Estate management configuration overview
The process of estate management has a number of contributory factors that need to be configured at the outset in order to inform daily activities, operations and functions. These configuration components enable the housing organisation to define specific parameters in line with their own procedures and standards, underpinned by the creation of internal Service Level Agreements that provide monitoring and tracking controls for all estate management cases. Additional values and attributes can be appended to the records at any time, as required, although maintaining comprehensive information from the start will reap its own rewards. There are four key components that fall under the category of estate management configuration: estate management escalation rule maintenance, estate management task maintenance, estate management inspection type maintenance and estate management record maintenance. When devising estate management inspection types and the underlying tasks that will drive forward their progression, it is important to remember that they should be community-oriented and make a positive contribution towards improving neighbourhoods. Their inherent structure and usability should also focus on making processes easier, more streamlined and at the same time empower estate managers to deliver value-added services.
Estate Management Escalation Rule Maintenance - All cases launched as part of a holistic estate management implementation programme can be service level driven and form an integral part of a wider Service Level Agreement (SLA). Escalation rules define the automatic events to be triggered in the instance where a case or inherent task exceeds the SLA target, or reaches a predefined warning period. The escalation process would typically notify the case or task owner, and potentially members of a stakeholder group - tenant inspectors or the neighbourhood policing team - using customised communication templates. The escalation process is not just a one-off exercise but rather subsequent follow-on rules can be defined and triggered in the event that, say, a task has stagnated beyond a defined period. Open cases and tasks can therefore be continually tracked and actively progressed through to a successful outcome.
Estate Management Task Maintenance - A task is a specific activity that forms part of the initial estate management planning, risk assessment, inspection actions or outcomes, and coordinated through the creation of an overarching case. Each estate management case is steered by its associated inspection type, which in turn comprises one or more related tasks, and it is these tasks that define how the case will be progressed. Any number of discrete tasks can be linked to an estate management case, with a specific attribute governing whether each can appear more than once within the same execution plan. Recurrent tasks can also be configured to facilitate specific activities that need to be repeated over a defined period or until such time as a particular outcome is achieved. In structuring all the activities that are relevant to a case, tasks can be added manually at the point of need, or they can be linked automatically by virtue of their existence within an underlying workflow path. Dictated by the nature of the assigned tasks, dependencies can be configured between them to restrict the point at which related tasks are commenced.
Estate Management Inspection Type Maintenance - These are the building blocks of all estate management cases and represent the structured framework used to define the scope of inspections, walkabouts and housing surgeries. Such inspections are seen as the main vehicle for monitoring standards around estate safety and security, cleanliness and presentation, as well as gathering tenant feedback on issues that impact on the enjoyment of their home. Any number of inspection types can be created to cover the range of estate classifications that are managed through the housing organisation (blocks, streets, allotments, garages, green spaces, etc.), with intrinsic activities that support their drive towards maintaining a regular and visible presence within the community.
Estate Management Record Maintenance - Any number of individual estate records can be created to mirror residential areas and green spaces that fall within the jurisdiction of the housing organisation; thus the term 'estate' is simply used to reference and compartmentalise any specific building or locality. When defining a new estate record, it would typically be mapped through to an asset hierarchy node via a connection to the overarching functional unit, which in turn represents a group of assets, whether they be a block of flats, a collection of houses on a street, a row of garages, green spaces, car parking zones, allotments, etc.
Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of estate management configuration, including: