Trace Solutions Limited

TRAMPS / BlueBox property management system

Property management system and service charge management system. The system will manage income and aged debt on properties and also outgoings on freehold or leasehold properties. The system will integrate with existing systems.

Features

• Web access and interface
• Remote access
• Real time reporting
• Integration with accounting, document management systems etc
• Integration with MS Office products
• Fully integrated accounting
• Fully integrated reporting
• Easily defined screens and processes

Benefits

• Management of income on properties
• Automated aged debt management
• Service charge budgeting and issuing of letters to tenants
• Full service charge management and end of year reconciliation
• Management of headleases and freeholds
• Extensive automation and labour saving processes
• Large number of standard reports and easy report writer
• Management of void properties
• Management and warnings of critical lease dates
• Management and KPI reporting

£245 to £3,300 a user a month

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at neil.stewart@tracesolutions.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

463972233360150

Contact

Neil Stewart
020 7825 1131
neil.stewart@tracesolutions.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Community cloud
• Service constraints: No, maintenance is performed out of hours and users are given notice counting down to any planned downtime.
• System requirements:
  • Up to date browser software is required.
  • Citrix Workspace (which is supplied)

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: This depends on the fault severity. The highest severity will receive a response within half an hour. The helpdesk is also accessible by telephone for immediate contact. There is no application support at weekends.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Onsite support
• Support levels: Support is supplied at no extra cost as it is included in the standard monthly price and we offer a high level of standard support with no option for greater support levels. Out of hours support can be offered on request and costs will be provided according to requirements. Most support is provided by the helpdesk but will be escalated to specialists as required.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We provide on site training. Remote training and training delivered at our London offices are also available. Documentation is available electronically and searchable help is available on our web site.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: It is available either as an end user function - users can download their data, typically into Excel, or we will help with data migration.
• End-of-contract process: There would not normally be any additional costs at the end of the contract. If we assist with data extraction, which is not typically necessary and certainly not mandatory, we would charge at our normal daily rate. Data can normally be extracted by yourselves. Where the system is used as a cloud service, log-ins will stop working at a date agreed between the parties. Where the system is on your own servers we will request that you stop using the system and delete the software. We will confirm in writing that your data has been permanently deleted at the end of the contract.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Currently some modules are available on mobile devices and this functionality is becoming broader. The core system is available via Citrix which includes the full accounting and report writing, the full web interface allows virtually all other functionality.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: The system has APIs that are not truly open but can be used to enable the exporting and importing of data to third party systems, typically accounting, document management, facilities management and GIS systems. Using the APIs will require some programming work to enable interfacing and we provide API and data dictionary information to enable this. However the system also makes use of highly developed standard and configurable flat file interfaces that allow easy to set up interfacing both to and from BlueBox.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: An administrator can customise the user interface, the navigation, lease and other codes and chart of accounts. This can be done via a variety of methods that are designed to be end user and do not require the customer to seek services from Trace.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Each customer is provided with their own software instance and we monitor demand and load on each server. Servers are increased as necessary so that there are always application server resources to provide both resilience and good performance for all customers. This is carefully monitored, reviewed and reported to our senior management team on a bi-weekly basis. Our outsourced data centre has more than sufficient bandwidth available to meet the needs of both our current and future clients.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Some usage metrics are available on request
• Reporting types: Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• 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: No
• Datacentre security standards: Supplier-defined controls
• Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest: Other
• Other data at rest protection approach: We encrypt backups and passwords at rest, not all data. Greater encryption at rest due during 2022.
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Data tables can be exported or it is an easy end user function for users to write their own reports or run existing reports that can export data as an XLS or CSV. Various screens allow direct export.; ; You can also use third party report writers or exports can be to any modern platform via standard or bespoke interfaces.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: XML
• Data import formats: CSV

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: 99% during English business hours. As standard we do not offer refunds for issues that cause availability to be less than 99%
• Approach to resilience: The data centre chosen by Trace Solutions is ISO 27001 compliant. Trace Solutions employ an N+1 design philosophy with regard to redundancy for the hardware that we use and for security reasons the design of this will only be disclosed subject to signing of a non-disclosure agreement.
• Outage reporting: There is not a public dashboard but banner messages are displayed on the portal login screen as appropriate.; ; E-mail alerts are also issued.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Process of delegated authority starting with top level client assigned power user who then has full control over delegated staff authority.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • 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: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: No audit information available
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: Security is managed using internally developed standards. The data centre is a highly secure third party data centre.
• Information security policies and processes: Trace Solutions has policies and procedures for both our operational in-house responsibilities and for our hosted applications that relate to the data centre. Many of these contain security sensitive information and hence are not available for distribution outside of the company. Certain policies and procedures may be made available subject to a non-disclosure agreement being signed.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Trace continually monitor the system components using Zabbix and Nagios. An automated reminder system is used to monitor and prompt to replace hardware and software when approaching the end on warranty.; ; Security is checked by using both an annual pen test, a continuous monthly process of application security tests using Appcheck-NG and by following vendors best practice advice.
• Vulnerability management type: Undisclosed
• Vulnerability management approach: We employ and monitor IDS and Cisco ASA we also monitor our gateway portal for unusual activity.; ; Vendor recommended patches are deployed during the monthly maintenance window. Emergency packages can be deployed sooner.; ; Potential threats are as advised by hardware and software vendors we also use Talos and Kaspersky threat research
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: All internet traffic connects via a restricted gateway which in the first instance is monitored by a Cisco security appliance. We record all source addresses and detect unusual login activities. Multiple unauthorised attempts at access result in the the source addresses being blacklisted automatically. Only authorised access to our portal is permitted, no anonymous access is allowed.; ; Response to threats is a mixture of automatic and manual process depending on severity. Security restraints cannot be described in public documents.; ; Speed of response depends on nature of threat.
• Incident management type: Undisclosed
• Incident management approach: We have a predefined procedure linked to a management approved policy that cannot be disclosed in public documentation.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  The software supplier Trace Solutions has measures in places that actively support the drive towards net zero. See https://www.tracesolutions.co.uk/environmental-policy/. A number of online software portals also encourage paperless transactions and reporting during day to day use of the software.

  Covid-19 recovery

  Installation of the software permits improvements to workplace conditions that support the COVID-19 recovery effort, particularly in its support of remote working. Many tasks and transactions that were formerly conducted manually, and that required the user’s presence in an office, can be safely automated or handled remotely with BlueBox software.

  Tackling economic inequality

  BlueBox is scalable software that allows housing associations to drive greater modernisation of services delivery and increase productivity. By enabling greater transparency and better monitoring of suppliers through innovative, disruptive technologies, the housing association is also able to drive down costs and get better value for money from its supply chain.

  Equal opportunity

  In earlier social housing contracts, Trace Solutions has donated directly to activities (generally, those specified by the housing association) that directly supported equal opportunities. We have also encouraged our own staff to participate in general training workshops within the housing association’s local community.

  Wellbeing

  One of the key deliverables of the software is its ability to facilitate better communications with the service charge payers. It gives housing association staff the ability to answer their queries instantly, as well as establishing the controls needed to ensure that residents pay a fair and accurate contribution towards the service charge costs incurred on their behalf.; Wellbeing is also enhanced within the housing association itself; users have reported that, by removing burdensome and time-consuming manual tasks, they are able to use higher level skills, and that consequently their job satisfaction is increased.; Within Trace, as an employee owned company, we maintain inclusive and accessible recruitment practices, development practices and retention-focussed activities. We have implemented the 6 Standards in Mental Health at Work commitment.

Pricing

• Price: £245 to £3,300 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: For trials, initial training, support during trial. Trials are typically 14 days but pre-contract proof of concept periods are available.

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at neil.stewart@tracesolutions.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.