May 2010

Election day is finally here and for the first time in decades, it's very difficult to call. We have been preparing for months to get ready for a new parliamentary term. With new computers and at the very least 150 new Members, we are very excited about the coming months.

Our new website will be launched on 10th May to assist new and returning Members with CMITS and a host of new services we will be introducing.

Can we take this opportunity to wish everyone success for today. Clearly there can only be one winner in every constituency, but that's what democracy is all about.

Email List Management

With the ever increasing number of emails received from constituents, it is clear that tools are needed to provide an effective method to manage and respond to large numbers of emails on a specific issues that arrive from time to time. Equally, keeping groups of constituents up to date on issues of interest to them is important. Our new Email Management System provides an ideal cost effective mechanism to send monitor and manage visually rich emails to the various groups. The List Management feature allows constituents to subscribe and unsubscribe to issue lists without any intervention on your part. This helps maintain the critical "opt in" requirement that should be applied to all bulk email communications. This service can be provided as a self managed system or as a fully managed system where we deal with the administration and management of all aspects of the service on your behalf.

Email Surveys

Getting feedback from constituents on an issue can be a challenge and many Members have posted surveys on their web sites to encourage engagement. The only problem with this, is that the constituent has to go to the web site to participate. No longer is this a requirement, you can send a visually rich survey to constituents as a self-contained email which they can complete and reply with the minimum of fuss. Responses are monitored and we can provide graphical reports which can be sent to you by email or published to your web site.

CMITS for Local Councilors

Over the last year or so, we have had a number of enquiries from Members asking if we have anything that would deliver a similar set of tools to those available in CMITS to colleagues in local government. In direct response to this, we have developed CMITS Local which is a low cost standalone desktop application to enable councilors to manage casework and correspondence. We appreciate that some groups of councilors may wish to aggregate data to look at key issues. To facilitate this, we are offering an optional data mining tool that allows data to be pooled for analysis purposes. By offering this as an option, we can keep the core system cost very competitive. We appreciate that many councilors are provided with laptops from local authorities. In some cases there are restrictions on the installation of non-council software. We are happy to speak to IT administrators to validate any required installations etc. Having worked closely with IT departments both in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament, we have plenty of experience in ensuring administrators are comfortable with CMITS as an application.

General IT Consultancy Services

Having worked with Members and their staff since 2001, we are very aware of the challenges and limitations of working in a secure networking environment. Getting the best out of IT sometimes requires thinking outside the box. We have made it our business to listen to problems and find solutions. We have various packages based on an annual fee that enable you to access support develop strategies to best utilise IT in your office.