Digital Place for Web Publishing
Your publishing platform for making local websites, microsites and intranets with simple forms and directories. Re-use user experience designs, page templates, fragments and content types co-developed with Councils, create simple forms using Placecube’s low-code Form Builder, and publish directories of local assets and services. Cloud-based, open-source and fully scalable
Features
- Easy to use Rich Text Editor for content authors
- Supports role-based access control for content author/editor, admins, UX designers
- Start with WCAG-accessible mobile responsive designs, customise as required
- Reuse LocalGov-designed templates including home page, landing pages, service pages
- Reuse LocalGov-designed directories including car parks, libraries, recycling centres
- Publish websites, subsites, multiple microsites, and intranets/extranets
- Personalise user experiences through segmentation based on session attributes
- User research-based local government information architecture
- Low-code Forms: rules builder, multi-stages, custom fields
- Includes powerful ElasticSearch engine and Headless Delivery API
Benefits
- Accelerate your web publishing with reusable features, co-developed with councils
- Enables WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, improving accessibility of services
- Mobile-first responsive design: one site serves multiple device types
- Improve UX using GOV.UK Design System styles, components, patterns
- Content-publishing approval workflows support quality assurance
- OpenAPIs reduce effort of content migration from legacy websites
- Secure multi-tenanted cloud-hosted system, scalable to meet high demand
- Benefit from open-source community driven software without self-hosting/support costs
- Community of council users shares practice and shapes roadmap
- Independence from proprietary software vendor lockin taking back control
Pricing
£40,000.00 an instance a year
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 13
Service ID
3 3 0 1 0 2 1 8 1 2 4 8 1 1 0
Contact
Placecube Ltd
Jenny Dias
Telephone: 020 8895 6756
Email: jenny.dias@placecube.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- No
- Cloud deployment model
- Private cloud
- Service constraints
- None
- System requirements
- Computer with a browser
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
-
Priority
Level Acknowledge Receipt (2)
1 08:00 –18:00 1 clock hour
2 08:00 –18:00 2 business hours
3 08:00 –18:00 2 business hours
4 08:00 –18:00 24 business hours - User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- Yes
- Online ticketing support accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 24 hours, 7 days a week
- Web chat support
- No
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
-
Support levels
Level 1 Support
Level 2 Support
Level 3 Support
Level 4 Support
Placecube provide a dedicated web-based support desk, available from 09.00-17.00, normal business days as standard. Telephone, on-site or 24/7 extended support service can be made available at extra cost. Our support team consists of highly skilled, experienced professionals, who can help troubleshoot any problems.
We also have an expert technical and content team who will optimise your Directory and build your in-house skills. Additional training beyond the standard described above is available at extra cost. - Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
-
Our solution is ready-to-use and can be deployed at pace.
Firstly, we will work with you to discuss branding, design and the tools you want to use. We will then set up sessions to walk through the service, demonstrating the various administrative and end-user interfaces. You will have opportunities to practice, test and ask questions.
Once deployed, we provide a dedicated web-based support desk, available from 09.00-17.00, normal business days as standard. Telephone, on-site or 24/7 extended support can be made available for an extra cost. Our support team consists of highly skilled, experienced professionals, who can help troubleshoot any problems.
If you no longer wish to use the service, we can provide an encrypted archive of all client-owned data stored within the platform. - Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- In the event that you no longer wish to use the service, Placecube can provide an encrypted archive of all client-owned data stored within the platform.
- End-of-contract process
- Based on an agreed end-of-service date, we can provide a copy of the data as described above. We can hold the data for an agreed period, not exceeding one month (or as agreed with the client), and then delete all the data (unless we are legally required to retain it).
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari
- Application to install
- No
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- NONE
- Service interface
- Yes
- User support accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Description of service interface
- Access through web browser over the internet
- Accessibility standards
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Accessibility testing
- Third party testing, customer testing, internal testing
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- Through the API, users can view, create, edit and delete any entity their user account has permissions to perform those actions on.
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
- HTML
- API sandbox or test environment
- Yes
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- Colour scheme, logos, pages, navigation, features, forms, and content can be customised.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
- Proactive monitoring and auto-scaling
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
- All login requests and end user contribution activity.
- Reporting types
- API access
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Conforms to BS7858:2019
- Government security clearance
- Up to Security Clearance (SC)
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
- United Kingdom
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Datacentre security standards
- Supplier-defined controls
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least once a year
- Penetration testing approach
- ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
- Protecting data at rest
-
- Encryption of all physical media
- Other
- Other data at rest protection approach
- All data encrypted at rest using AES-256.
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
-
- Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
- Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
- Equipment disposal approach
- In-house destruction process
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- The platform provides built-in export tools for users to download a compressed archive of data.
- Data export formats
- Other
- Other data export formats
- LAR (ZIP)
- Data import formats
-
- CSV
- Other
- Other data import formats
- LAR (ZIP)
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Data protection within supplier network
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
-
We aim to provide at least a 99.9% uptime service availability level. The service is fully resilient, with no single points of failure throughout the technology stack. The service comes with a 4-hour recovery time objective (RTO) and a 1-hour recovery point objective (RPO). This means that in the event of a major loss of infrastructure, the service would be available again within 4 hours, with a data loss of no more than 1 hour.
Availability excludes agreed scheduled maintenance events, customer-caused or third party-caused outages or disruptions, or outages or disruptions attributable in whole or in part to force majeure events. Any service-impacting planned maintenance work is always performed outside of UK business hours, with adequate notification to our clients.
We take nightly backups of all operating system and user data, with a 35-day backup retention as standard. - Approach to resilience
- Redundancy across all application tiers, spread across multiple physical data centers.
- Outage reporting
- Support platform where service outages are reported and customers are added to the ticket and emailed the details.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- Role-based access control
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least once a year
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- Users have access to real-time audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users have access to real-time audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- How long system logs are stored for
- At least 12 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- Yes
- Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
- UKAS by Bureau Veritas
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 13/07/2020
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- Physical location, which is covered by Hosting Partner
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Cyber essentials
- Yes
- Cyber essentials plus
- No
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
- Cyber Security
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- Yes
- Security governance standards
- ISO/IEC 27001
- Information security policies and processes
-
We follow ISO standards and processes. Placecube have a policy and manual set that all staff must accept sign and adhere to.
The organisation leadership team commit its support to the ISMS and empower the Chief Security Officer to undertake any steps necessary to achieve the objectives of this policy and will ensure that its information security management practices are suitable for:
• Confidentiality of information.
• Integrity of information and services are maintained.
• Availability of information and services are maintained.
• Regulatory and legislative requirements are met.
• Continuous improvements being made to the Information Security Management System.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
-
Each individual project has its own Configuration Management Database (CMDB), describing all Configuration Items (CIs) . The CMDB is maintained as a Git repository describing current and historical state of all CIs. Whenever a change is made within an environment, manually or automatically, the CMDB repository is updated to reflect the change.
Change requests are reviewed by project lead/Line Manager Comments, questions, revisions, and updates are recorded, a full assessment is carried out, and the Change approved or rejected.
Tests for both successful change deployment, and successful rollback are reviewed, modified and implemented. - Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
- All components within the stack (infrastructure and software) are continuously tested for vulnerabilities. Placecube are alerted of any detected vulnerabilities by third party suppliers, and take action on a timescale commensurate with the severity.
- Protective monitoring type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Protective monitoring approach
- Services are monitored continuously, with alerting to the support team. The support team will assess the potential compromise and undertake corrective action according to the severity threat level.
- Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
- Managed through our support desk. The CSO and ISO ensure appropriate action taken in accordance with ISO27001 Incident management policy.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Social Value
- Fighting climate change
-
Fighting climate change
Placecube will be Net Zero by 2030.
All employees and associates/contractors work from home, eliminating the need to travel to and from work. Travel to attend face to face meetings is undertaken only when absolutely necessary and journeys made via public transport, unless impractical to do so.
We use technology and digital tools to conduct our business, reducing the use of paper and printing. Supplies are procured from environmentally friendly sources. In an effort to tackle economic inequality we recycle computer equipment and mobile devices to benefit those most in need.
We encourage employees to adopt environmentally sustainable working practices and to contribute ideas as to how we improve.
We have ceased the use of ‘branded goodies’ at conferences and are exploring more environmentally friendly approaches - Covid-19 recovery
-
Covid-19 recovery
Minimal impact due to Virtual working - Tackling economic inequality
-
Tackling economic inequality
We work collaboratively and ensure that our clients never pay twice for the same development, actively promoting re-use, and repeatable services.
Digital Place is open-source, and non-proprietary, meaning that our customers can choose to resource new digital projects internally, or through local supply chains. Our promotion of local economic opportunities extends beyond the confines of the Authority, for we actively encourage collaboration by making the platform free to use for partner organisations and community groups. The product can be shared at no additional cost - delivering real economic gain for the public purse.
Supporting the development of strong integrated communities, through the use of the Digital Place Platform delivers a meaningful impact on local employment and economy – benefiting the wellbeing of those communities.
In an effort to tackle economic inequality we recycle computer equipment and mobile devices to benefit those most in need. - Equal opportunity
-
Equal opportunity
Placecube embraces diversity, inclusion, and equality through our people. Our actions, supported by our various policies and processes enable this. We are committed to the Living Wage movement, are Disability Confident, and support the Armed Forces Covenant.
We recognise that the social value of place-based, connected, local public service can transform the lives of the most vulnerable in communities and make best use of the public purse, so that ever tightening resources can be focused on priorities and not duplication.
We contribute to the public sector and the not-for-profit sector through our free-to-use open knowledge exchange platform. Through Knowledge Hub, we contribute to best practice sharing and collaboration, supporting sector-led improvement, knowledge retention and skills development.
Our product, Digital Place, facilitates and promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing across communities, without location restraints. Our commercial model is designed to remove barriers to growth, so that our customers feel empowered to engage the communities they serve. For example, multi-agency use is part of our standard subscription in order to remove limits on users, enabling collaboration without additional cost. - Wellbeing
-
Wellbeing
The company and its leadership team are focused on the mental health and wellbeing of all our employees, clients, customers, partners, and suppliers, which has a positive impact on productivity and wellbeing. We have appointed a Mental Health First Aider to support our objectives.
Pricing
- Price
- £40,000.00 an instance a year
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- No