Blog posts about Integrations

Being a supplier of technology that sits at the frontend of public services, one of the key promises we make to our customers is that we will accommodate the need for changes made to any backend systems with which we integrate while keeping things consistent for members of the public. 

A recent example of this is the work we’ve been doing in collaboration with the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and the London Borough of Sutton. 

Both councils use our WasteWorks solution to manage online access to residential waste services and have been navigating a migration to a new version of their integrated in-cab system Echo.

In-cab integrations

For both councils, an API integration between WasteWorks and the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, used by the two councils’ waste provider Veolia, facilitates a two-way flow of data from council, to supplier, to resident and back again.

This enables residents to self-serve access to real-time data in order to:

• Check their bin days; 
• Monitor whether their bin has been collected yet;
• Find out why a collection was not taken;
• Report problems with collections; 
• Request new or extra containers; 
• Pay for subscriptions to green and bulky waste collections;
• And more according to the needs of the individual council.

As we do with any new integration, we worked in partnership with the teams at each council to map out the processes needed for sharing data to and from their new versions of Echo and test them out in staging.

Taking this approach means we can ensure everything works as expected so that, upon turning one integration off and turning the new one on, residents using the councils’ branded installations of WasteWorks are unaware anything has changed.

Adaptable technology

No two councils use WasteWorks or their integrated systems in exactly the same way – even ones that are neighbours and share the same in-cab system like Kingston and Sutton.

For Kingston, the integration with its updated installation of Echo incorporates a new pricing structure for new container requests. Payments for Kingston are facilitated via their integrated payment provider Capita Pay360.

A spokesperson at Kingston Council said: “We are ambitious in our plans to further enhance waste and recycling services while advancing our green credentials.

“Kingston has the fourth highest recycling rate in London, with over 840,000 collections taking place monthly.

“We are pleased to be continuing to work alongside WasteWorks to deliver an efficient and reliable service for our residents.”

Meanwhile, Sutton’s updated integration with Echo incorporates numerous other changes including the ability for residents to report a spillage incident or the misplacement of a bin following a collection.  

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Residential waste services require flexibility and we are very committed to providing it through WasteWorks. 

“I am proud that we have been able to support the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and the London Borough of Sutton through this changeover period, accommodating their individual needs while maintaining business as usual standards of service for residents.”

A new integration has been completed between Bristol City Council’s installation of FixMyStreet Pro and their Alloy asset management system.

The integration enables reports relating to street cleansing issues made via Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro service and those made via the national FixMyStreet site to be sent directly into Alloy, along with accurate map location data and supporting information.

With both systems connected via an API, any updates or status changes made by authorised council staff or contractors to street cleansing reports in Alloy can be sent back to report-makers, as well as to anyone subscribed to the report, helping to close the feedback loop and manage expectations. 

Likewise, any updates made to reports by users on FixMyStreet or Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro are shared back to Alloy. 

Councillor Martin Fodor, Chair of the Environment and Sustainability Committee at Bristol City Council, said: “We’re delighted that this new integration will enable Bristol City Council to deliver a more comprehensive service for residents via FixMyStreet.

“Securing greater communication between FixMyStreet and council services will allow people to report street scene issues directly into our systems, meaning jobs are sent to the appropriate team quickly with a higher degree of accuracy, and with jobs not for the council making their way to the right organisation.

“These improvements to the council’s FixMyStreet integration and processes should result in residents seeing a difference made to the cleanliness of Bristol’s streets.”

In control of integrations

For non-street cleansing issues, there is an existing integration in place for Bristol, historically set-up and run by the council using an open standard endpoint which provides a two-way flow of such reports into and out of their Confirm highways asset management system. 

The addition of the Alloy integration for street cleansing issues is a great example of how councils can connect with FixMyStreet in different ways to best suit their needs and service areas – either by having us manage an integration for them, setting it up themselves, or, like Bristol, doing a bit of both!

Reports are triaged by FixMyStreet according to their location and category. 

In addition to triaging between Bristol’s own systems, the software also recognises when an issue is not the responsibility of the council and diverts reports accordingly, either by sending them directly to another FixMyStreet Pro-using authority (including National Highways) or by redirecting the user to the national FixMyStreet site.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Interoperability is a core element of our proposition to the public sector.

“We are really pleased to be supporting Bristol City Council as they take advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s flexibility and integrate it with another of their systems to make managing street cleansing reports easier and more efficient.”

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro.

Part of our promise to our public sector customers is that we will integrate our solutions with any combination of back office systems. 

This commitment to facilitating interoperability extends to single sign-on (SSO) identity providers, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory).

SSO integrations into our solutions enable councils and other public sector organisations to make it easier for authorised staff to log in using existing SSO credentials. 

Existing SSO accounts for residents can also be incorporated into the integration, meaning they only ever need to have one set of log-in details to access digital council services.

Integration with SSO also reduces the administration associated with setting up staff user accounts for larger teams. Existing account roles associated with an authority staff member’s SSO identity can be mapped to corresponding roles on, say, FixMyStreet Pro or WasteWorks, to automate the account creation and permission-setting process.

To connect with an SSO identity provider, we use an OpenID Connect-compliant endpoint.

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For customers wanting to discuss setting up an SSO integration into your installation of a SocietyWorks solution, please speak to your account manager. 

If you’re not yet a customer of SocietyWorks but you would like to find out more, you can request a demo with our team.

A new integration has been completed into Camden Council’s FixMyStreet Pro service to enable reports of problems relating to trees to be sent directly into Confirm OnDemand, the asset management system used by Camden to manage its tree assets.

Being able to send reports directly into Confirm OnDemand instead of via email means FixMyStreet Pro can receive automatic updates to be shared with report-makers, helping Camden to manage expectations, improve the user experience and reduce failure demand.

The integration also enables the display of individual trees on the FixMyStreet Pro map via an asset layer, which helps report-makers accurately select the tree they need to report. 

Camden Council’s FixMyStreet Pro service launched in 2023 and is already integrated with Symology Insight for the seamless sharing of report data for other street, highway and environment defect categories. 

Ilesh Chavda, Head of Applications at Camden Council, said: “We’re really pleased to have integrated FixMyStreet Pro with our Confirm OnDemand back-office solution. This will help to create a more efficient and seamless experience for our citizens, when it comes to reporting Tree-related faults.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Among its many benefits is FixMyStreet Pro’s ability to bridge gaps between different local authority service areas, while at the same time being able to flex around the individual needs of those services. We’re pleased to have been able to support Camden in extending the functionality of their FixMyStreet Pro service and creating consistency for users.”

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro or contact us to request a demo with the team.

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. 

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. 

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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

SocietyWorks has launched a new, dedicated installation of FixMyStreet Pro for Gloucestershire County Council, through which residents can report local street, highway and environmental problems. 

Gloucestershire County Council joins more than 30 other local authorities, highways agencies and other public bodies in using FixMyStreet Pro for managing inbound reports of local problems such as potholes, broken street lights and problems with highway drains. 

Integrated with the Council’s asset management system Confirm, FixMyStreet Pro’s intelligent, map-based interface will make it much easier for residents to accurately report a problem and stay updated on its resolution.

With all reports and their statuses displayed on the map, the ability to subscribe to existing reports and the automatic, nationwide diversion of reports that are the responsibility of another authority, FixMyStreet Pro will improve things for customers and help Gloucestershire County Council to better manage expectations, eliminate duplication of effort and reduce avoidable customer contact, freeing up staff time for urgent cases or to help residents who need additional support.

Designed as a progressive web app, residents can choose to use Gloucestershire County Council’s branded version of FixMyStreet Pro as a website or as an app, with no obligation either way.   

Cllr Dom Morris, cabinet member responsible for highways and flooding at Gloucestershire County Council said: “I am pleased to say it is now easier for people to report issues and keep updated on repair work. We are always looking for ways to be proactive and improve our highways services.

“This summer we have been trialling new methods to speed-up repairs and engineers have been working day and night to strengthen the road network. Fix My Street is another innovation that will improve things for our customers and boost efficiency. Keeping Gloucestershire moving is a top priority and the council are investing heavily in better roads for residents.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks said: “Since its launch in 2012, every feature of FixMyStreet Pro has been built to meet the needs of councils and their residents. No two integrations of the solution are the same, because no two councils are the same, but they all benefit from its incredible ability to create an end-to-end reporting process that’s as intuitive as possible. We look forward to seeing the impact the solution has for Gloucestershire County Council and its residents.”

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Request a short demo to see how FixMyStreet Pro could work for your authority.

Buckinghamshire Council started using our FixMyStreet Pro solution to manage inbound street, highway and environmental fault reports in 2018. 

Over the years, Buckinghamshire has made the most of FixMyStreet Pro’s ability to flexibly  integrate with any number of other services and software by connecting it to several of its other systems for the benefit of residents and customer services staff. 

FixMyStreet Pro’s integration functionality is particularly useful for when councils want to switch suppliers behind the scenes, while keeping everything consistent and simple to use on the frontend for residents. 

In this case, Buckinghamshire wanted to introduce two new integrations with FixMyStreet Pro, without creating any turbulence for residents.

Alloy and FixMyStreet Pro

Buckinghamshire Council recently switched its highway asset management system from Confirm to Alloy. 

The integration between FixMyStreet Pro and a council’s asset management system is an important one, because data is shared between the two systems, enabling councils to keep residents updated on the status of their reports.

To facilitate a smooth transition, we did a few things to ensure that, as far as Buckinghamshire’s residents are concerned, nothing is any different. These included keeping the display of asset layers the same and maintaining a way to look up the Confirm report ID numbers for reports transferred into Alloy so that no information was lost or required rekeying. 

EvoClaim and FixMyStreet Pro 

EvoClaim is a solution used by Buckinghamshire Council to manage claims from residents for injury or damage sustained to vehicles or property on a highway, so it made sense to incorporate this into the Council’s FixMyStreet Pro environment. 

“This has enabled us to achieve much needed time and resource savings”

This integration enables Buckinghamshire’s FixMyStreet Pro to act as the user-friendly and familiar frontend interface to claims submissions, using the FixMyStreet Pro map to locate the report related to the claim at hand. As with the other two integrations, FixMyStreet Pro sends all of the required data straight into the EvoClaim system.

Speaking about the integration, Amy Thomas, Insurance Claims Manager at Buckinghamshire Council, said: “The open communication and clear requirements/actions set by the project manager at SocietyWorks ensured we were able to meet our goal of implementing a new automated and integrated claim recording process. This has enabled us to achieve much needed time and resource savings.” 

Triaging to parish and town councils without integration

In the county of Buckinghamshire some local services are the responsibility of the unitary authority, while others are that of its 171 town and parish councils, of which approximately 84 are signed up to devolved responsibility.

Last year we introduced some new functionality to Buckinghamshire Council’s FixMyStreet Pro service to enable the automated triaging of reports to the appropriate parish or town council. 

As you can imagine, most small parish or town councils don’t have expensive management systems from which to manage inbound reports, making it hard for them to update residents on the status of their reports in the same way that Buckinghamshire Council can via integration.

To ensure residents are kept in the loop no matter who receives their report, we also built some functionality to make it possible for parish and town councils to update reports via email using a special code in the subject line, which will correspond to the new status of the report.

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Find out more about how integrations work between FixMyStreet Pro and our other digital solutions here.