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What is Symphony iExchange?
Symphony iExchange is an intuitive piece of software that allows you to export your gazetteer data (LLPG/CAG/AddressBase product) to other systems in your organisation.
It enables you to sychronise all your departmental address data, meaning that everyone will be accessing identical and consistently up to date information.
For local authorities, in addition to sending updates to your back office systems, Symphony iExchange will also allow you to automate your updates to the national hub.
Because every department in every organisation will have very different requirements, Symphony iExchange is fully customisable to allow you to:
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Configure who receives updates
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Configure the frequency of updates
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Configure which elements of address data are to be sent
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Configure the method and format of the updates
Every recipient can be individually configured and the whole process is designed so that you can simply 'set it and forget it'.
Why do you need Symphony iExchange?
By allowing your entire organisation to utilise a single source of data, huge savings can be made by removing the requirement to maintain multiple datasets, whilst errors caused by inconsistent data will be a thing of the past.
Because all synchronised data will contain a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), not only will you benefit from the consistency of the address data, but you can be assured that each property when referenced is guaranteed to be the same.
An example of savings in local authorities
In a recent report produced by ConsultingWhere Limited and ACIL Tasman on behalf of the
Local Government Association (LGA) entitled 'The Value of Geospatial Information to Local Public
Service Delivery in England and Wales' there were some very salient figures that show why you need a product like iExchange:
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Newport City Council: It is estimated from observation that the average time to apply each address update to each
system is three minutes. There were approximately 2,300 updates per annum made only once to the
primary database instead of having to be applied to 17 separate systems. This has yielded an
estimated annual net benefit of approximately £57,000 per annum. (pg. 54)
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Plymouth City Council: Consolidation of address datasets is saving an estimated £150,000 per annum by eliminating the
duplication of work. (pg. 55)
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Blackpool Council: The LLPG has eliminated the need to maintain 7 of the council’s key datasets; saving the council £750,000 since data was consolidated. (pg. 55)
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Huntingdonshire District Council: The LLPG team processes an average of 10 new properties per day and amend 50 records per day. This
typically takes 5 minutes per property amounting to 60 x 5 minutes = 5 hours per day. The LLPG team
processes new and amend records each day. The cost of maintaining a gazetteer for each system has
been estimated at £13K per annum.
If each of the 19 business systems served were manually maintained to the same accuracy level as the
LLPG then each would require the same amount of administration time per property. In practice,
there would also be an additional management overhead to ensure all updates are synchronised and
consistently entered. Additionally, there would be other costs associated with sorting problems where
addresses became (inevitably) out of synchronisation between systems. (pg. 56)
With iExchange you enter once into your LLPG and export those changes to everyone else
With iExchange duplication of work is removed
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With iExchange there is no need to maintain disparate datasets
With iExchange synchronisation is maintained between systems
In their Assessment of Benefits of rollouting
of data sharing across outstanding services
The average benefits for District Councils was £12,500 per service
The average benefits for London Boroughs, Metropolitan Districts and Unitaries was £22,732 per service
If you're a District Council and you used iExchange to link to only five systems, that's a benefit of £62,500. Imagine if you were linking to ten...
The full report is available from: www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/13725637
Do you have a question about Symphony iExchange? If so, just ask...
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