Alpha Tracker admin training for Element staff - what a lovely group of staff!

Kim had a lovely time with the admin staff at asbestos specialist Element helping them to develop their knowledge of asbestos software Alpha Tracker.

The Element asbestos admin staff

If you'd like some more training to develop your knowledge of Alpha Tracker, do get in touch!  We can offer bespoke training sessions, either in-person or via Zoom/Teams, for admin staff, asbestos surveyors, asbestos project managers or asbestos duty holders.

Another Alpha Legal update has been published - let us know what you think!

Dan has just published the latest Alpha Legal update and all of our wonderful subscribers have access to the latest features.

Alpha Legal has been updated again

We've improved:

• the meeting planner - it's perfect for scheduling meetings between you and your clients - especially when there are multiple attendees needed, perhaps around the world!
  
  
• the e-signature feature, especially when your clients have comments and corrections to make on the document 
  
  
• our form designer, enabling us to have multi-page forms to help clients with complex requests for information.

If you have any questions about this release or have ideas for future updates, do get in touch!

We're chuffed with this one! We've given Alpha Tracker the smartest search in the industry - say hello to Intellisearch

Watch out for our new Intellisearch feature in Alpha Tracker Release 38 - it's a game-changer!

We've made the Search box do everything - with one click!

The Menu Search box made an appearance a few years ago and I reminded people about it last month, here: https://blog.start-software.com/2021/12/time-saving-tip-dont-hunt-through-menus.html

Being able to search all of the menu items is really useful - but we've just made it even better!

You can now search for pretty much anything just by typing into this one box.  In addition to being able to search the menu, users can now type in:

• project numbers, to open a specific project
  
  
• client names or client IDs
  
  
• site or job names, and even
  
  
• surveyor names to see what they are working on.

I can imagine the rest of the asbestos software industry seeing this feature and copying it (like so many of the updates we include in Alpha Tracker!).  Just remember that you saw it here first!

Alpha Legal is now a For Legal partner. Check out our video content

Alpha Legal is now a channel partner with For Legal, the video learning platform for the legal industry.

Watch Alpha Legal's videos on the For Legal platform

Check out our content here: https://www.formediagroup.co.uk/forlegal/partners/alpha-legal

Alpha Legal outage Saturday 22.1.2022 - we're really sorry

After a week of apologies on the daily news, it is our turn to apologise.

A sorry Prime Minister.  Take that any way you like!

We're really sorry that Alpha Legal wasn't available earlier today.  We use the world's biggest and most secure cloud computing environment to power Alpha Legal, Amazon AWS, but today it let us down.  A problem with an overnight update caused Alpha Legal to be unavailable.

Our technical staff in the UK and US worked solidly all day to resolve the issue but we are very sorry for the inconvenience this will have caused our professional subscribers and their clients.  

If you need any more information about the outage today or the actions we have taken to prevent a reoccurrence, do get in touch.

Growing numbers caught out by the "Dear Mum" scams... watch out for WhatsApp as well as email "phishing"

We all know that emails are not secure - and that "phishing" is one of the most common methods that scammers use.  

Watch out for WhatsApp - don't believe every message you receive

A timely warning was published in The Times yesterday about "Dear Mum" phishing messages that arrive via WhatsApp:

Growing numbers of people are losing thousands of pounds to scams asking them to send money to family and friends supposedly in need.

Victims of “Dear Mum” scams are usually contacted by fraudsters on WhatsApp. They pretend that they have lost or damaged their phone and are having to message from a new number. However, they can also fake contact details, making the fraud even more convincing.

The scammers prey on parents by asking them for money to buy a new phone or to pay an urgent bill because they are in financial difficulty, providing their bank details so that the cash can be transferred.

Banks said there was a rise in reports of the scam at the end of last year. The last three months of 2021 saw a fourfold rise in “friends and family” scams reported to Barclays compared with the previous three months. The average loss was £1,242, which could be from multiple payments. Action Fraud, a fraud reporting service, said some victims had lost more than £3,000.

Here at Alpha Legal, we have also heard of work-related WhatsApp scams where messages appear to come from managers or directors, asking staff to take urgent action to transfer money or buy Amazon vouchers as company gifts.  Take care - phishing can happen via almost every communication system.

Another reminder of the importance of making asbestos registers available to all

Farming Life has just reported a company fined £15,000 where staff were unaware of the existence of asbestos and were exposed to the deadly substance during refurbishment works.

Oriental Developments Limited were fined £15,000 for not managing asbestos properly

Alpha Tracker, like most asbestos software systems, has the ability to make asbestos registers available via QR code.  In fact, we fully support the UKNAR (UK National Asbestos Register) initiative to make all asbestos registers available via a simple QR code, ensuring that staff working in a building, either as employees or contractors, can be aware of asbestos present on site.

If you want to know more about QR codes in Alpha Tracker, or use another asbestos software system that doesn't support QR codes, do get in touch.  We'd love to hear from you.