The post JD Wetherspoon appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>JD Wetherspoon was in the process of migrating all its operating systems from Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2010, which was when the interface changed to the Ribbon instead of toolbars. With such a large real estate portfolio and workforce the company soon recognised that to succeed in this enormous undertaking, the entire staff that use the software would need training on the new version of Office 2010. Black Swan was engaged to carry out that staff training programme.
Black Swan uses accredited Microsoft training professionals that had experience of many of the Microsoft packages including: Office, CRM Dynamics and SharePoint. After meeting with the senior managers of the business, it was decided that Black Swan would provide headoffice staff with a half-day update covering the new interface and main new features of the Office 2010 package. With such a large employee base it was also decided that Black Swan would back up the ‘facetoface’ training with online learning enabling staff to further refresh their knowledge or learn more about the product.
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]]>The post KBA Software appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Unable to maintain an in-house training department to deliver training solutions to its clients, Black Swan was contracted to deliver training on behalf of KBA, providing that service in an effective manner at fraction of the in-house cost.
Recognising that you wouldn’t get a mechanic to teach you how to drive, Black Swan set about learning all aspects of the KBA software products, which was a huge undertaking but one that Black Swan was comfortable with, relishing the challenge. Black Swan initially learnt the client’s processes and then developed the relevant training modules for each software package before writing the training course notes. Black Swan then delivered the training courses both at KBA customer sites as well as at KBA’s own head office.
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]]>The post Reading Borough Council appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Black Swan Training was tasked to provide tailor-made training to over a thousand members of staff at Reading Borough Council. Called in at a very late stage because the in-house trainer wasn’t competent, the most important element of Black Swan Training’s approach was to emphasise the application of the software rather than its features, thereby making the training a valuable contribution rather than a bolt-on process.
Initially Black Swan Training conducted a training pilot that highlighted the operational and structural challenges that were present in Reading Borough Council’s children’s service. This gave a true and invaluable snapshot of the operation and helped with the ensuing programme development. Not only was the software new, but so were the processes which meant Black Swan had to teach the new processes as much as the new software.
Black Swan developed training courses around fictional cases using the new procedures, delivering similar programmes for a number of the other services, including: children, adults and mental health, all of which had their own procedures and cases.
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]]>The post Pearce & Co appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Pearce & Co needed a database in which they could record details of their clients’ rental properties. This would include details of the property and the landlord, the rental value of the property, the dates of various reviews, as well as other important statutory information and critical dates.
Using its extensive knowledge of the Microsoft platform, Black Swan developed a solution using an Excel spreadsheet. The key was creating a procedure that would be simple to operate by all staff, where data could be easily input and retrieved at will. Black Swan included the ability for the users to access properties via ‘buttons to view’, in addition to adding new properties, editing those properties or deleting them as and when required.
Once the system was built, staff were all trained in its operation ensuring the whole company could access key data from client properties, with Black Swan being on call to answer any queries, in addition to hand holding during its implementation.
Easy recording of data
Clearer visibility of critical dates
Better management of the portfolio
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]]>The post SET Marketing appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Their Sales Director said “Black Swan have made our life easier by designing a Sales Quote template that is really easy to use. We were using an off-the-shelf package to create quotes, but it didn’t fit in with the way we work. Creating a quote was time consuming and frustrating. Black Swan designed a Word template that looks exactly as we wanted and is automated to make it quick and easy to complete and saves us lots of time. They also gave us advice on reducing our paperwork. They were a pleasure to work with and I’d recommend them to any business that wants to save time, energy and money.”
They needed a simple template so they can quickly create good looking quotes.
We created a Word template incorporating their branding that enables the items in the quote to be listed with an image and costings more easily that the complex ‘off-the-shelf’ package.
Better looking quote
Faster client service
Time saved
Reduced user frustration
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]]>The post Natural Travel Collection appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Their Director says “I would fully endorse Black Swan as an excellent IT development and data solution company. Through their reassuringly thorough knowledge of various IT applications they provide outstanding workable solutions.
This start-up business needed a system bespoke to its operational needs where the staff could record and manage all client bookings. Rather that implementing an ‘off-the-shelf’ system used by much of the travel industry, which may have had more functionality than was required, the business felt tailoring a system directly to its own needs was the way to go. This was key to its client satisfaction, as the Natural Travel Collection tailor makes its holidays commensurate with the needs of its clients, hence the booking system also needed that flexibility.
After discussing the needs of the business with the directors, Black Swan created a list of requirements that the new system needed to address. Once it was understood how the customer experience needed to look for the client end and what the team within the business needed to do to make that happen, Black Swan built the system.
This incorporated a booking system to select the components of the holiday including: multiple accommodations for tour members, specific client needs, and different flights requirements for different members of the overall party, to name but a few. The system also incorporated CRM functionality, providing data for mail-shots, marketing and management reports.
As with all Black Swan projects, the final phase was to train the staff on all elements of the new package, before setting it live.
Comprehensive Information
Fast look-up and processing
Easy distribution of brochures
Quick response to enquiries
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]]>The post SCraft appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Their supplier was processing orders in an Excel format that was not suitable for the UK market so the company employed somebody to copy and paste the information into another spreadsheet that was compatible with the UK operation. This process was far too longwinded and had to be changed.
As the company doubled in size and re-doubled again and again their need for their IT to work harder grew with it.
Sales Order Processing (SOP), Purchasing, Logistics, Credit Control and Invoicing were all areas that needed their data to be processed with less human input.
Black Swan upgraded the Excel spreadsheet, making it into a sophisticated order form with a series of ‘drop downs’ and limitations on what could be entered. This reduced the number of errors in each order and assured customers got exactly what they ordered.
Black Swan automated the transfer of each order to the factory, which included sending an email to the supplier, with an order acknowledgement to the customer. This meant that the process that previously took most of a working day to complete, now took an hour!
The business has grown and developed and whilst turnover is ten times what it was, the existing order processing team has grown from two to five people, comfortably managing the significant increase in sales orders.
With all these orders coming through we added a SOP (Sales Order Processing) database to track their sales and provide better customer service.
This was followed by an online ordering system creating orders directly into the database, automatically ordering from the factory and further enhancing the customer service.
Once the order had been manufactured, our system processed the shipment information and enabled easy delivery planning.
Finally, the invoice was produced and sent out.
Improved productivity
Fewer mistakes
Better information
Fully Automated order processing including fulfilment and invoicing
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]]>The post Hillside Clubhouse IPS Database appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>The Executive Director says: “We have worked with Laurence over a number of years to develop case management and reporting databases. Some of our reporting requirements are quite complex but Laurence takes time to get under the bonnet and understand what the needs and issues are. I always find him and Black Swan to be incredibly responsive and helpful and support is always there when we need it.”
Hillside Clubhouse are contracted to local authorities to provide an IPS-style (Individual Placement and Support) service within the area. This requires tracking of the client’s personal details, health and employment records, interventions and outcomes. A key element is reporting to the service commissioners.
Because interviews might be held at the client’s home, an internet connection could not be relied on so the data needed to work offline as well as when connected.
Because Hillside provide a service that is more than IPS, we custom-built an application in Microsoft Access to provide the screens for the caseworkers to record the referral, assessments, employment and outcomes using categories and descriptions that meet the commissioners requirements. Included in the functionality was multi-user environment and the ability to take a client-record “offline”.
Comprehensive case recording
Easy case reference
Accurate status tracking
Clear reporting
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]]>The post Did Excel make Covid-19 worse? appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>I’m sure you are aware that nearly 16,000 cases of Covid-19 went unreported until earlier this week and the reports are that Excel is at the centre of the problem.
You might never have thought about it, but Excel has a limit to how many rows of data you can have. Since 2007 the default has been just over 1 million but before that it was 65,000, and the older version is the culprit in this case.
While Public Health England were receiving data in simple data files which have no limit, they were transferring them into Excel using the old format and thus lost any records above 65,000.
You can tell if your file is the up-to-date format or the obsolete one by looking at the file extension. The modern version, which you should use all the time, will have .xlsx at the end of the filename. The old version is .xls. .xlsx files are better because they are more secure, more stable and take less memory as well as having a much higher capacity (1048576 rows, 16384 columns and as many sheets as you want until your computer runs out of memory. Each cell can hold 32,767 characters).
If you can’t see the file extension I recommend you turn it on. In Windows File Explorer, click the View tab and tick File name extensions.
Unless you are using a version that is over 13 years old (IE Excel 2003 or earlier), Excel will save your files as .xlsx by default. In the Save As… dialog box that will be described as Excel Workbook while .xls will be Excel 97-2003. The only reason why you’d want to save as an .xls is if someone you are working with does not have a modern version of Excel (or Google Sheets).
It beggars belief that people are still working with such an outdated format, but there are a couple of caveats.
In my experience some organisations (and mostly in the public sector) took the decision when upgrading to Excel 2007 to carry-on working with .xls as the default so as to maintain collaboration with organisations that have not updated, and that policy has not been updated in the following 13 years.
Secondly, some modern systems (such as Xero) export to Excel in the .xls format. I don’t think that happened in this case, but you can be forgiven if you find yourself working in a .xls file.
Finally, this is where I point out that Excel might not be the right tool in this case. Excel is a number cruncher (it’s best at doing calculations), but for data processing (handling and manipulating lots of data) then a database program (such as Access) is what you should be using.
This problem has come about through ignorance (at best), so if you have any questions or need advice about handling data in Excel or in a database please get in touch and we’ll be able to explain how to do it well in your business.
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]]>The post How Safe is Your Data? appeared first on Black Swan Training.
]]>Apparently, a coding error (someone got the programming wrong) meant that since November records were being deleted that shouldn’t be.
Now, they are working “at pace”, it seems, to recover the lost data. This obviously depends on their back-up strategy.
But could the issue have been prevented in the first place with better testing?
Let’s look at back-ups first. If the problem goes back a couple of months, it sounds like a few thousand records were being deleted every day rather than one big loss. This means that you can’t simply restore the back-up copy as you need to look at every day’s data, and in the meantime lots of correct work was being done. They’ll need to look at the back-ups individually to find each deleted record. Let’s hope it’s simply is deleted records because finding erroneous changes to records is much harder.
What’s your back-up strategy? Does your database enable you to log the changes (transactions) as well as taking a full-copy every so often? How far back could you go? Depending on the frequency of your back-ups, what’s the worst-case data loss and how would you recover from that? When did you last successfully restore from a back-up?
The other lesson here is about testing new systems. Regardless of how much testing you do nothing can replicate thousands of live users all using the system in their own way. Every software company will plan to release patches after going-live to address issues that reveal themselves in the real world. However, you need to make sure it does what it says correctly. But testing shouldn’t simply be a check that it performs according to specification, but it should have the aim of breaking it. It takes resources, but someone should be tasked with “see if you can get it to go wrong.”
Finally, I’m going to put a plug in for training. Without appropriate training users will work out for themselves how to use the system. That will lead to hundreds of different methods of doing things – the users just want to get their job done – which leads to unintended results as well as inconsistency, unreliability and inefficiency.
It’s all gone quiet since this story broke, and it may be that everything that could have reasonably been done to avoid this has been, but please consider the lessons for your business.
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