North West Leicestershire have been users of PSSLive for over 10 years. Over time they had increased their use of the system to encompass Playgrounds, Trees, Parks and Open Spaces, Cemeteries and even expanded into Grounds Maintenance.

Last year it became clear that the workflow of PSSLive was not designed to accommodate the detailed requirements for use they had within Grounds Maintenance. PSSLive was designed for a series of Sites and the Assets on those Sites to be Inspected. The Inspections would highlight Findings, the Findings would be given Tasks to bring them to a timely completion against their Risk and Urgency. Tasks could then be allocated to Contractors or Works orders to be done. So in a way the work for reactive

For basic repeated Tasks the Task schedule option is PSSLive was created, but the needs of North West Leicestershire’s both ongoing and ad hoc requirements soon identified that the tool they were so fond of was not fit for purpose. With Assets used as Tasks things were coming unstuck and we wanted to find a way to support them.

PSS Ltd had worked with the London Borough of Islington to build a tool for just this purpose. It focused on the knowledge that Tasks needed to be done against Sites and Programs and aimed to improve communications with on the ground staff via an Issue logging tool. The tool further linked Equipment checks and staff training records together to provide a comprehensive tool to support the use of the tasks undertaken by these sorts of teams.

After a series of meetings to determine a full set of requirements, North West Leicestershire agreed to trial using PSSUltimate for the purpose of their Grounds Maintenance requirements.  We worked together to train and support North West Leicestershire to move their grounds tasks to PSSUltimate. Programs were set up in the names of their Teams which listed the Sites the Team should attend and the Tasks they should do when they got there. This linked further to scheduling ensuring certain Tasks only show on the lists at certain times of year.

North West Leicestershire use the Issues function to obtain onsite information and reissue that to the appropriate Team on an ad hoc, as required basis. Their use as a rural council has provide great insight into further development already being implemented to extend and improve the use of the tool.

We are delighted with the uptake PSSUltimate has had from North West Leicestershire and the initial comments have been really positive with Michala Munro commenting“ I am finding it much easier to use”. We are glad to have seen such a turnaround in their use for grounds and their ongoing commitment to PSSLive for their other areas of responsibility.

Paul Ashmore further commented “that the key benefits for North West Leicestershire were that front line staff find PSSU very easy to use and record keeping is so much easier and stream lined withnew uses for PSSUltimate are being found every day. “