JDi Solutions

OpusConsult - planning policy consultation portal

OpusConsult, an intuitive digital engagement platform, with specific planning policy Local Plan features that make light work of managing public consultations. Enabling Local Authorities to maximise community reach and engagement; efficiently analyse and report on data; collaborate throughout the process; increase productivity and reduce costs to deliver Local Development Plans.

Features

• Interactive consultation documents: Call for Sites, Reg.18, Reg.19 Local Plans
• Digital engagement tools to create customised polls, surveys, and questionnaires
• Intuitive, accessible, and fully responsive public interface
• Advanced workflow tools to manage, process and respond to representations
• Contact database of respondents, organisations, and agents, with mailshot capability
• Real time analytics dashboard with instant reporting tools
• Integrates with web mapping systems. Can procure our mapping software
• Council branded consultation portal integrates seamlessly with licensee's website
• Browser-based software, enabling remote access
• Welsh/English bilingual system with translatable document functionality

Benefits

• Easily publish accessibility-compliant consultation documents – no tech skills needed
• Generate increased meaningful engagement from a diverse range of people
• Representation submissions against specific sections: headers, paragraphs, policies, and maps
• Accelerate time to manage, process, and respond to representations
• Large selection of pre-prepared management reports, or create your own
• Well-established software trusted by many UK Local Authorities
• Speedy implementation with no IT installation required
• Continuous releases - fixes and improvements, with no additional cost
• Significantly reduce the cost of publishing and managing public consultations
• Option: 3D Virtual Exhibition/Conference room to showcase consultation documents

£7,495 to £7,495 a licence a year

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  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 info@jdi-solutions.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

938275111400043

Contact

Cath Patterson
0203 2900793
info@jdi-solutions.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: No constraints
• System requirements: Web browser

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: The helpdesk is manned Monday-Friday 9-5.; Critical issues are answered within 1 hour and we aim to resolve within 2 hours.; We answer all queries within 8 hours.; The server and system uptime are monitored 24/7
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: JDi Solutions provides support for OpusConsult via its in-house support team. Each software licence includes a Support Services Schedule and support services are inclusive of the cost of the licence. ; ; The Schedule covers: Fault Reporting Procedure; Fault Assessment and Response Procedure; Fault Remedying Procedure; Customer Service Helpdesk; and Exceptions. ; ; Customer Service Helpdesk - all telephone and email support requests are handled by our support team and will be answered between the hours of 9am and 5pm on weekdays excluding public holidays. Outside of these times emails are monitored and critical issues are dealt with promptly.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: At the outset, your OpusConsult system will be configured with branding, by default we will mimic your existing website styles and template for the public facing pages, although you can provide an alternative template if required. We will ask for an email address to send notifications from and to receive correspondence to, and an admin email account to get started. If required, we can add a test document for training and system familiarisation. The system can be ready for full use within 5 working days. One day’s onsite training is included with all new contracts, to be delivered at your convenience (can be provided online if preferred, and across 3-4 shorter sessions), during which any questions regarding the configuration or running of consultations within the system can be answered.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: At JDi Solutions we believe strongly that “the data is yours, we’re just looking after it for you” and we will ensure that should you wish to terminate your contract we will provide all data promptly and at no cost. You can also export your data in csv format at any time from the admin system yourselves. We will only charge fees for data extraction if a specific format is required.
• End-of-contract process: At contract end access to OpusConsult will be disabled.

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: OpusConsult's public portal uses a responsive design template that can either be adapted to mimic a customer's existing web brand or be adapted to an alternative design.
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Description of service interface: The admin console is designed to work as well as possible on a multitude of devices without sacrificing the dominant large screen experience.; Accessibility is built in to the design process.
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Accessibility testing: As yet we have done no testing with users of assistive technology. We do periodically test the system ourselves using screen reader software and text only rendering browsers. We routinely test all new public facing pages with accessibility checking tools.
• API: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Users have complete control over the public interface of the system. Homepage text and document lists can be configured as required, the built in help page is fully customisable and all transactional email and letter templates are fully editable.; ; Our latest version of OpusConsult features customisable forms allowing the creation of unique questions, surveys or call for sites forms.; ; Publication rules for representations can be configured to suit your workflow.; ; Reports can be customised by selecting the fields to show, filters to use and the order to present results in.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: OpusConsult runs on Cloud servers which are configured with massive redundancy to cope with spikes in traffic.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: We provide simple hit counts for the public pages. These are displayed on graphs in the admin console.
• Reporting types: Real-time dashboards

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: European Economic Area (EEA)
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Users export their data via the export tools available in OpusConsult's Admin Console.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: Csv for MS Excel
• 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: All OpusConsult licences include a service level agreement. ; ; All server maintenance, software maintenance and updates as well as software upgrades and enhancements excluding bespoke developments, are included in the service level agreement.; ; OpusConsult’s uptime and performance is monitored 24/7.; ; We enjoy a 100% network uptime guarantee.
• Approach to resilience: Available on request
• Outage reporting: Unexpected outages are reported by email. Monitoring statistics are available on request.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Access to the administrative interface of the system is granted to authenticated users via roles.
• Access restriction testing frequency: Less than once a year
• Management access authentication: Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• 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: We are working towards ISO27001 certification.
• Information security policies and processes: Data centre and storage; ; OpusConsult currently runs on a cloud server at Amazon’s Ireland data centre. Overnight backups are encrypted before transfer and stored within the EU. Amazon are ISO 27001 certified.; ; Backup restore and disaster recovery; ; Backups are stored securely offsite within the EU and are subject to a one month retention cycle. Our cloud servers are highly fault resilient but in the extremely unlikely event of a full recovery being required we aim to complete this within 8 hours.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: All system changes are logged and tracked in issues and commits. Internally we conduct informal code reviews to prevent security issues.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Our servers are managed and patched by a trusted ISO 27001 compliant partner.; Our own software stack is updated as required and patched immediately if necessary.; We use a minimal software stack and get security reports directly from the projects involved.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Error logs feed directly into our virtual office system and any required response is immediate.; Automated intrusion detection systems run on the server.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Server and infrastructure incident reports are provided by our server management partners.; Users can report incidents by email or by phone.; Incident reports are provided directly to affected users as required.

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

  Tackling economic inequality

  Tackling economic inequality

  The tech sector continues to have a male dominated workforce. By implementing an inclusive fully remote working environment model, providing fair and decent high quality job opportunities for professionals located across the UK (also reflecting the diverse geography of the Local Authorities we support and their diverse communities), JDi Solutions has been able to attract and employ a diverse workforce, while reducing our carbon footprint. This has been achieved through inclusive and accessible recruitment practices such as conducting structured virtual interviews, in turn helping to tackle workforce inequality with the North-South divide and creating job opportunities for underrepresented groups in the sector such as women.; ; Our small workforce includes an equal number of women and men and from a wide range of ages and backgrounds. Our team are based across the UK from Cornwall to Kent and from North Wales to London. Our most recent hire has enabled us to provide in-work progression to another female team member, enabling them to benefit from training and develop new skills around software development, all part of our workforce equality and retention-focussed activities.; ; As a family business our workforce benefits not only from remote working but from supportive family-friendly policies including flexibility with working hours from day one, as well as an enhanced pension scheme, and regular pay reviews.

Pricing

• Price: £7,495 to £7,495 a licence a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Trial use of OpusConsult's demo site is available on request. The demo site includes all the main tools and features of OpusConsult as well as test documents for trial users to access and use.

Service documents

• Pricing document

  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 info@jdi-solutions.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.