Community Insight user group meet up

Thanks to all those who attended the Community Insight User Group meet-up last week. We were thrilled with the enthusiasm, feedback and support we received from everyone and are excited to be working with so many of you on the development of Community Insight.

What are people saying?

The meet-up was an excellent opportunity to discuss with users how Community Insight has benefited their organisation so far and in what capacity they are using the tool. We have put together a snippet of the feedback we have received so far about how different organisations are using the tool to improve and target their services.

  • “Community Insight allows us to question our funding and refocus budgets to fit actual needs”  – Circle Housing
  • “We have been able to locate our Welfare Benefit Advisors based on what we can see on Community Insight” – Viridian Housing
  • “Stock types have been useful in seeing how stock managed by different people overlaps. This allows us to work together, rather than feeling isolated”  – Symphony Housing

Future of Community Insight

We’re really pleased with where Community Insight is at the moment, but we know that there are still many ways to make the tool even better. Which is why it’s great to have so many housing associations on board at these early stages, working with us to continuously develop a tool that best suits their needs.

As promised at the user group, we gave users the chance to talk through and prioritise what we develop in the next few months.

1. High priorities

2. Medium priorities

3. Lower priority

Using a highly sophisticated Post-it & dots (TM 😉 ) system, the user group members identified the five features that were of most importance to them. From these notes we have compiled the top three developments which we will be prioritising for development:

1.       Upload your own data

This feature will go live in October this year, allowing users to upload their own data to Community Insight. The most requested feature at the user group meeting, subscribers are eager to be able to use their own data alongside the open data available on Community Insight.

2.       Who’s on my patch?

Community Insight will flag up other organisations that are working locally to you, or in areas that share similar characteristics. The popularity of this feature followed on from an excellent discussion had by all around the importance and benefits of sharing information and finding out who else is working in similar areas or dealing with similar challenges. This adds another element to the ‘Community’ aspect of ‘Community Insight’, and due to its popularity with subscribers will take top priority in future developments.

3.     Update indicators with Police UK data

Many users were keen to see police data at neighbourhood level as an indicator to overlay on the Community Insight map, especially for targeting and reducing anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhoods. We’re working on this for early Autumn, and also intend to include Land Registry open data on property prices.

 

If you can’t see your top priority features on our upcoming development plan, don’t worry! We will be rolling in even more over the next few months. Check back on our Community Insight blog to see the latest updates.

Couldn’t make the user group? We would love to hear from you, whether you are already a subscriber and want to have a chat about how your organisation is using the tool, or simply want to find out more.

 

Coming soon- Community Insight user group meet-up

Community Insight subscribers are invited to the next ‘user group’ meeting which will be held Thursday 11th July 10.00am-2.00pm. This meeting will be held at the HACT offices, in CAN Mezzanine 49-51 East Road, London, N1 6AH (same as last time for those of you who were able to make it).

These on-going sessions give Community Insight subscribers the chance to:

  • Give feedback on Community Insight and any areas that aren’t working to your requirements;
  • Find out how other subscribers are using the tool;
  • Contribute to the prioritisation of product development over the coming months.

The session will specifically address the technical aspects of the programme, providing a training opportunity for new or enhanced features, ‘how-tos’ and will provide an opportunity to address any technical issues you maybe experiencing.

We will also provide a working lunch.

Reserve your space here.

Can’t make it?

Not to worry. Contact us with any issues or comments you wish for us to discuss at the group meeting.

We will post a summary of the event afterwards here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Experiences from the Community Insight user group

Event date: Friday 8th March

A big thank you to all those (Affinity Sutton, Circle Housing Group, Devon and Cornwall Homes, One Housing Group, Orchard, Peabody, Sovereign, Symphony and Tower Hamlets) who came to our first Community Insight user group meet last Friday, and the many others who fed in comments for the event.

It was great to meet with everyone, and have so many users involved in the development of Community Insight over the coming months. The event was a great opportunity to share experiences of using Community Insight so far, and explore how to improve the tool to make it a critical part of targeting and evaluating community investment in your organisations.

Below we have put together a round-up of what went on, and what you can expect from Community Insight over the coming months.

How are you using Community Insight?

Critically, Community Insight is being used to support and evidence the community investment decisions being made by housing providers.

Organisations were using Community Insight to identify changes within their neighbourhood and quickly pull up reports to show and share this information.

Users found that they could quickly break down census data without having to trawl through public sites to find the data, saving time and money.

Importantly, users were able to paint a picture of the ‘external factors and drivers’ within their neighbourhoods and communities.

How has your organisation been using Community Insight? Get in touch here if you have any comments.

What next?

A big focus of the first user group meet-up was to establish what users wanted to get out of the tool. The key functionality that users identified were:

Report on areas without stock: Generate data and report on any area by drawing on the map, not just for those areas where people have stock.

Different stock types: Customise property types (general needs, supported housing, etc.), and turn on/off different types on the map and reports.

Neighbourhood dashboard: Explore and compare data for all stock and neighbourhoods. Select which key indicators you would like to view, and how you would like the data to displayed in order to get the best results.

New functionality will be rolled out every two weeks, and all of the above is in development. So if you don’t see it in the next update (due 15th March), you can expect the new functionality to be rolled out over the coming months. Keep an eye on this blog for changes.

And as always, any feedback or comments? Get in touch!