It was when four new systems went live for four new customers all on our cloud hosted ESB platform. To go from initial contact with a Council through to going live with a customised system in less than a month is a rarity in local government. But to do it for something that would be under serious scrutiny from the public and press all without any major issues was testament to the hard work put in by all the authorities and Pentagull!

So, a big welcome and congratulations on the successful and well received relaunches of their HWRC services to our new customers Aberdeenshire Council, Denbighshire County Council, The City of Edinburgh Council and Moray Council. I don’t think I have seen so much positivity online about a council service in a long time!

This all started at the beginning of May, we decided we were going to send out details offering a solution to aide in services re-opening while maintaining the safety of residents and officers through a social distancing booking system.

While authorities have had numerous ideas for uses the most popular one has been to aid in reopening tips.

It was easy to see why authorities were looking at a booking system because the press was littered with examples of long queues, unhappy residents and roads being blocked when booking systems were not adopted

For a lot of authorities, the most sensible option was going to be introducing a booking system to manage demand.

Our customers were spot on, with significant demand for each customers sites as evident in the numbers of people requesting slots before any site had even opened. It’s clear to see in the news headlines of 3-hour queues that this could quite easily have been our new customers without a booking system.

The part we got spot on was getting our product and infrastructure right. This meant that when we launched despite launching 4 councils in the same week, we did not have any of the system outages that were being reported in the press at other authorities. There are a multitude of factors at play in this, but the most notable two are, having a product fit for purpose that we understand from the ground up, we created it and we understand it inside and out so we know how to leverage it to get the best results. The second is selecting the right hosting provision to ensure we are always able to meet our customer’s needs. In AWS we have a partner that provides us with what we need when we need it and that means being able to meet a rush of demand without service outages.

Now as amazing as the last few weeks have been, I thought things would have quietened down a little now that all the recycling centres are up and running, but they haven’t. Authorities are now looking to replace booking systems they started with but that are not giving them the functionality they need, and authorities are looking to implement booking solutions as a permanent option for HWRC sites and it’s easy to see why.

Not only does a booking system help keep your roads safer, your staff safer and your residents safer. It also gives you data about usage of your sites that you probably didn’t have access to before, it lets you plan your staffing levels around demand and it will give you information about which tips need more resource and which need less helping you manage your resources more effectively.

If you have a solution that just isn’t working for you or you simply want to introduce a system moving forwards to make your sites safer and more efficient then get in touch.

Our prices are competitive, and we can implement our system in as little as 7 days.