a citizen is anyone who is, or wants to be engaged in that civic space. This mission to engage can be seen throughout mySociety’s tools and services: FixMyStreet makes it easier to report local street-based problems to the correct authority, while WhatDoTheyKnow helps citizens make Freedom of Information requests and consolidates responses. 

They, among the many, many others built by mySociety over the last 20 years, were designed to make the interaction between authority and citizen easier for the citizen. This drive to make things less of a burden on the individual is what underpins our citizen-centric design and we use all the tools in our arsenal to do it. 

As the wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety, SocietyWorks extends the impact of the charity, applying that citizen-centred approach to the development of products specifically for local government and the public sector.

We apply everything we’ve learnt through running our charitable civic tech services to help us advocate for citizens in the design of authorities’ own services, to help them provide the best possible experience for their users.

Citizen-centred service design in practice

Of course, we follow standard user-centred design practices, like uncovering needs and running usability studies, when we make improvements or design new things. This is part of our alignment with the GOV.UK Service Standard and is, in our opinion, the right way to do things. 

We also build and test our solutions with accessibility in mind. Again, these are standard practices in the design and development world these days.

Where we differ is our approach to deploying these solutions. We design our products with the flexibility authorities need in order to integrate into any combination of existing systems and processes. 

Unlike cookie cutter, off the shelf products, we recognise that different clients need different things, but balance this customisable approach with a commitment to ensuring the needs of the authority never clash with those of the citizen, creating what we hope is a positive outcome for both!

In essence, we’ll ask slightly more of you (the authority) as a client, but you want us to, because you’ll have better services and happy residents as a result.

What does the future hold?

As a society, our reliance on digital solutions will only continue to increase. New products and services are being created to reduce administrative burdens on authorities, which are driving more citizens to take a self-service approach. 

With this increase in responsibility on citizens, we, as creators, need to continue putting them at the centre of that creation and persist in collaborating with authorities to find what works best for everyone.

Find out more about SocietyWorks, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to have updates come to you.

Image: Centre For Ageing Better


Managing expectations during periods of seasonal demand with FixMyStreet Pro

With bad winter weather comes an annual spike in reports to councils and other responsible authorities about problems such as fallen trees, flooding and ever-forming potholes across the UK’s road network. 

And with climate change creating increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather events, it has never been more important to communicate transparently with the public about what is and is not possible to fix. Not only does this help to reduce expensive unnecessary contact and failure demand, it also supports the prevention of citizen disengagement through disappointment with how reports are dealt with.

Since its launch in 2012, we have introduced in collaboration with our clients numerous features to our street, highway and environmental fault reporting solution FixMyStreet Pro to help them through periods of seasonal demand. Take a look at some of them below.

Set some site-wide messaging 

Staff users have the ability to log into the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard and set messaging to display across their installation of the service. These messages can also be scheduled to only appear at certain times, such as out of hours.

You might want to make report-makers aware that you are receiving a high volume of reports which may delay response times, or perhaps you want to direct them to seasonal advice or policies to help them understand how you prioritise reports. 

Alternatively, you can use the site-wide messaging feature to provide emergency contact details for certain problems.

Take a look at an example from Northumberland County Council’s FixMyStreet Pro:

Screenshot of Northumberland County Council's FixMyStreet Pro homepage showing messaging detailing emergency contact details and winter maintenance policies

And another from Buckinghamshire Council’s version of the service:

Screenshot of winter messaging added to Buckinghamshire Council's FixMyStreet Pro service

Upload videos to provide extra information

As well as setting site-wide messaging, some authorities also upload videos to their FixMyStreet Pro service to give report-makers even more information about how they approach resolving local problems during periods of high demand.

For example, Buckinghamshire Council has uploaded a video to the homepage of its FixMyStreet Pro service to explain its winter maintenance priorities and manage expectations.

Screenshot of the homepage of Buckinghamshire Council's FixMyStreet Pro showing the winter maintenance video

Meanwhile, Oxfordshire County Council uses video to illustrate its intervention criteria and ensure its residents understand what can and can’t be fixed. 

Screenshot of Oxfordshire County Council's FixMyStreet Pro homepage showing their video which explains what the council can and can't fix

Include photos and extra questions within the report form

Another clever way to manage report-makers’ expectations is to include photos and extra questions within the FixMyStreet Pro report form to help qualify the seriousness of the problem at hand and proactively explain whether it meets your intervention criteria. 

Bath & North East Somerset Council does this for reports of blocked drains to help collect the most accurate information about the severity of the issue so that they know how to respond. 

Screenshot of an extra question used by Bath & North East Somerset Council which appears when a user selects the blocked drains category

Divert emergency reports  

During periods of high demand, it’s crucial that emergencies don’t get lost in a queue of other less urgent problems. For this reason, FixMyStreet Pro gives councils and other authorities multiple ways to communicate about and divert emergencies.

In addition to using the site-wide messaging and extra questions mentioned above, it’s also possible for staff to display emergency messaging for certain report categories, or even disable those reports entirely. 

Here’s an example of how Shropshire Council diverts reports of fuel spillages:

Screenshot of an emergency message which appears on Shropshire Council's installation of FixMyStreet Pro

Edit response templates 

Expectation management doesn’t stop after reports have been submitted. FixMyStreet Pro enables staff users to set up and edit response templates to correspond to different report statuses. These responses are sent to report-makers whenever a report’s status changes to ensure they and anyone subscribed to the report is kept informed of its progress.

See an example of how Lincolnshire County Council responds to reports via its FixMyStreet Pro service, giving users a clear indication of the time-frames within which a response can be expected:

Screenshot of some of the responses sent to report-makers by Lincolnshire County Council

When report volume is high, authorities can edit these templates or even create new ones specifically to communicate that responses may take longer than usual, or to educate about how issues are prioritised. 

These templates can be managed from within the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard or they can correspond to an integrated asset management or CRM system.

 

Display scheduled works on the map

It can often be the case that members of the public go to report an issue about which you’re already aware, so when demand is already high, keeping duplication down is paramount. 

As well as suggesting possible duplicates within a customisable radius to report-makers and encouraging them to subscribe instead of re-reporting, FixMyStreet Pro also enables authorities to display on the map scheduled maintenance works to eliminate the need for reports to be made at all.

Oxfordshire County Council’s FixMyStreet Pro has special map pins dedicated to works reported and scheduled for repair by the council itself. 

Screenshot of Oxfordshire County Council's FixMyStreet Pro map showing special pins to indicate scheduled works

Just as no two councils are the same, no two of our FixMyStreet Pro installations are the same either. If you’re interested in learning more about FixMyStreet Pro and how it could work for you, please get in touch

Image: Rob Wingate


Faster data export downloads from FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks

Staff users of our FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks solutions will now benefit from much faster data export downloads thanks to a new update we’ve made to the export functionality. Exports should now be ready to start downloading within a short space of time.

The faster download speeds apply to both user access through the dashboard web page, or programmatic access via the API, making it particularly useful for those of our clients which use Power BI to track performance levels. 

Example of the administration dashboard of FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks from which staff users can filter and export report data

In order to be performant, data is now pre-generated overnight ready for export, so it’s worth noting the CSV export won’t include information from the current day.

Standard data exports contain all the information about reports or requests made via FixMyStreet Pro and/or WasteWorks, including categories, states and device types, and can be filtered by date, ward, category, status and administrator role. Exports can also be customised according to the requirements of individual clients.

FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks customers also have access to a heatmap showing the concentration of reports by area

If you’re a client of FixMyStreet Pro or WasteWorks and would like any help with data exports, please open a ticket via the support desk system.

Or if you’re interested in finding out more about our solutions, get in touch

Image: Carlos Muza


Small items collection functionality added to WasteWorks

In collaboration with Brent Council we have added some new functionality to WasteWorks which enables residents to book a waste collection for small items including batteries and textiles.

WasteWorks is our front end residential waste platform designed with and for councils to provide simple online access for residents to information about their waste collections. It has the flexibility not just to integrate with any in-cab system or payment provider, but to also easily incorporate extra elements of a waste service as required by councils, including bulky waste, green garden waste, assisted collections, and now small items collections.

The new small items collection functionality was built for Brent Council’s installation of WasteWorks. Now, along with being able to view and download their waste collection schedules, report problems, request new containers and pay for garden waste subscriptions, residents in Brent can also use WasteWorks to access the council’s free bookable small items collection service. 

Examples of how Brent's small item collection booking service looks on desktop on mobile

Integrated with the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system used by Brent Council’s waste contractor Veolia, WasteWorks takes residents through an intuitive request workflow within which they can select from a list of items included in the small items collection service and book a time slot according to availability. Each request created via WasteWorks is automatically sent into Echo for staff and contractors to manage directly.

Using this feature, residents can also cancel a booking for a small item collection, or report that a collection has been missed. The integration between WasteWorks and Echo will allow the council to keep residents informed on the progress of their requests and reports.

Councillor Krupa Sheth, Cabinet Member for Environment, Infrastructure, and Climate Action, said: “We want to make it as easy as possible for residents to get rid of your items in the most environmentally friendly way possible, as well as making it easy as possible. I welcome this partnership and look forward to working with SocietyWorks on this service.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks said: “We take pride in the fact that each of our digital solutions is developed in collaboration with councils. This new feature of WasteWorks built in partnership with Brent Council is another great example of how the product continues to grow in line with the needs of councils and their residents.”

Find out more about WasteWorks or if you’re an existing WasteWorks client and you’d like to use this new feature please speak to your account manager.


Bulky waste added to Bromley Council’s WasteWorks service

Working in partnership with Bromley Council, we have added some new functionality to the Council’s installation of our WasteWorks solution to enable residents to book bulky waste collections online.

WasteWorks was co-designed with Bromley and introduced in the Borough in 2021 as a smart and user-friendly way for residents to access residential waste services online. Residents already use the service to check their bin days, report a problem with a collection, request a new or extra container and subscribe to green waste collections. 

WasteWorks is a progressive web app, optimised to work perfectly on all devices

By integrating with existing systems, WasteWorks creates a consistent front door to all aspects of a council’s waste service, sharing information between residents, contractors and back again, which has already achieved a 40% drop in avoidable customer contact for Bromley.

Integrated with the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, which is used by Bromley’s waste contractor Veolia, as well as with the Capita Pay 360 payment system, residents can now also use WasteWorks to book and pay for collections for residential bulky waste items, such as carpets, furniture and white goods.

Screenshot of Bromley's bulky waste booking service on WasteWorks
Residents can book bulky waste collections through WasteWorks, as well as view existing bookings

Residents wanting to use the service will be guided through a simple and intuitive workflow which enables them to select the type of item to be collected, reserve an available time slot and pay for the collection. WasteWorks can also handle cancellation and refund requests, as well as missed collection reports.

Jim Cowan, Head of Neighbourhood Management at the London Borough of Bromley said: “Placing the bulky waste collection service onto the WasteWorks platform is another step in making access to our services even better for our residents. Access to waste collection information, recycling container orders, enquiries and bulky waste bookings is now a one stop shop. 

“Moving from the existing server platform for bulky waste to cloud through WasteWorks is a key element of Bromley’s digital transformation plan, and the integration into Veolia’s Echo logistic system improves administration and fleet efficiency – just two of the many reasons why working with our partner SocietyWorks has yet again given us the outcome we desired”.  

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “The addition of the bulky waste functionality marks another milestone in our partnership with Bromley Council. 

“The team at Bromley have been involved in the development of WasteWorks from day one, and we’re proud to support them with another innovative service transition that meets the needs of residents.”

Find out more about WasteWorks here.


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