Software package and information systems

Tender description

We are a social housing provider who also provide key worker accommodation for the NHS Trust in Lincolnshire. We are looking for a solution that can automate the scheduling, reservation, and allocation of our key worker accommodation. Current Process People who wish to stay in our key worker accommodation book a room or flat online using a .Net form, the length of stay can vary from 1 night to a number of years. We store the details of our key worker accommodation, and anybody that wishes to stay in the accommodation, on the QLx Housing System provided by Aareon. A series of checks are made in order to approve the application and an initial payment is taken. The allocation, reservation, and booking of a suitable room is all managed manually using spreadsheets. Once an applicant moves into the room a tenancy is created on the QLx Housing System. Current Problems We are working with Aareon to automate the manual elements of the process with regard to the checks that are made and the creation of the client account, rent account, and tenancy. However, we are missing an automated solution to the allocation, reservation, and booking of a suitable room in a manner that will continuously reschedule reservations in a way that optimises occupancy. Our current process of managing the allocation, reservation, and booking of a suitable room in our key worker accommodation is a manual and time consuming process which takes up valuable resources. Our current process can also mean we are sometimes rejecting applications when we’re not at 100 % occupancy due to the constraints of scheduling rooms manually. We would like to remove the resource burden of having to manually manage this part of the process and instead move to an automated solution. Ideal Solution We are searching for a supplier who can automate the allocation, reservation, and booking of a suitable room for the key worker accommodation in a way that is constantly striving to maximise occupancy. We are planning that our improved process will be: — A person still applies online using a .Net form to book a room at our key worker accommodation (the stay can be from 1 night to a number of years). — If the applicant is not already on our QLx Housing System, QLx will automatically create a new client and rent account. — Various checks will be performed automatically by the QLx Housing System to validate whether our applicant is suitable to stay. — If the applicant is suitable to stay the solution we are seeking from you will identify and reserve a suitable room (there are rules around the type of accommodation the applicant can be allocated). — Once a suitable room is reserved the applicant will be required to make an initial payment through your solution. — — If the applicant hasn’t made this payment within X days, your solution will be required to send an email to the applicant to remind them a payment is due in order to secure the reservation and flag this to our staff. — — If the payment is still not received after a further X days, your solution will be required to close the application for the stay and cancel the reservation. — We require your solution to constantly consider new and existing room reservations and reschedule those reservations to achieve maximum occupancy levels. — At X time before the applicant is due to move in (this will most likely be hours before rather than days) your solution will confirm/book an actual room and notify the QLx housing system which room has been booked. — Once the applicant moves into that room, a member of our staff will manually confirm in the QLx Housing System that the customer has moved in and QLx will automatically create a new tenancy. — The tenant can shorten or lengthen their stay and your solution must be able to accept the revised starting/leaving date from our QLx Housing System and take that change into account for the reservations scheduled.