Aligned Assets Present a Practical Strategy for Adopting AddressBase Premium

Aligned Assets have published guidance to aid public and private sector organisations in the implementation of AddressBase Premium

Woking, Surrey 7^th January 2013 – Gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets have released guidance to assist both public sector and private sector organisations in implementing AddressBase Premium from the Ordnance Survey.

With the majority of existing datasets such as AddressPoint, AddressLayer 2 and the NLPG being withdrawn in 2014, the document draws on the necessity for organisations to act sooner rather than later in their migration to AddressBase Premium.

Titled ‘A Practical Strategy for Implementing AddressBase Premium’, the document demonstrates how any organisation can start using AddressBase Premium without the immediate need to change their existing systems over to AddressBase-compatible versions.

It is these existing systems that present the main obstacle to change as they are often large, complex and critical to the organisation, yet will be based on older address datasets or sometimes no structured dataset at all. It is this issue that the document looks to address.

Andy Hird, Managing Director of Aligned Assets, explained more, “The process described involves initially bringing AddressBase Premium into an organisation and access being given to it via a browser based search engine.  With this, technical staff can begin to familiarise themselves with the format and structure of the data, whilst non-technical staff can begin to adapt to elements such as UPRNs and property classifications.”

“Once in place, the process would move to using Aligned Assets’ data conversion software, Symphony iExchange, which can take AddressBase Premium and convert it into standard and non-standard formats.  In doing so, changes to the AddressBase Premium data can be exported to the non-AddressBase systems, thereby keeping them updated.”

Click to read more ...

Law of Street Naming and Numbering Course Announced by Aligned Assets

In Central London on 29^th January 2013, Aligned Assets are running a training course on the Law of Street Naming and Numbering

Woking, Surrey 3rd December 2012 – Gazetteer Specialists Aligned Assets are pleased to announce the next date for their ever-popular ‘Law of Street Naming and Numbering’ training course.

The only course of its kind in the UK, it will be held at Conway Hall in London on Tuesday 29th January 2013 and will be instructed by James Richardson, a trained solicitor with over twenty years of local authority experience.

Street naming and numbering is an essential component of local government, playing a crucial role in everything from the collection of council tax through to waste and recycling.  The laws governing the street naming and numbering process date back to 1847 and in order for the process to operate correctly and within the confines of the law, understanding the legalities involved is of the utmost importance.

The course will examine the various laws such as The Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847, The Public Health Act 1925, The London Building Acts Amendment Act 1939 and The Local Government Act 1972.  In addition to specific legislation, the course will also look at the investigation and prosecution of cases, the role of the Local Government Ombudsman and to which elements of street naming and numbering a charge can be applied.

Speaking of the upcoming course, Managing Director of Aligned Assets, Andy Hird said, “This will be the fifth time we’ve run the Law of Street Naming and Numbering training course and we’re proud to say that to date there is a 100% record of attendees rating it either Very Good or Excellent.”

“At a time when progressively more councils are looking to charge for street naming and numbering services, it is absolutely critical that the law is understood and it is this course that can provide that knowledge.”

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

About Aligned Assets
Aligned Assets are an industry leader in AddressBase, gazetteer and address management solutions.  They supply software across the public and private sectors including over 100 Local Authorities, Fire & Rescue Services and Police Forces.  In addition to software and data solutions, they offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.

The publication of AGI member press releases is a member service. The AGI neither approves or endorses the contents of member's press releases, nor makes any assurance of their factual accuracy.

Aligned Assets Bring Address Point and NLPG Compatibility to AddressBase Premium

Woking, Surrey 13^th November 2012 - With the release of Symphony Bluelight iExchange, gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets can now offer the emergency services a method by which they can automatically convert AddressBase Premium into Address Point and NLPG (National Land and Property Gazetteer) formats.

Designed to allow the emergency services to start working with AddressBase Premium, without the requirement to wait until other systems have been modernised, Symphony Bluelight iExchange will enable a greater level of data integration, efficiency and joined up working.

As a core component of Aligned Assets’ emergency service corporate gazetteer system, Symphony Bluelight iExchange is designed to work alongside the Symphony Bluelight Gazetteer, which enables full management of AddressBase Premium and the creation of local records, plus Symphony SinglePoint, which provides a series of web services for further integration options.

Many emergency services have systems, such as Command & Control, that still run off address data in either the Address Point or NLPG formats, which means they are currently waiting on these systems to be updated before moving to AddressBase Premium.  With AddressBase Premium being the most accurate and up-to-date address data currently available, it is important that they can start using it sooner rather than later.

Symphony Bluelight iExchange allows for changes in a corporate AddressBase gazetteer to be automatically converted to Address Point or NLPG and then exported to other systems at set frequencies – daily, weekly, or even hourly if required.

“Symphony Bluelight iExchange will enable emergency services to have one central source of address data and integrate this data into their third party systems,” explained Andy Hird, Managing Director of Aligned Assets.

Click to read more ...

Aligned Assets Customers Dominate for Second Year Running at the GeoPlace Exemplar Awards

Woking, Surrey 30^th October 2012 – After dominating the 2011 Exemplar Awards, users of the Aligned Assets gazetteer management system have received countless accolades at the 2012 Awards.

At a ceremony in London to recognise outstanding achievement in the use of local authority address and street gazetteer data, Aligned Assets customers won four out of the six major awards, including London Borough of Harrow being announced the winner of the Overall Exemplar Award.

The London Borough of Harrow had earlier in the day won the Integration Award for their innovative project that saw the use of gazetteer data significantly increased across the authority.  In a vote by all 320 delegates, it was this project that was considered to have achieved the most in terms of gazetteer usage and so awarded the top prize.

Other victories included Worthing and Adur Councils who won the Best Example of Street Naming and Numbering Policy Implementation Award, Bath and North East Somerset Council who won the Services Award and Inverclyde Council who were Highly Commended in the Scottish Gazetteer Custodian of the Year category.

The London Borough of Enfield was Highly Commended for Street Naming and Numbering Policy and was also recognised as Best in Region for both Address and Street data.  In addition to Enfield, Aligned Assets customers won a further six Best in Region Awards and a total of 34 were given Gold Awards for either their address or street updating. 

“All of us at Aligned Assets are delighted for those customers whose hard work and dedication over the past twelve months has been formally recognised,” said Managing Director of Aligned Assets Andy Hird.  “Although we would acknowledge that having great software helps, it really is down to the people using that software to make the difference.”

The Exemplar Awards took place during the ‘Everything Happens Somewhere Conference’, which was organised by GeoPlace and held on 25^th October at Friends House in London.

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

About Aligned Assets

Aligned Assets are an industry leader in AddressBase, gazetteer and address management solutions.  They supply software across the public and private sectors including over 100 Local Authorities, Fire & Rescue Services and Police Forces.  In addition to software and data solutions, they offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.

The publication of AGI member press releases is a member service. The AGI neither approves or endorses the contents of member's press releases, nor makes any assurance of their factual accuracy.

Aligned Assets Release the Symphony Blackbox

Woking, Surrey 18^th September 2012 – Gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets can today announce the release of its latest software product – Symphony Blackbox.

Designed to allow local authorities to easily share their central address databases with other council departments, and in doing so reduce costs and increase efficiency, the Symphony Blackbox can be used by any council, irrespective of which other software systems they have installed.

Aligned Assets are the first UK company to offer this level of integration, which is based on technology already in use by over 50 local authorities.

Up to 100 different council systems use address data and in many cases the creation and management of those addresses are untaken within each department.  This expensive duplication of work can result in a multitude of errors as different addresses are entered with different spellings and formatting.  These errors inhibit joined up working and can see a reduction in services to the taxpayer.

Each council in Great Britain will maintain a central database of all addresses within their administrative boundaries known as Local Land and Property Gazetteers (England and Wales) or Corporate Address Gazetteers (Scotland).  Symphony Blackbox works by allowing changes in these single databases to be automatically exported to other systems, thereby removing both duplication of work and the errors that result from it.

Managing Director of Aligned Assets, Andy Hird, said, “We’ve calculated that the Symphony Blackbox has the potential to save each council tens of thousands of pounds every year.”

“It’s compatible with existing infrastructure, so requires no restructuring or upheaval, and its flexible, intuitive design means that those savings can start to be recognised almost instantly.”

For more information visit: www.aligned-assets.co.uk/blackbox

About Aligned Assets

Aligned Assets are an industry leader in AddressBase, gazetteer and address management solutions.  They supply software across the public and private sectors including over 100 Local Authorities, Fire & Rescue Services and Police Forces.  In addition to software and data solutions, they offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.

The publication of AGI member press releases is a member service. The AGI neither approves or endorses the contents of member's press releases, nor makes any assurance of their factual accuracy.