With technology now playing a key role in every aspect of the housing day job, it can be a challenge to keep pace with all the new products, software and systems coming into the sector.

But fear not. HQN is delighted to announce the return of its Practical Magic technology event aimed at informing housing professionals about the latest solutions.

Taking place face-to-face at the Titanic Hotel in Liverpool, the day provides a hands-on approach to technology that will help specialist teams do their day job while benefiting the wider business.

Covering everything from repairs, housing management and customer service to digital engagement, income management and data insights, the day is about exploring the possibilities of what’s already available through live demonstrations, expert recommendations and ‘huddles’ between like-minded people.

There will also be a focus on ‘smart home’ technology and how it is helping to improve our knowledge of the living conditions in thousands of properties.

We promise you won’t be bored and will come away with the inspiration and contacts to make your ideas a reality.

Key themes for the day:

• Hear from top housing tech speakers
• Hear from fellow professionals on what does and doesn’t work for their organisations – large and small
• Explore the latest housing technology and digital systems available on the market
• Get recommendations, insight and ideas from sector experts
• Experience live demonstrations
• Exchange ideas with like-minded people.

Judith Comber, Salesforce

Jude joined Salesforce at the end of 2021 to support housing providers in delivering first-class resident experiences with the latest technology.

She spent 10 years at what is now the Abri Group working in Customer Services then IT, before providing housing technology solutions across the UK & Ireland. She is passionate about social housing & helping the people it serves.

Kate Lindley, Co-Founder and Director, Change Network Limited

Kate is a director and co-founder of Change Network, helping organisations to deliver smarter, customer-centric transformation that sticks.

She has 20+ years of establishing and leading digitally enabled, customer change programmes from start to finish, including defining business cases and options appraisals, establishing effective programme and project foundations and controls and managing end to end delivery.​ Her experience spans customer, ICT and data strategy, system specification and selection, service re-design and overseeing implementation.

Kate has previously held various senior transformation roles, including as a Head of Service at Socitm Advisory, The Guinness Partnership Civica and multiple local authorities, giving her a unique combination of in-house housing ICT and change delivery experience, consultancy and supplier side expertise.​

Kate also has more than eight years of experience as a Non Executive Director in housing.

10.30 Chair’s welcome and introduction

• • Kate Lindley, Co-Founder and Director, Change Network

10.40 Keynote address

• • Dr Rob Wray, Research Director, Data Clan

11.15 Meet the suppliers

• • PayPoint

  • Active Housing by Plentific

  • Exactly

  • Enterprise RPA

  • Mobysoft

  • OptusApp

12.00 Break

12.15 Supplier case studies

• • PayPoint

  • Mobysoft

  • OptusApp

13.00 Lunch and exhibition viewing

14.00 Keynote address

• • Judith Comber, Salesforce

14.30 Supplier case studies

• • Active Housing by Plentific

  • Exactly

  • Enterprise RPA

15.15 Exhibition viewing 

16.00 Close

About Paypoint

PayPoint is a market leader in omnichannel digital payments, with over 25 years of expertise delivering a wide range of payment services and solutions to a diverse range of organisations, processing over 600 million transactions and collecting over £1.3 billion in digital transactions each year.

MultiPay, PayPoint’s versatile, omnichannel payment system, can revolutionise the way housing associations take payments. It includes a suite of innovative payment APIs that can be integrated into back-office systems to reduce and automate manual processes, improve customer journeys, and provide valuable self-serve features for customers, all while lowering payment collection costs. Their innovative roadmap is created by their clients’ interactions and goes beyond just payments.

PayPoint aims to make payments more convenient for everyone, whether it’s online, on the go, or in-store through our network of 28,000 retailer partner stores across the UK – more than all banks, supermarkets, and Post Offices combined. PayPoint is a member of the G-Cloud, PFH and Northern Housing Consortium frameworks.

About Active Housing by Plentific

Active Housing is a multi award-winning web technology provider specialising in resident self-service and repairs software products for the social housing sector.

Active Housing solutions, including the flagship customer portal and repairs diagnostic tool, are utilised by hundreds of thousands of social housing residents across the UK.

The specialist housing resident engagement arm of Plentific., Active Housing enables its clients to leverage innovation, best practice and knowledge from one of the UK’s largest PropTech companies.

About Mobysoft

Mobysoft works in partnership with the housing sector and provides a software solution, RentSense, that helps 170 social landlords, and over 25 in Scotland, sustain more tenancies and help more tenants out of debt.

RentSense is designed around algorithms and predictive analytics, so it can accurately project which tenants may or may not pay their rent. Independent research by data science company, QuantSpark, found that on average RentSense helps its customers achieve the following in year one:

• Reduce the number of tenants in debt by 11.5%
• Reduces the average arrear by 8.17%
• Reduces evictions by 8.9%
• RentSense typically delivers an average return on investment within 4 months.

Mobysoft boasts a high customer retention rate of 97% over the last two years.

About Enterprise RPA

Enterprise RPA is a business dedicated to delivering the best Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Assistant solutions, with proven results for clients working with their expert team of RPA mentors. They specialise in Housing Associations as a sector, as well as functional areas such as Finance, IT Services and Customer Engagement.

They partner with world-class automation platforms such as DRUID-AI (digital assistants / chat bots), Evolution AI (Natural Language Processing [NLP] and Document Understanding), Microsoft Power Automate and UiPath Hyper-automation to deliver blended automated solutions for clients to remove inefficiency, save money, grow revenue, and deliver better customer services by automating low-value, high volume, repetitive tasks.

About OptusApp

OptusApp is unique – it’s not a tenant’s portal or a website pretending to be an app. OptusApp is the only native mobile app exclusively for the Social Housing sector, and totally agnostic of any HMS or CRM. OptusApp integrates will any IT environment that you currently have or are considering changing to — Capita, Civica, MRI, NEC, Dynamics, and lots more.

And even if you’re a smaller landlord and don’t have an HMS or CRM, OptusApp offers you full functionality via our EMPIENT product – just ask us for details.

The OptusApp allows your tenants to:

• Report Repairs and ASB, and book Repairs visits
• View Rent History and Pay Rent
• Complete Surveys (eg TSM and PEEPs)
• Access Personal and Public documentation
• Register for Community Events

OptusApp’s powerful 2-way messaging system allows tenants to communicate directly with landlords and attach pictures, video clips, and geo-location tags.

The average cost of a phone call in the social housing sector is £7/call. OptusApp can be as little as 10p per tenant per month. You can be operational within a week with OptusApp. Contact Gerry Kelly for a demo and a free-of-charge trial period ([email protected] – 0777 5816163).

About Exactly

Exactly, is the product of 3 aligned experts in the field Richard Libby, Robert Chantler and Jonathan Nachman.

Exactly was formed over a decade ago when Richard and Robert joined forces in the Social Housing sector, driven by a shared commitment to make a meaningful impact. Richard’s Systems Mobilisation expertise and Robert’s IT Project and Account Management skills complemented each other. Later, they teamed up with Jonathan, a Solutions Architect, specialising in Microsoft technology.

Together, they formed a professional alliance, aiming to reshape and add value to the Social Housing Sector.