NDL

Oxford City Council implements joint Lagan/ndl solution

Oxford City Council and its 151,000 citizens have benefited from a new partnership between government software supplier Lagan and integration specialist NDL. Capitalising on the complementary solutions provided by these two organisations, the Council is now giving front-office customer-facing staff access from its Lagan Enterprise Case Management (ECM) system into back-office housing, workforce scheduling and repairs booking systems. The move is delivering a seamless process between front and back office, resulting in significant time savings, and better customer satisfaction.

There has been a significant growth in the use of ECM/CRM systems by local authorities, which they now regard as critical for cost reductions and service transformation. According to a recent report by NDL*, Lagan continues to dominate the UK market, with over a quarter of all local authority installations. The same survey also revealed that the biggest challenge facing the success and effectiveness of CRM systems is lack of integration with the back office: this issue is addressed by the collaboration between Lagan and NDL.

This new partnership between Lagan and NDL offers NDL’s universal adaptor integration technology as an integral part of Lagan’s Enterprise Case Management (ECM) solution. Councils therefore have an immediate, complete and cost-effective way to integrate new ECM implementations with existing back office applications.

Oxford City Council has used NDL’s awiSX and awiDX application integration technology to link its new Lagan Enterprise Case Management system to its existing Northgate housing management, Xmbrace OptiTime workforce scheduling and Civica Servitor repairs booking applications. This enables front-office staff to handle tenants’ requests for repairs in one phone call, giving them a confirmed appointment and scheduling operatives instantly.

According to Ben Brownlee, Head of Business Transformation at Oxford City Council: “While we realised the significant benefits that an ECM/CRM solution would deliver, we needed a credible solution for integration with the back office: without it, our investment in would not have been as effective. Using individual vendor APIs could have been expensive and inflexible. This combined proposition from Lagan and NDL meant we were able to implement an Enterprise Case Management solution, and integrate it cost-effectively with existing and disparate applications at the same time. As a result, we can give our customers a better level of service , drive efficiencies and cut costs.”

* CRM Systems and Integration in Local Authorities is based upon telephone interviews of practitioners representing 184 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, carried out from June 2008 onwards. Only one interview was conducted per authority with appropriate candidates identified by job title. Copies of the report are available from info@ndl.co.uk. The survey was carried out by NDL in conjunction with Public Sector Forums (www.publicsectorforums.co.uk)

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