Blog posts about Feature focus

As a provider of a front-end local authority waste portal, a regular requirement we receive from our WasteWorks clients is around updating pricing structures.

Creating the flexibility to accommodate the individual needs of different councils and their different charging models has been built into the structure of WasteWorks. 

In addition to handling standard annual pricing changes for services like green or bulky waste, take a look at some recent new examples of how WasteWorks has been supporting councils to navigate waste pricing changes in a way that keeps things simple for users.

Different pricing by customer type

For the London Borough of Bromley, the minimum charge for bulky waste collections now varies depending on whether the booking is for a domestic or commercial property.

Staff using the WasteWorks admin interface can access and adjust the pricing structure as needed. Alternatively, because WasteWorks is a hosted and managed service, we can also run a script to update pricing changes at set times (eg. at midnight at the start of a new month).

This ensures that front-end users are always shown the correct cost for their collection at the point of making a booking.

POPs collection charges

The London Borough of Sutton introduced separate pricing for bulky waste collections containing Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), such as upholstered furniture and sofas.

WasteWorks now supports differentiated charging based on whether POPs items are included in a booking, all of which can be managed by council staff from within the admin interface.

Premiums and discounts

Meanwhile, the London Borough of Bexley’s WasteWorks needs to accommodate pricing differences for weekend collections for bulky waste, including:

• Premium charges for Saturday collections
• Discounts for residents receiving state pensions or disability-related support
• A points-based pricing system where items are assigned values based on size and collection requirements

The platform accommodates these pricing rules while keeping the booking process straightforward for residents.

Container request charging

And finally, we have also implemented new charging models for container requests. Take the London Borough of Sutton’s WasteWorks as an example, which enables the council to display to residents:

• Premium food caddy options
• Charges based on container size changes
• Different pricing for upgrades and downgrades

These examples demonstrate the flexibility available when designing service-specific pricing structures.

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WasteWorks is designed to accommodate the individual business needs, operational processes and system configurations of different councils. Contact us to discuss how it could work for you.

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Image: Hassan Bouamoud on Pexels

Assisted collections are one of the many waste service areas covered by our front-end local authority waste portal WasteWorks.

Councils using the service can, for example, display the assisted collection status of a property address to staff or provide tools to manage collection eligibility.

We have recently introduced some developments to the assisted collection functionality of WasteWorks to expand this capability further. Take a look…

Self-service requests for assisted collections

Working with the London Borough of Bexley, we’ve introduced a complete assisted collection request workflow for residents using Bexley’s version of the service. 

Members of the public can now:

• Submit assisted collection requests online
• Provide reasons for the request
• Indicate whether the need is temporary or permanent
• Supply additional information to support the application

Once submitted, requests are sent to Bexley via email, but responses could also be sent into an integrated system if required.

From the WasteWorks admin interface, council staff can approve or decline requests, confirm collection details and durations (ie. whether this is a temporary or continual collection), and update collection information before the request is passed to back-office systems.

Staff management tools

Meanwhile, we’ve also been working on some enhancements to other staff-only, admin features.

For example, the London Borough of Merton’s WasteWorks service now enables staff users to access an assisted collection change request form from within the admin interface. 

The addition of this form means that, as well as being able to view the assisted collection status of a property address, they can also:

• Add or update collection notes
• Record access information
• Remove or amend assisted collection arrangements (such as location notes for crew members)

Form submissions are sent directly into the council’s integrated system.

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For more information about WasteWorks and how it could work for you, get in touch.

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Image: Christian Schröter on Pexels

We have implemented a change to the way FixMyStreet Pro’s response templates work, enabling you to deactivate them if you need to.

FixMyStreet Pro’s response templates enable council staff with the appropriate permissions to create and edit pre-written responses to be sent to report-makers according to the category and status of a report. 

Alternatively, templates can be automatically assigned via integration with backend systems or Open311. This means that when FixMyStreet Pro pulls a state-changing update from your system(s), and there is a matching template set up within the integration, then that template will automatically be applied. 

Deactivating response templates

Following feedback from our council clients, we have pushed live a change giving staff with the appropriate permissions the ability to temporarily deactivate templates so that, if you need to stop using a template, you don’t have to lose it by deleting it.

This is particularly useful for when responses to reports in certain categories change throughout the year. For example, you may want to have different versions of templates for reports about grit bins, disabling any that aren’t relevant within the summer months.

Each template within the administration dashboard now has a new checkbox labelled ‘Inactive’. When checked, this template will not be used for incoming Open311 updates, nor will it be available for selection by staff when adding updates manually.

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For more information about FixMyStreet Pro, drop us a message and we’ll get back to you.

At this time of year, councils and other public authorities with responsibility for maintaining local green spaces tend to see an increase in reports from members of the public about overgrown grass. 

In many, if not most cases, these reports draw attention to an area already included in a maintenance schedule. In other cases, it might be that reports about issues within a particular park or on a roadside verge are handled differently to others, whether that’s because of, for example, a “no mow” campaign or because the area is maintained by a third party. 

Therefore, one of the best things authorities can do to reduce unnecessary contact is to communicate upfront about scheduled works to reassure would-be report-makers that you’re already aware and remove the need to submit a report.

FixMyStreet Pro, our street, highway and environment fault reporting service, lets authorities do this in a few different ways. 

Displaying dates for scheduled works

Lincolnshire County Council makes use of an asset layer shared from its integrated system, Confirm, to highlight grass areas maintained by the Council and access the next scheduled maintenance date. 

When a map pin is placed within a highlighted area by a report-maker, and the ‘grass cutting’ category is selected, a message is displayed to the user to communicate the next scheduled date for grass cutting, and the form asks the user if this answers their query.

Displaying a message to users

Another option is to take a more general approach, like Northumberland County Council, which displays a message to users to explain that its grass cutting season has started later than usual, so users may not need to make their report.

The message appears when a user has selected the ‘grass cutting’ category and dropped a map pin within a highlighted area (facilitated through integration with the Causeway One asset management system). 

Similarly, Gloucester City Council shares a message with users to explain its approach to grass cutting, including some messaging that only appears in certain wards to indicate how grass cutting is handled differently within certain areas.

Meanwhile, Bromley Council uses FixMyStreet Pro’s messaging functionality to identify locations where grasses will not be cut as part of a campaign, and signposts to more information for users. 

During periods of high demand, you may also want to share category-specific messaging on the homepage of your FixMyStreet Pro site, to share information with all visitors to the site. 

Messages like this can be added and edited by council staff with the correct permissions from within the administration dashboard. 

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While this blog post focuses on communicating about grass cutting schedules through FixMyStreet Pro, the same functionality can be used to communicate about schedules for other maintenance, such as for drains or bins. 

If you’re an authority already using FixMyStreet Pro and would like some help communicating about maintenance schedules through your service, please open a ticket. 

If you’re not yet using FixMyStreet Pro and you’d like to find out how it could work for you, get in touch. 

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Image: Tom Van Dyck on Pexels

While most commonly associated with the reporting of problems on streets and highways, FixMyStreet Pro can also be used by authorities to handle reports of problems in places a little more off the beaten track. 

An example of this can be found in the way Surrey County Council has incorporated fault reporting for countryside estates managed by the Council into its dedicated version of the service.

Corresponding to categories managed within its integrated asset management system, Confirm, Surrey’s FixMyStreet Pro allows users to choose from an updated list of categories which now includes issues relating to those on countryside estates.

Upon selecting one of the countryside estate categories, FixMyStreet Pro displays an asset layer (the yellow shape on the map) to help users visualise where reports can be made within the selected category.  

For certain categories, individual assets within an estate such as gates or signposts are also displayed (represented as small yellow dots) to further help users make precise and easy-to-triage reports. 

FixMyStreet Pro sends any reports made within Surrey’s countryside estate categories directly to the exact team that can respond. Updates made to reports within Confirm are sent back to report-makers to keep them informed of progress.

Where an issue is not the responsibility of the Council, or the issue is an emergency and should be made through a different channel, FixMyStreet Pro’s site messaging functionality can be used to divert or signpost.

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FixMyStreet Pro is available to a variety of public authorities, from all levels of councils to highways agencies to housing associations, and can be moulded to individual requirements. 

For more information about FixMyStreet Pro, send us a message and we’ll get back to you. 

We have introduced a new feature to the admin interface of FixMyStreet Pro, enabling members of staff with the correct permissions to set a “closed to updates” timeframe to reports on a per-category basis.

The purpose of this is to prevent users providing updates on old reports to alert to a new occurrence of the same issue, which could impede resolutions and may impact your report data when analysed.

The setting can be applied to any subcategory as needed. This allows you to automate the closing of reports to updates for individual problems within a category sooner or later than others. 

For example, if a problem is something you know is likely to reoccur in the same area, such as fly-tipping in a known hotspot, you may want to set a shorter timeframe within which updates can be applied to an existing report.

That way, when a new instance of the issue occurs, you can help to ensure a new report is made instead of a user updating an existing report because they haven’t realised it’s not the same problem. 

If no individual timeframe is applied to a subcategory, reports will be closed to updates within the default timeframe of six months, unless you have requested an alternative default timeframe to be applied to your instance of FixMyStreet Pro.

This feature complements FixMyStreet Pro’s duplicate report suggestion tool, which suggests existing reports to users within the same category and location, the radius for which can be modified per category. 

Why updates are important 

Updates to reports on FixMyStreet Pro come in a number of different formats:

1. The authority that received the report can update it to share what’s happening next;
2. The report-maker can update the report to say, for example, that a problem has become worse since they reported it;
3. Other members of the public can update the report to add their own information, such as to say that an instance of fly-tipping is perhaps no longer there.

Timely updates from the authority are the best, most effective way to keep feedback loops closed and mitigate follow-up calls or emails. Updates are made easy by using response templates, which enable pre-written responses to be sent to report-makers according to the status of the report. 

Meanwhile, having the option to keep reports of unfixed problems open to updates from members of the public for a while can help you to monitor a problem’s priority without needing to carry out continuous inspections. 

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If you’re a client of FixMyStreet Pro and you would like any support using this new feature, please open a ticket on the helpdesk.

If you’re from a local authority or other public body not yet using FixMyStreet Pro and you’d like to understand more about how it works, please get in touch. 

Sudden spikes in demand from members of the public reporting local street, highway and environment issues can be caused by a number of things. 

Some causes are fairly predictable, like those associated with seasonal changes such as grass cutting or empty grit bins, while others happen more suddenly in the wake of unexpected incidents like flooding or community campaigns against issues like graffiti or fly-tipping.

That being the case, we’ve equipped FixMyStreet Pro, our fault reporting service for councils, highways agencies and other public bodies, with several useful tools to help manage sudden increases in reports.

Let’s take a look at some of them…

Site-wide messaging 

From the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, staff users with the correct permissions can set messaging to be displayed across their installation of the service. 

Using this feature, you can let report-makers know that you are receiving a high volume of reports of a particular issue and explain how this may affect response times.

You can also use the site-wide messaging feature to provide emergency contact details for certain problems if necessary, or schedule messages to only appear at certain times, such as out of hours.

Response templates 

FixMyStreet Pro sends a response to report-makers whenever a report’s status changes to ensure they and anyone subscribed to the report is kept informed of its progress. 

With all reports and their responses published publicly on the map, the information you include in them serves as a crucial way to manage expectations and educate about how issues are prioritised. 

Templates for responding to reports within different categories can be set up and edited by staff users. 

When report volume is high for a particular category, you can edit its templates or even create new ones specifically to communicate that responses may take longer than usual.

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

Extra questions and photos

Photos and extra questions can be included within the FixMyStreet Pro report form to help users understand before they make a report whether the problem they have found meets your intervention criteria.

This can be helpful for issues like blocked drains, which may regularly see predictable increases in reports after heavy rainfall.

Emergency report diversion

During periods of high demand, it’s crucial that emergencies don’t get lost in a queue of other less urgent problems. 

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

Avoiding duplicates

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 you to display on the map scheduled maintenance works to eliminate the need for reports to be made at all.

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For more information about how FixMyStreet Pro works, request a demo from our friendly team.

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As a map-based reporting solution, FixMyStreet Pro can do lots of clever things to help users make accurate and actionable reports of local street, highway and environment faults.

From suggesting potential duplicate reports, to automatically diverting reports between different authorities – and even detecting when a report is being made on a private road.

How private road detection works on FixMyStreet Pro

Using an asset layer shared via integration with an asset management system, councils and other public authorities responsible for fixing local problems can detect when a user is trying to make a report on a private or unadopted road.

When making a report via an authority’s branded instance of FixMyStreet Pro, users find the location of their report either by typing in the area, postcode or street name if they know it, or by using their current geo-location.

The map then loads at that location, the pin can be placed on the map exactly where the problem is located and a category can be selected.

If the map pin is not placed on the asset layer which depicts the roads adopted by the council or authority in question, then the user can be shown a message to inform them and signpost to where they may be able to redirect their report.

In instances where certain assets on a private road remain the responsibility of the local council or authority, FixMyStreet Pro supports the triaging of this based on the report location and category.

This ensures the user never needs to worry about who’s responsible for what and the authority only receives reports they can deal with.

Private road detection on the national FixMyStreet site

As you may already know, FixMyStreet Pro was born out of FixMyStreet, the national reporting service launched by our parent charity mySociety in 2007.

Being a purposeful piece of technology which supports open standards to remove barriers to accessing useful services for the public sector, councils can opt to set up their own integration with FixMyStreet (for free) using a standard known as Open311.

Non-FixMyStreet Pro users who set up and run their own Open311 integration with the national reporting site can also supply their own asset layer for adopted or unadopted roads to help eliminate avoidable and incorrect reports. Find out more about the FixMyStreet Open311 API.

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For more information about how FixMyStreet Pro works, request a demo from our friendly team.

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A few weeks ago we blogged about how we are now using the OS Maps API for mapping tiles across all instances of FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro, following the retirement of Microsoft’s Bing Maps API.

We mentioned the only difference users might notice is that the Bing Maps API provided an aerial view option which was sometimes used by our council cobrands. We suggested some potential solutions in the form of providing access to a GIS mapping server that can supply map tiles and aerial imagery, or providing OS imagery data for us to serve.

We’re pleased to report that this has been successful for Northumberland County Council, which is now able to serve aerial imagery from its GIS mapping server on its FixMyStreet Pro service.

Users can toggle between the ‘Aerial map’ and ‘Road map’ by clicking the satellite icon on the right side of the screen. 

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If you are a FixMyStreet Pro client and you would like to replicate this on your instance of the service, please open a ticket on our helpdesk service.

If you are not yet a FixMyStreet Pro client and you have questions about how the service works, please drop us a message and we’ll get back to you.

On most of our FixMyStreet Pro instances, we use Ordnance Survey’s Maps API to supply the map tiles for our maps. Councils have free access to the API under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), so we can display mapping up to a very high zoom level.

Microsoft is now retiring its Bing Maps API, which we have used on fixmystreet.com and some other instances for many years, and so we have now switched these to also use the OS Maps API – in instances where we do not have PSGA access, we use OS OpenData served from our own tile server for more zoomed in levels.

For the OS Leisure map tiles, this should provide an increase in image quality, and should also be more up to date in general. In Northern Ireland, fixmystreet.com is now using OpenStreetMap, ongoing thanks to them for their services.

Functionally, the only difference users might notice is that the Bing Maps API provided an aerial view option which is not currently replicable. One way around this for FixMyStreet Pro council cobrands could be to utilise an internal GIS mapping server that can supply map tiles and aerial imagery, or to provide us with OS imagery data for us to serve. If you’re a Pro client and you think this may apply to you, please open a ticket on the helpdesk system.

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For more information about the FixMyStreet platform, please get in touch.