Integration takes centre stage at UK Gazetteer Best Practice Day

With over 60 delegates from more than 30 public sector organisations, the most recent Aligned Assets sponsored UK Gazetteer Best Practice Day proved to be the most successful yet.

Held at the offices of the London Borough of Southwark, themselves champions of Best Practice, there were six presentations, with themes ranging from web services at Cardiff Council, to the combining of the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) with the One Scotland Gazetteer (OSG) by the British Transport Police.

The purpose of the Best Practice Day was to enable members of the gazetteer community to come together and share ideas and information. Through this, a better service can be offered to the public as well as improving efficiency that will ultimately save the tax payer money. This joint purpose was succinctly summed up by Ewa Platcha of the London Borough of Hackney who did a presentation on their award winning ‘Citizen Index’. “A Local Authority is a business in which the citizens are the customer, and therefore its success is determined by the quality of the interaction between them.”

The event as a whole was best summed up by Stella Morris of Canterbury City Council who described it as, “A very interesting day with a lot of useful information. I will certainly be taking back some ideas with me to have a go implementing.”

A full report of the event will be available in the April/May 2010 edition of the GEOconnexion UK magazine and information about the next Best Practice Day is available from www.aligned-assets.co.uk/events.

Next Meeting of the Symphony User Group Announced

The next meeting of the Symphony User Group (SUG) has just been announced for 21st May 2010 at Bath & NE Somerset Council, Keynsham Offices, Bristol, BS31 1LA.

The event is free of charge for all members of the Symphony User Group, whilst non-members can attend at a cost of £40 per person. If you are a member, you can bring along up to two colleagues for only £15 each.

The Symphony User Group focuses on your needs as an LLPG and/or LSG expert and is always a special event with opportunities to meet with other users of the Symphony Suite, see presentations of the latest products from Aligned Assets, hear about latest industry developments and quiz the AA team on all Symphony-related matters.

Southampton City Council joins with Aligned Assets

Gazetteer Specialists Aligned Assets are delighted to announce that Southampton City Council has chosen Symphony iManage for their street gazetteer management.

Symphony iManage is an industry leading gazetteer management system that will be used by Southampton City Council for the management of their Local Street Gazetteer and Associated Street Data.

Southampton had a requirement for a new system that was capable of exporting data in a DTF 7.1 format, and that was also fully compliant with the Traffic Management Act EToN 5 Technical Specifications. Not only was Symphony iManage an obvious choice because of its compliance with the standards, but because Aligned Assets have a well-earned reputation as a company that will always meet new standards on time.

With the new system installed, the next plan is to integrate Symphony iManage with other systems, including the Confirm® Street Works from Pitney Bowes MapInfo.

Mike Smith, Sales & Marketing Manager at Aligned Assets said of the agreement, “The management of street data is of vital importance, a fact that is reflected in the many standards that are needed to be met. In Symphony iManage we have a system that is not only consistently compliant to the latest standards but allows the user to save time and money, both in an intuitive and user-friendly way.”

To find out more visit www.aligned-assets.co.uk/imanage

UK Gazetteer Best Practice Day proving the most popular yet

Old Woking, Surrey 18th January 2010 – An unprecedented level of response has met the announcement of the forthcoming Aligned Assets/GEO:connexion UK sponsored Gazetteer Best Practice Day.

To be hosted at Southwark Council on 24th February 2010, the list of attendees already exceeds 45 organisations from across local government, the police force and the fire and rescue service.

Confirmed for the day are best practice presentations on the use of web services to centralise your gazetteer, the use of the NLPG for out of area working, overcoming the complexities of rural & urban addressing, preparations for Census 2011, placing the NLPG at the heart of a Citizen Index and a special presentation from the British Transport Police.

Speaking about the event, Carl Hancock of Aligned Assets said, “Everyone working with gazetteers, whether in local government or the emergency services knows the importance of their work. Address Management might not be the most glamorous aspect of the GIS world, but it remains one of the most important and this Gazetteer Best Practice Day will be placing that work at the heart of the debate.”

To find out more visit www.aligned-assets.co.uk/events

UK Gazetteer Best Practice Day announced for 24th February 2010

After a hugely successful event at Cardiff Council in October, the date for the second UK Gazetteer Best Practice Day has been announced as 24th February 2010.

The event, that is sponsored by Gazetteer Specialists Aligned Assets and held in association with GEO:connexion UK, will be hosted by the London Borough of Southwark and is designed for all people involved in either gazetteer management directly or those who use gazetteer data such as GIS specialists.

The Gazetteer Best Practice Day is intended to give a comprehensive introduction to best practice in gazetteering through the first hand experiences of those that regularly use gazetteers. With presentations from a variety of different organisations there will be an exploration of core management functions through to the linking of data within and between systems in order to deliver joined up services.

Those attending will gain the opportunity to explore best practice not only with the speakers but with a number of other gazetteer custodians from around the country.

Founder of Aligned Assets, Phil Gee spoke about the upcoming event, “When we were planning for the Best Practice Day in Cardiff, we had no idea how popular it would prove to be. Comments from attendees such as ‘…a welcome initiative and a useful addition to the usual practitioner events’ convinced us to hold another one. With the support of GEO:connexion UK, we are hoping that this one will be even bigger and better.”

Attendance is completely free of charge and suggested attendees include local authorities, fire & rescue services, police forces, ambulance services, national parks, passenger transport executives…indeed anyone who has involvement with gazetteers.

More information is available by emailing carl.hancock@aligned-assets.co.uk or by visiting www.aligned-assets.co.uk/events


ABOUT ALIGNED ASSETS
Aligned Assets are an industry leader in gazetteer and address management solutions. They supply software to over 90 Local Authorities as well as the FiReControl Project, the British Transport Police and Transport for London. They are the UK’s first reseller of the NLPG, providing superior address management across the commercial and public sectors. In addition to software and data solutions they can offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.

GEO:connexion UK Magazine available to readers in the UK bimonthly. It includes news, features and community pages devoted to the UK's GI industry. Its special focus areas are on E-Government, Health, Public Safety, Retail, Environmental, Utilities, Surveying, Location-Based Services, Transport/Logistics and Telecommunications.

To view the magazine go to www.geoconnexion.com

The first NLPG reseller unveiled as Aligned Assets

Gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets can today announce the signing of an agreement with Intelligent Addressing that will see them become the UK’s very first reseller of National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) data.

Through this agreement, Aligned Assets will be bringing the huge benefits of accurate addressing and standardisation to the whole of the commercial sector, as well as public sector organisations looking to use England and Wales’ most authoritative and definitive address list.

User-friendly licensing terms for the NLPG have removed the restrictive costs associated with other datasets and has opened up accurate addressing to smaller organisations that might only require data for their specific area.

The NLPG data that is available for purchase from Aligned Assets ranges from small subsets covering local authority areas, up to regional subsets, right through to data for the whole of England and Wales. Regardless of size, all users will be in receipt of the NLPG’s greatest benefit –updates available every working day.

Unlike other address datasets, the NLPG is updated on a continual basis by every local authority in England and Wales - the bodies with statutory responsibility for street naming and numbering. What this means is that every new property built, every change of use and every demolition is filtered through the local authorities, and onto the end user.

Founder of Aligned Assets, Phil Gee spoke about their experience, “A core aspect of our business is address management within local government – the creators of the NLPG. This places us in the unique position of working directly with, and influencing those, that are responsible for the accuracy of the NLPG.

“Additionally, we work closely with emergency services that use the NLPG to support their mission critical and life saving work. Because of this we have extensive experience in providing fast, reliable solutions that we now look forward to providing to the wider market.”

Aligned Assets will be holding a series of events throughout 2010 to introduce prospective users of the NLPG to its benefits and potential applications. The first two of these events are for Housing Associations and will be held on the 20th & 21st January at their offices in Surrey.

For more information visit www.aligned-assets.co.uk


ABOUT ALIGNED ASSETS
Aligned Assets are an industry leader in gazetteer and address management solutions. They supply software to over 90 Local Authorities as well as the FiReControl Project, the British Transport Police and Transport for London. They are the UK’s first reseller of the NLPG, providing superior address management across the commercial and public sectors. In addition to software and data solutions they can offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.

LGIH Acknowledgement:
“The copyright in the NLPG is owned by LGIH”.
Royal Mail:
“The copyright in all PAF is owned by Royal Mail Group plc”
Ordnance Survey:
© Crown copyright 2009. License number 100044016.”

Aligned Assets users celebrate success at the Exemplar Awards

Gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets are delighted to announce that 12 of their customers were recognised across 15 separate categories at the 2009 Exemplar Awards.

The Awards, which celebrate achievements in public sector use of the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) and National Street Gazetteer (NSG), saw a total of nine wins by users of Aligned Assets’ gazetteer management system, Symphony, plus three runners up and three highly commended.

The London Area saw a clean sweep for Aligned Assets with Redbridge scoping the Award for Best NLPG in Greater London and Enfield for Best NSG. The Welsh also witnessed domination from Symphony users with Monmouthshire selected as Best in Wales for the NLPG and the Isle of Anglesey collecting the award for Best NSG.

Additional victories were seen with Exeter City Council winning Best in South West Region for NLPG and Wokingham, Walsall and North East Lincolnshire each winning their respective regions for Best NSG.

This is the fourth year in a row that has seen success for the users of Symphony. Speaking after the awards, founder of Aligned Assets, Phil Gee said, “What these awards show is the consistently high level of excellence amongst our user base. Key to achieving this excellence is dedication and hard work, so I applaud all our customers who realised success.”

Aligned Assets are an industry leader in gazetteer software solutions. They supply over 90 Local Authorities as well as the FiReControl Project, the British Transport Police and Transport for London. In addition to providing GIS and address management software they can offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke solutions and project management.

Visit: www.aligned-assets.co.uk

Full list of Aligned Assets awards:

NLPG Best Business Process Transformation
- Highly Commended Exeter City Council
Most Innovative Use
- Highly Commended Canterbury City Council
NLPG FireControl Award for the Best Integration
of the NLPG by a Fire and Rescue Service
- Runner-up Kent Fire & Rescue Service
NLPG Ministry of Justice Award for the Best Implementation
of the Electoral Registration Data Standard
- Runner-up High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Strategic Alliance
NLPG Best in Greater London
- Winner London Borough of Redbridge
NLPG Best in South East Region
- Runner-up Adur District Council
NLPG Best in South West Region
- Winner Exeter City Council
NLPG Best in Wales
- Winner Monmouthshire County Council
NSG Most Improved
- Winner Isle of Anglesey County Council
NSG Best in Greater London
- Winner London Borough of Enfield
NSG Best in South East Region
- Winner Wokingham Borough Council
NSG Best in Wales
- Winner Isle of Anglesey County Council
NSG Best in West Midlands Region
- Winner Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council
NSG Best in Yorkshire & Humberside Region
- Winner North East Lincolnshire Council
Best Integration of the NLPG & NSG
- Highly Recommended Monmouthshire County Council