Blog posts about Feature focus

FixMyStreet Pro has several features that are designed to help authorities prevent avoidable contact and report duplication.

Let’s look at some of them below.

Communicate your maintenance schedules

FixMyStreet Pro enables you to inform report-makers of your maintenance schedules to help manage their expectations at the point of making a report.

For example, Gloucestershire County Council has configured its FixMyStreet Pro workflow so that when a user selects a certain category, such as grass cutting, a message is displayed to explain more about when grass cutting happens, along with a signpost to further information.

By doing this, members of the public can feel confident in not needing to report something that is already on your radar.

Show exactly which issues you’re aware of…

As a map-based reporting solution, FixMyStreet Pro displays existing reports on the map publicly so that anyone can see what has already been reported.

Potential duplicates are actively suggested to users at the point of making a report, and interested members of the public can subscribe to existing reports to receive updates on their progress. 

Different map pins can be used to represent different types of issues. If we use Gloucestershire again as our example, as well as displaying problems reported by residents, the highways team uses blue map pins to represent specific issues raised internally by staff or contractors.

The data to generate these special map pins is shared directly from the council’s integrated system via an API.

Using map pins in this way helps to demonstrate commitment from the council to find and resolve problems, and further supports the avoidance of duplication. 

…and even those you’re not responsible for!

Cleverly, thanks to FixMyStreet Pro’s connection to the national FixMyStreet service, you can also display issues that have been reported in your area but are the responsibility of another authority.

For example, Lincolnshire County Council displays on its FixMyStreet Pro service grey map pins to represent issues that have been diverted to Lincoln City Council.

Members of the public do not always know who’s responsible for fixing different problems, and in places where more than one level of authority covers the same area, this is a great way to increase transparency and, of course, reduce unnecessary and incorrect contact.

Display site messaging

Messaging can be displayed in various places across an installation of FixMyStreet Pro, such as on the homepage or as part of the reporting workflow.

This functionality can be used to share information about significant upcoming works, or to advise of specific actions due to be taken.

For example, you can provide notice of upcoming roadworks on a particular road when a user starts a report in that location and selects a category associated with road maintenance. Here’s an example of how Bromley Council does this:

Or you can display messaging on the homepage to explain any changes to scheduled maintenance during particular seasons, such as to advise on grass cutting schedules during spring and summer, or gritting during the winter months.

These messages can be managed by staff with the associated permissions from the administration dashboard.

Tailored response templates

Another good way to prevent unnecessary contact via FixMyStreet Pro is within responses to reports where it is appropriate to do so.

An example of this in practice can be found on Buckinghamshire Council’s FixMyStreet Pro in response to reports of overflowing bins, advising of the schedule on which bins are emptied and changing the status of the report to ‘action scheduled’. 

As well as being published on the map, responses are sent directly to report-makers and to anyone else who has subscribed to the report.

This enables members of the public to see what’s being done and educate for future reference.

Response templates can be managed either from the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, or they can be shared directly from an integrated CRM or asset management system via API integration.

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For more information about FixMyStreet Pro and how it works, get in touch with our team. 

All categories, or all subcategories within a parent category can now be viewed via a toggle on FixMyStreet Pro, making it easier and quicker to navigate to the reports in which you are interested.

Categories on FixMyStreet Pro

From potholes to grass cutting to stile maintenance and beyond, public authorities can accept reports about a vast range of problems via FixMyStreet Pro. Essentially, if it’s a place-based problem that can be plotted on a map and for which you would be responsible for fixing, it can be incorporated into your FixMyStreet Pro service. 

This is good news for everyone, because it means there’s only one user experience no matter what you want to report. Naturally though, the more categories you have to choose from, the harder it might be to find the one you need.

Keeping things simple

To mitigate the risk of category-related overwhelm for report-makers and staff users, we introduced the ability to search for categories via a search bar. We also have parent categories under which authorities can assign related subcategories to make it easier for report-makers to select the most appropriate one for their report. 

Earlier this year we updated the way categories are filtered from the administration area to give staff users with the associated permissions the option to select groups of reports via parent categories or even select multiple categories at once for export.

Following this, we have introduced the ability to toggle categories when viewing them from within the reporting workflow, from the ‘All reports’ page and from the heatmap. 

Category toggling

Let’s say, for example, you want to view on the map all reports relating to parks maintenance issues, such as full litter bins, fly-tipping and path cleaning. Instead of having to manually select the relevant categories, you can instead select the parent category ‘Parks maintenance’ and all associated categories will be toggled. Once you’re done, click the parent category again to deselect all associated categories. 

Equally, if you want to view reports from all available categories, you can click ‘Everything’ at the top of the list to select all categories, and click again to deselect them all.

Watch a very short demonstration video below:

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Categories on FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro are dictated by the authority using the service to reflect the issues they can deal with. Where an integration into a backend system is in place, categories on FixMyStreet Pro correspond to those within the integrated system.

For more information about how the service works, please get in touch. 

An update has been made to FixMyStreet Pro’s duplicate report suggestion feature to enable staff users to customise the radius within which potential duplicate reports are suggested to users on a per category basis.

Councils and other public sector organisations using FixMyStreet Pro benefit from the ability to suggest potential duplicate reports to users. 

If the problem that’s about to be reported is indeed a duplicate, FixMyStreet Pro encourages the user to subscribe to the existing report instead of creating a new one, saving time for the would-be report-maker and creating no extra work for the authority.

 

 

The duplicate suggestion tool uses the location and category of the in-progress report to scan for existing reports of a similar nature within a certain radius. By default the tool scans for open reports, but authorities can customise this to also include internal, closed, fixed or even related sub-category reports.

Last year we announced an update which enabled the different councils and authorities using FixMyStreet Pro to customise the radius within which reports are suggested for their individual version of the service.

Now, a second update means the radius can also be customised per category. 

This allows even more flexibility for authorities, who can incorporate many different service areas into their FixMyStreet Pro service, the categories for which may benefit from a larger or smaller radius.

For example, a larger radius can be useful for reports about issues that are likely to cover a large area, where users may drop a pin in a number of places to report the same issue. 

Meanwhile, a smaller radius can be more helpful for categories of problems in areas where there may be lots of reports of similar, but not identical problems.

For more information about this feature, or about FixMyStreet Pro in general, please get in touch.

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.

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. 

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. 

 

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!

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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.

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:

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:

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.

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:

And another from Buckinghamshire Council’s version of the 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.

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

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. 

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:

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:

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. 

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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. 

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Image: Rob Wingate

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. 

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.

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. 

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Image: Carlos Muza

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. 

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.

Citizens in London can now report abandoned hire bikes and e-scooters via FixMyStreet, which will send reports directly to the operator responsible. 

A new report category has been added to FixMyStreet to enable citizens to report abandoned hire bikes and e-scooters in and around London. Reports of such problems can also be made via FixMyStreet Pro, the individually branded and integrated version of the service used by several London borough councils and by Transport for London (TfL).

Importantly, any reports submitted under this category, whether made on the national FixMyStreet site or via an authority’s own branded FixMyStreet Pro service, are sent directly to the operator responsible for the abandoned bike or e-scooter. FixMyStreet is currently able to triage reports to Lime, Dott, Forest and Tier.

 

 

Upon selecting the ‘Abandoned bikes/scooters’ category, FixMyStreet asks report-makers to select which operator is responsible for the bike or e-scooter in question. Reports are then sent to the appropriate operator, containing all the other useful information included as standard in a FixMyStreet report, such as the report-maker’s details, easting and northing, latitude and longitude, nearest postcode to the pin placed on the map and more.

There is also the option to report abandoned Santander Cycles to TfL via FixMyStreet, which has been available since 2020. Whenever a report-maker selects the ‘Abandoned Santander Cycle’ category, these reports will be automatically triaged to TfL, even when made via a London council’s own FixMyStreet Pro service or TfL’s. 

 

 

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “The provision of cycle and e-scooter hire schemes helps councils to support greener local travel and alleviate capacity pressures on peak time public transport services. However, when incidents of abandonment occur they create a nuisance for residents and put an unnecessary strain on council customer services, who have to manually triage reports to their contracted operators.

“We hope this new feature of FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro helps to ease some of that pressure and its associated costs by ensuring reports of abandoned bikes and e-scooters are sent straight to the people who can deal with them, and in turn get neighbourhoods tidied up faster for residents.

“While currently only available in London, we hope to be able to replicate this across the UK in the future for the benefit of more citizens who live in areas where such schemes are in operation.”

FixMyStreet can also be used by citizens to report other local problems such as potholes, fly-tipping and broken street lights. The service has been run since 2007 by civic technology charity mySociety, while the integrated Pro version of the service is run by the charity’s subsidiary SocietyWorks.

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Visit the FixMyStreet website for more information about the national service, or if you’re a council or other public body who would like to use the software as your own, find out more about FixMyStreet Pro here.