Kirsty Capper, Warrington's Director of Resources, discussing their experience of HomeMaster

In 2019, Warrington Housing Association (Warrington) needed to replace their legacy housing management and finance systems. Having had to deal with separate HMS and finance systems for years, Warrington now wanted a fully integrated system.

After exhausting traditional routes for the procurement of a new system, Warrington needed to consider alternatives.  Designer Software’s new HomeMaster system had been a consideration due to what appeared impressive functionality and price, but as it had only been recently launched it was considered unproven and too great a risk. At 1,300 units, Warrington knew they would be one of Designer Software’s largest clients.

Warrington contacted 3C to explore if this concern could be overcome. An appraisal of options was carried out and the result provided the confidence in HomeMaster that was needed. A visit to a Glasgow reference site (600-700 units), granted further reassurance. This HA had been live on HomeMaster for a few months and although the operation was smaller than Warrington’s, it quickly became evident that the HomeMaster system was improving efficiencies and giving valuable time back to colleagues.

The Warrington Board approved the procurement and HomeMaster was purchased in March 2020.

“It is outstanding value for money.  If I tell you that in terms of annual outlay, we can enjoy almost 20 years of HomeMaster compared to the indicative cost of other systems considered.”

Despite the challenges that the Covid lockdown suddenly provided, the implementation was managed smoothly and Warrington went live on HomeMaster after only 6 months, on 5th October.

The ambition had been to implement the whole HomeMaster suite at once and this was achieved. Warrington had appointed internal project leads and a number of department based champions. It was made clear from the start that this was not just an IT project but a cross-organisational transformation project. A large proportion of the implementation was managed remotely using Microsoft Teams as a collaboration tool, which was a new way of working for all involved, but the project team were very proud of what was achieved.

Staff training utilised a ‘Train the Trainer’ approach, training a group of staff who then trained the rest of the Warrington team. This proved successful and increased the level of expertise internally.

Additional support was provided via online guides and videos that were created internally. This provided additional support for staff who could be told to “watch the video”.

Throughout the implementation Designer Software were extremely responsive, often making requested changes immediately. Indeed, nothing Warrington asked for was refused and any development to the solution was immediately provided to all other HomeMaster customers at no additional cost. Designer Software provided a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and a monthly report on performance regarding support calls which was considered very helpful.

Warrington had been clear that they didn’t want a bespoke system, but were willing to adapt where possible to a solution that was based on best practice principles. The fact that all HomeMaster customers utilise the same solution provides proof that the vast majority of what many registered social housing providers do is principally the same.

Since go-live, Warrington has committed to carrying  out a regular review of what has gone well and what’s taking more time than it used to and therefore needs further support., It is estimated that there are already savings of approx. 1.5 days/week. A few things are taking slightly longer, but Designer Software are actively addressing this to provide even more time saving.

4 Months on from go-live, the feedback from Warrington is that HomeMaster is really intuitive and easy to use. They became proficient in a far shorter time than expected. A number of applications are no longer used, including SurveyMonkey as customer satisfaction is now managed straight from HomeMaster. The strategic goal of migrating IT to the cloud has moved forward at pace, HomeMaster being provided from the cloud, allows staff to access anytime from anywhere with internet access. With an integrated HMS, finance system, contractor system and customer portal, the only remaining requirement is a document management system. Microsoft SharePoint and the rest of the 365 suite should address this and as HomeMaster’s open API’s (interfaces that allow HomeMaster to be seamlessly connected to other applications), means integration of the two systems should be easy.

Kirsty Capper, Warrington’s Director of Resources, said that she could not praise Designer Software and HomeMaster enough. She is impressed by the continued development of the system, including the recent HMRC accreditation (‘making tax digital’), which is allowing them to get rid of yet another application. She said that there are more enhancements to come, including service charges. The contractor portal has proved fantastic providing “huge time saving if you can get your contractors on board”. Many very manual processes have already transferred to HomeMaster or are in the process of doing so, for example component accounting spreadsheet,  the planned maintenance spreadsheet, the Gas spreadsheets and stock conditions surveys. Kirsty is keen to support Designer Software to build regulatory returns into HomeMaster (a feature already available in Scotland).

Kirsty finished by confirming what she considered to be the top 3 benefits of HomeMaster:

• Fully integrated web based hosted platform with a single database
• Speed of implementation
• Cost

Kirsty said “It is outstanding value for money.  If I tell you that in terms of annual outlay, we can enjoy almost 20 years of HomeMaster compared to the indicative cost of other systems considered.”