evince blog

Please find our latest evince bulletin with all the latest news.

evince bulletin

The evince pilot took place between 14^th April -30^th April, with 7 Local Authorities involved: Harrow, Kingston upon Hull, Salford, Sheffield, Peterborough, North Lincs (screenreader testing) and Nottinghamshire. The pilot involved the local authorities using the system with a copy of their own data and performing different day-to-day tasks as they would in the current iChIS system. The purpose of the pilot was for the local authorities to give us feedback on what was working well and what was not working so well so that we could fix it within our development phase for the May release. The feedback we received was very constructive and focused on the usability of the system (speed, navigation, menus etc). The feedback has been added to the list of work for the May release.

We had an excellent time at a procurement event in Hampshire this week, and one of the questions that came up was around the benefits of the hosted model which I thought it was worth blogging for use in LAs business cases.

The evince product follows a Software as a Service (SaaS) model (ie an OL hosted model) which allows Local Authorities to quickly implement the system without making changes to their IT infrastructure. We believe this gives the following benefits:

• Low cost of ownership due to the removal of the requirement for hardware and software to be maintained and supported by the LA.

• Availability of the system from the day of purchase, eliminating a long and costly implementation period.

• Excellent security and availability provided by OL’s datacentre facilities.

• All LAs benefit from a rapid unified development cycle without the implementation cost of upgrades (all modifications to the product will be available to all authorities, with monthly bug fixes releases and quarterly functionality releases.)

• The ability to quickly and flexibly roll the system out to users without the need to build wide area networks or upgrade end user infrastructure (evince runs over secure internet channels and requires only a web browser). This is particularly useful when used in a multi-agency context where users are external to the LAs infrastructure.

• The ability to integrate with both internet resources and LA back office systems through an open architecture which allows secure access to the data held.

• The cost of the system is proportional to the number of users, rather than being set by the cost of the infrastructure. This allows all customers to access a fair price based upon usage rather than be paying an average price no matter the requirement.

• OL is interested in developing the social aspects of the service to leverage the power inherent in cross-LA usage to allow peer-to-peer support and painless information sharing across customers. This would be particularly beneficial to regional or multi-agency groups who would like to work together without initiating a costly infrastructure integration project.

• Supports the shared services agenda by lowering the per user costs through the use of shared infrastructure, whilst leveraging the low cost of utility computing rather than in-house resources.

We believe that the decision to run hosted rather than locally does not equate to the system being closed rather than open. Rather that the key concern should be about access to the data for integration and interoperability rather than the location of the system itself. The philosophy behind the design of evince is that the data held should be easily accessible through standardised interfaces to support LAs integration agendas. A key concern for LAs is the availability and support of interfaces allowing for sustainable integration, rather than closed systems where integration is directly to the data layer and hence prone to failure as systems change.

After a successful first road show in London, with 19 local authorities, where the main focus was ensuring the majority of functionality from iChiS would not be lost in evince, we are happy to report it will not! The evince team regrouped in Cambridge – loaded up and headed off towards the South West for the Bristol Road Show.

8 local authorities attended this road show there was a lot of interest showed and it allowed for more targeted focus group sessions to hear everyone’s views on the planned functionality and the future plans in moving the system forward to meet emerging needs. The team continued to be encouraged by the response to the demos. With representation by some of the larger local authorities it is apparent they are looking to roll out to large numbers of users in multiple settings with slightly differing needs. Being web based, with a low per user cost model evince is easily scalable. Following on from questions at the road shows Opportunity Links will now also be looking at some further pricing structures to make it even more flexible.

The next stage of the journey was up the M5 and onto Birmingham. The Birmingham session saw another full room with over 17 local authorities keen to ask questions and learn more about the system and view the demos of evince. The Google mapping facility was a clear favourite at this venue!

The team then headed to Leeds for the final leg of the tour. 24 local authorities were there for the final road show of the week and saw a weary but upbeat green team make the last presentation and take their final curtain call. Due to the large number of local authorities who have the Opportunity Links Service Directories many people were keen to know how evince would seamlessly link into their directories. The evince team Giles, Mark, Juliette, Kate and Jon really enjoyed meting so many of you, both familiar faces and some new ones. All the feedback was extremely useful, as ever continuing to listen to you; hearing your grass roots needs and concerns and challenges and have taken them on board when looking at evince. Keep talking to us and watch this space…!

The evince roadshows began on Monday with the team holding their first event at Holiday Inn Camden Lock London.

Over 30 local authorities attended to hear about evince, see a demonstration of the system and have the opportunity to ask questions and hear how the roadmap is developing.

The team will be continuing on their ‘tour’ over the next week including road shows in Bristol (Wednesday), Birmingham (Thursday) and London (Friday).