1st Touch Launches Tenant Self-service App To Drive Efficiency, Value and Client Engagement For Social Housing Organisations

 

1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com) the UK's leading developer of mobile systems for the social housing and local authority sectors has launched a tenant self-service app. The app, which can be fully integrated in real-time with all leading Housing Management Systems, enables a social housing organisation's tenants to submit requests online for a wide range of services. These can range from repairs and maintenance or estate management concerns through to arranging visits from housing officers or conducting rent account queries. The system greatly reduces the pressure on the social housing organisation's call centre staff, whilst significantly enhancing positive client engagement with tenants.

 

When residents are using the app to report a repair for example, the app will raise a request and ask the resident to choose an appointment from 3 or 4 available time slots. Once selected, the app will then auto-schedule the repair and send it to the maintenance operative's mobile device when they are due to attend. Should a tenant need to report an issue like graffiti, the app will raise the request with the appropriate operative or contractor and inform the tenant when the graffiti is due to be removed. It will also inform them when the job has been completed. All the requests and actions generated through the app are automatically fed through to the social housing provider's back-office housing management system.

 

The app, which integrates seamlessly with all existing 1st Touch systems, also represents significant value for money. 1st Touch research estimates that typically on average, each call to a social housing organisation's call centre costs somewhere between £5 and £6 and that each personal visit costs around £14. As many of the issues handled by these call centres can be dealt with online, the potential savings from the self-service tenant app are huge.

 

Commenting on the new system, Robert Dent CEO of 1st Touch noted, "We are constantly exploring ways in which we can help social housing organisations to enhance their customer service. Our new tenant self-service app is just such a development. By allowing tenants to sort out issues themselves 24/7 online and at their own convenience, it provides a better customer experience for them whilst reducing the service delivery costs for their social housing provider. As customer service and value for money considerations are of paramount importance to social housing organisations, we expect demand to be strong."

 

Ends

 

Note to Editors: About 1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com)

 

Southampton based 1st Touch, a subsidiary of Aareon AG (www.aareon.com), has enabled dozens of field workforce-based organisations to embrace new mobile technologies and so achieve significant savings, greater productivity and more cost-effective use of resources. 1st Touch Mobile delivers clear and unique benefits: These include the system's acclaimed 'Smart Airtime' feature where 'airtime' is minimised and the system is always available with or without 'airtime'. The system's flexibility through simple customer control over forms creation and amendment is also widely acclaimed. There is Integration to multiple back office and other enterprise software applications, so that data is entered only once.

 

With its widely acclaimed mobile technology, 1st Touch has a clear focus on the Social Housing and Local Government markets. Many social housing providers and local authorities, at large, now benefit from the fast and tangible, best of breed benefits that 1st Touch mobile technology delivers to the enterprise.

 

To date, over 50% of the social housing market, which has deployed mobile technology, has chosen to implement 1st Touch. In local government, 1st Touch has already been adopted for a wide range of mobile workforce uses. Ready to use applications for local authority organisations include: Public Buildings, Highways/Street Services, Environmental/Waste Management, Revenues and Benefits, together with Planning Control and Trading Standards.

 

1st Touch software is available on a wide variety of platforms including: Windows Mobile, Apple and Android.

 

gateprotect becomes a Member of the German Alliance for Cyber-Security

Hamburg, 15 April 2014 – gateprotect AG Germany, Germany's leading independent IT security specialist, has been admitted as a participant in the Alliance for Cyber-Security. The Alliance for Cyber-Security has been founded in 2012 upon the initiative of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and in cooperation with the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM).

 

As an association of all the important players in the area of cyber-security in Germany, the Alliance pursues the goal of increasing IT security in Germany and strengthening the ability of Germany as an industrial location to defend against cyber-attacks. For this purpose, the Alliance for Cyber-Security is building up an extensive knowledge database and promotes the exchange of information and experience.

 

gateprotect AG is assisting the Alliance for Cyber-Security by providing background information and approaches to solutions for the creation and maintenance of an image of the current situation with respect to cyber-attacks in Germany. Thanks to the cooperation, the response to attacks is speeded up and the effects of attacks may be mitigated.

 

"We are contributing our know-how for the development of innovative, high-tech security solutions in order to indicate effective counter-measures and technical solutions for the defense against future attacks in cooperation with the authorities", says Felix Blank, product manager at gateprotect AG Germany. "IT security 'made in Germany' has got an excellent reputation already today. We are getting involved also at a national level in order to remain a pioneer in the development of reliable security solutions"

 

Download this press release under: http://www.gateprotect.com/

 

About gateprotect
gateprotect AG Germany has been a leading, globally acting provider of IT security solutions in the area of network security for more than ten years. These solutions comprise next generation firewalls with all commonly used UTM functionalities for small companies and the mid-tier, managed security systems for enterprise companies as well as VPN client systems for the interconnection of subsidiaries and home offices. Since 2013, gateprotect has also been offering "Complete Security" - effective protection for networks and endpoints from one source.

 

To quickly assure all-round network protection and the security of mobile devices and endpoints even against targeted cyber-attacks from different sources, gateprotect has developed the eGUI® interface concept. The patented eGUI® technology (ergonomic Graphic User Interface) is extremely easy to operate and increases the factual security in companies by reducing operator errors.

 

The gateprotect solutions comply with highest international standards – for example, the firewall packet filtering core of the new development has been certified in accordance with "Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL 4+)" at the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in March 2013. For the easy operability and comprehensive security of the UTM firewall solutions, gateprotect has been the first German company to be honored with the Frost & Sullivan Excellence Award. Since 2010, gateprotect has furthermore been listed in the renowned "Gartner Magic Quadrant" for UTM firewall appliances.

Citicus provides support for COBIT 5

 

Citicus has signed a licensing agreement with ISACA® to provide support for COBIT 5® in its award-winning risk and compliance management software, Citicus ONE. The combination of Citicus ONE and COBIT 5 provides a unique toolkit for organizations that want to adopt, reference or align with the industry-leading COBIT framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

 

Using Citicus ONE with COBIT 5 will enable organizations to:

 

• Benchmark their enterprise IT against the 37 COBIT 5 enabling processes and their supporting activities
• Assess the status of their information security programme against the COBIT 5 for information security specification
• Identify, record and track actions needed to conform with the COBIT recommended practices
• Monitor progress towards full alignment with the COBIT 5 framework over time.

 

COBIT 5 is the latest edition of ISACA's globally accepted framework, providing an end-to-end business view of the governance of enterprise IT that reflects the central role of information and technology in creating value for enterprises. The principles, practices, analytical tools and models found in COBIT 5 embody thought leadership and guidance from business, IT and governance experts around the world.

 

Citicus ONE is a leading governance, risk and compliance software tool available either as an on-demand hosted service or as an in-house installable solution. As well as supporting COBIT 5, Citicus ONE contains an extensive library of other standards such as ISO27001, PCI-DSS, ISF SoGP and NIST and can be easily customized to incorporate an organization's own policies and standards.

 

Simon Oxley, managing director at Citicus says, "We are delighted to integrate the capabilities of Citicus ONE with the rich content of the COBIT 5 framework. Our customers are under increasing pressure to maximize the benefits from their risk and compliance management activities and the ability to use Citicus ONE as a support tool for COBIT implementation is a real help to them."

Top Books

Hello welcome to topbooks 2014 

Family Life by Akhil Sharma

Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus

Perfect by Rachel Joyce

Another Great Day at Sea by Geoff Dyer
When Dyer delves into a specific topic, he delves deeply, is why we're looking forward to his latest exploration: what life aboard an aircraft carrier is like. As always, he laces his observations with comedy and captivating storytelling.

Orfeo by Richard Powers
Powers fuses science and music via his good-guy-turned-fugitive protagonist, Peter Els. His attempt to discover musical patterns in nature raises suspicions.

Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball
Jesse Ball is the author of this literary crime novel; it's also the name of the narrator, a journalist attempting to get to the bottom of mysterious disappearances, and the silent man who has turned himself in.

Bark by Lorrie Moore
Moore is a master of the short story, and is known for her witty one-liners and pithy observations, especially about domestic relationships in an age when divorce is not uncommon.

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell
Russell's novella will be released as digital-only, an interesting move for the Pulitzer-nominated author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Swamplandia! and St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Her latest work chronicles an insomnia epidemic.

Can't and Won't by Lydia Davis
If any living short story writer pushes the envelope of literary conventions, it's Lydia Davis, whose stories range from detailed descriptions of ostensibly mundane objects to incredibly short, pithy sentences.

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
The author of Room's latest is set in 19th-century San Francisco, and is based on the unsolved murder of a woman who was no law-abiding citizen herself.

The News: A User's Manual by Alain de Botton

de Botton examines excerpts of contemporary news, mixing them with philosophical observations about the impact the news has on us, why we rely on it so heavily, and how it impacts the way in which we see the world.

Every Day Is for the Thief by Teju Cole
The author of Open City has penned a novel about a Nigerian who returns home after spending years abroad.

The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol
The National Book Foundation chose Molly Antopol as one of their 5 Under 35 nominees last year. Her debut work of fiction is a short story collection about political dissidents, actors imprisoned during the Red Scare, and others feeling disillusioned with their country.

California by Edan Lepucki
Lepucki's debut paints a picture of a very real-seeming dystopian future, as the novel's two protagonists flee what used to be Los Angeles, only to find new dangers while seeking a community in which to raise their child.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
The author of 1Q84 has written another book as puzzling as it is difficult to put down. Tsukuru Tazaki has been mysteriously abandoned by his friends, so he visits them one by one to discover why.

An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay
This will be Gay's first novel, about the kidnapping of the daughter of a very rich man in Haiti. If it's anything like her fabulous essays, which cover every corner of the world of contemporary pop culture, it's sure to be a hit.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
The author of Mr. Fox serves up an inventive retelling of the Snow White story, centering around Boy, a woman who marries a widow and gives birth to a son, Bird, whose dark skin reveals that the family has been attempting to "pass" as white.

Thirty Girls by Susan Minot
A journalist travels to Africa, hoping to tell the story of young girls like Esther, a Ugandan teenager who has been captured by the Lord's Resistance Army, in Minot's latest novel.

Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li
Three friends witness a crime; one of them may have committed it. Li's novel undulates back and forth between present-day America and China in the 90s, to tell their story.

What's Important is Feeling by Adam Wilson
The author of Flatscreen has written a collection of short stories, one which appeared in the Best American Short Stories anthology in 2012 - so it's safe to say he knows a thing or two about the art form.

Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn
Kirn's latest fuses meme oir with crime reporting, creating a compelling story about his 15-year relationship with Clark Rockefeller, who, Kirn discovers, is guilty of child kidnapping and murder.

Source

Pinging (blogging)

In blogging, a ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated.^[1] An XML-RPC signal is sent from the weblog to one or more "Ping Server(s)" (controlled by the weblog) to notify a list of their "Services" of new content on the weblog.

A Ping Server may notify multiple services when pinged;^[2]

• Search Engines
• Website Directories
• News Websites
• Aggregators
• Feed Websites
• And Many Others  Source 

Now that you know this fact start

1. Open site http://pingomatic.com in your Internet browser.
   
2. In the "Blog Name" box enter "About "
   
3. In the "Blog Home Page" box enter "http://"
   
4. Then in "Common Services" click "Check All" to have all services be selected.
   
5. Then click the "Send Pings" button.
   
6. Open site http://autopinger.com in your Internet browser.
   
7. In the "Url" box enter "http://"
   
8. Then click the "Start Ping" button.
   
9. Open site http://www.pingmyblog.com in your Internet browser.
   
10. In the "Blog Name" box enter "About "
    
11. In the "Blog URL" box enter "http://"
    
12. Then click "Check All" to have all services be selected.
    
13. Then click "I agree with Terms Of Service".
    
14. Then click the "Ping MY Blog" button.
    
15. Open site http://www.feedping.com in your Internet browser.
    
16. In the "Blog / Site Name:" box enter "About "
    
17. In the "Blog / Site URL " box enter "http://"
    
18. Then click "Check All" to have all services be selected.
    
19. Then click "I agree to Terms of Service".
    
20. Then click the "PING ONLY ONCE" button.
    
21. Open site http://blogsearch.google.com/ping in your Internet browser.
    
22. In the "Your blog's address:" box enter "http://
    
23. Then click the "Submit Blog" button.
    
24. Open site http://pingler.com in your Internet browser.
    
25. In the "Website Name or Title:" box enter "About
    
26. In the "Website Url:" box enter "http://
    
27. Then enter text in the captcha image in "Enter the Captcha Text" box.
    
28. Then click the "Ping My Site" button.