Intelligent housing repair software made simple.

Platform Project background and Key Objectives

Platform Housing Group formed in 2018, following the merger of Fortis Living and Waterloo Housing Group. With over 45,000 homes, they are the largest Housing Association in the Midlands and also one of the largest in the country. During 2019 and 2020, Platform Housing built more social and affordable homes in England than any other social housing provider.

Before the merger, Fortis Living were an established Omfax customer, using Keyfax Repairs Diagnostics and Enquiries Diagnostics. Keyfax was launched through Capita’s OPENHousing Housing Management System (HMS).

As part of their digital transformation, Platform Housing identified that a new single Housing Management System (HMS) was required. In March 2020, Platform Housing approached Omfax to work with Microsoft Dynamics specialists, Crimson. From that meeting, a project was agreed to integrate Dynamics 365 with KeyNamics and Keyfax, within the Contact Centre.

The integration between Keyfax and Dynamics, KeyNamics, supports Platform Housing in delivering their key objectives of:

• streamlined processes
• improved customer experience
• data-driven decisions
• an optimised workforce
• easier to manage business systems and
• single version of the truth.

KeyNamics – Integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Keyfax

Keyfax Diagnostics has established integrations with many of the major HMS providers, with over fourteen in total.

When Platform Housing approached Omfax, the team were delighted to have the perfect solution ready to go in KeyNamics.

Omfax developed KeyNamics as a Dynamics plug-in that enables Microsoft Dynamics 365 to integrate seamlessly with Keyfax, using the Dynamics Unified Interface.

Platform was able to simply add a button to ‘launch’ Keyfax Diagnostic scripts from any Dynamics Form. Additionally, they found they could simply configure the mapping entries to work with their Keyfax Scripts. This gave them complete control over what information is used in Keyfax scripts, and what is returned to Dynamics.

Platform discovered that the mappings, though simple, are also very powerful. Anything can be mapped, from the customer name, address, telephone number, rent balance, right up to vulnerabilities. In fact, any item of information that they want to use in their diagnostic scripts.

When a repairs diagnostic is complete, data is mapped from Keyfax and populates the individual fields of the Dynamics Form.

KeyNamics Implementation

As the project began, the world was facing the COVID pandemic and home working was becoming the new normal. Nevertheless, Omfax worked remotely, but closely, with Crimson and Platform to gather business requirements. Over time, these sessions enabled agreement on the project scope, whilst keeping the customer journey at its heart.

The Omfax side of the project involved:

• installing the KeyNamics solution
• uploading basic settings and mappings
• configuring KeyNamics settings
• testing connectivity and launching of customer Keyfax scripts
• identifying form(s) required to launch Keyfax
• identifying and configuring data mappings (Sent to Keyfax and Received from Keyfax); and
• User Acceptance Testing.

Platform’s Project Results

In October 2020, Platform went live. Since then, they have found these to be the main benefits of using KeyNamics and working with Omfax:

• expert and responsive technical support
• comprehensive online documentation
• simple implementation – Crimson began building the solution almost immediately
• future-proof – KeyNamics works with the latest Dynamics updates
• web services integration: – no more need for the legacy Keyfax Client in Citrix
• launch either version of Keyfax – Repairs Diagnostics for staff or Online for Tenant Self-serve and
• no longer any dependency on the HMS vendor for changes to the integration.

In the space of a short few months, Platform were raising in excess of 1,000 enquiries a day through Dynamics and Keyfax.

“Our work with Omfax has delivered real benefits for our colleagues and customers. By using KeyNamics to support our first point of contact service, we have achieved consistency and efficiency in our contact management. Our colleagues can seamlessly access a toolkit of scripts, all from within one solution. Omfax have understood and supported our ambitions throughout our Microsoft Dynamics implementation, and we look forward to working with them in the future to build upon what we’ve achieved so far.”

Sarah Clarke – Transformation Lead for Platform Housing