Building a Common Environment for Compliance Data Could be Easier than You Think
Many social housing providers will be familiar with a situation where vital compliance data is held on different systems, in different formats and sometimes without much structure.
This results in knowledge gaps and risks. It’s hard to be confident that all safety checks for electricity, gas, water, asbestos and fire safety are 100% up to date.
Once the Building Safety Bill has been enacted this isn’t a tenable situation. Many social housing providers are actively considering the best way to integrate compliance data from multiple sources and make it usable.
Data Integration – The Benefits
Data integration is like switching on the lights in a darkened room. Suddenly you can see where everything is. With integrated data there’s one version of the truth and it’s easy for everyone to find it. Errors and inefficient duplicate data handling can be eliminated, which is pretty important when you’re dealing with something as critical as safety compliance data.
With integrated data, you’re a step closer to turning hard-to-track data into usable business intelligence. This means you can plan more effectively, control risks and achieve more with fewer resources by eliminating waste and duplicated effort.
The Process
Step one is to clarify the business objectives – what data do you need and what do you want to do with it? A common data environment is likely to have many stakeholders who will access different parts of the data for different reasons – this will influence how the integrated data is structured.
Next, you have to identify and document the relevant data sources including file formats and record layouts so that the data transfer can be automated.
Before migrating data it’s essential that it’s validated and cleaned. There’s little point cluttering up your new environment with data you can’t trust. This should be a one-time exercise for all compliance data as the benefit of integration in a modern system is that it’s much easier to keep business-critical information updated.
A Social Housing Data Migration Tool
Once you’re ready to migrate your compliance data you will need a suitable software tool. Osborne has developed a migration specifically for social housing compliance data that makes the whole process fast and efficient – even if the data sources are multiple spreadsheets and PDF reports.
Bringing compliance data under control might seem like a daunting task. But with the right process and tools it should be relatively straightforward to ‘switch on the lights’ and know exactly where you stand.
For more information contact Alex McLean [email protected] or take a look at our resource centre.
