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Leanne in our Adelaide Alpha Tracker office spotted this fascinating and worrying article: https://westernweekender.com.au/2020/09/fears-boom-in-diy-could-spark-new-asbestos-crisis/
Will a boom in DIY during Coronavirus lockdowns encourage people to do jobs which actually should involve an asbestos professional? There are so many unintended consequences of anti-Covid measures and this looks like it could be yet another one.
Fasthosts are one of the cloud server providers we use for hosting our asbestos software, Alpha Tracker.
We are pleased to announce that we are now a Gold Partner with Fasthosts giving us, and our clients, significant benefits.
Give Elaine a call in the office to find out more!
A penetration test (or "pen test") is a type of security test which simulates a hacker trying to find and exploit security vulnerabilities in software systems.
We regular subject asbestos software Alpha Tracker and our other software systems to pen tests in order to check that there are no security holes which a hacker could exploit.
The latest test was carried out by one of our asbestos consultancy clients following a request from a new NHS client of theirs. Our client paid a cybersecurity consultancy to penetration test the Alpha Tracker software to verify that it was secure.
No high priority issues were found at all, and only one that was categorised as medium risk. This was dealt with by a simple change to server configuration.
In all the years we've been involved with penetration tests, this is an incredibly good result and shows the constant security updates and patches we apply to Alpha Tracker really pay off and are worth the hard work from the team.
We're really pleased to announce that specialist asbestos consultancy asMATT Ltd has chosen asbestos software Alpha Tracker.
AsMATT, based in Billericay, Essex, is insured to carry out extensive surveys on domestic and commercial properties to find out if asbestos is present and whether or not it poses a health risk.
All surveys are carried out in compliance with HSG 264 control of asbestos regulation 2012, with samples being tested by an independent UKAS accredited laboratory.
Once complete, findings are presented to the client as a comprehensive written report detailing results and recommendations.
AsMATT will be using Alpha Tracker to improve the efficiency of their business and improve the service to their clients. Welcome on board!
We've just completed a virtual Alpha Tracker training session for the asbestos professionals at Agon's Melbourne office. This follows on from the training back in February we were able to deliver face-to-face... how the world has changed since then!
Welcome on board Agon Environmental!
We're really pleased to announce that the asbestos professionals within Mac Group from Auckland, New Zealand, have chosen asbestos software Alpha Tracker.
Welcome on board! We'll post more information once Judy and Leanne have delivered their training and they are fully live.
Alpha Legal is Start Software's solution to the problem of exchanging sensitive information by email. Emails are not secure. Really. Emails can be intercepted, modified, hacked and spoofed. Let me say it again - emails are not secure!
Our Alpha Legal product helps client-facing companies such as solicitors, accountants, will-writers, estate agents and others to request sensitive data from their clients.
Here's a video to show you how easy it is to request ID from your client using Alpha Legal:
I recently presented a cyber-safety webinar for our software client Countrywide Tax & Trust to help them to educate and inform their consultants.
Countrywide have generously allowed me to share the recording of the webinar - so do listen if you'd like to know how to keep yourself and your company safe in our new virtual business world.
The last of the six topics I cover is why you cannot and must not use emails for exchanging sensitive information. Emails are not secure. Our solution to the problem is Alpha Legal - do take a look for yourself.
I wish we were perfect but 20 years of being in business has taught me that things will go wrong. However many checks and balances are put in place, sometimes a combination of events will mean that a bug in our software impacts a customer.
So, we have a process that we follow. Our hard-earned ISO9001 certification means that we have documented processes which enable us to contact the customer(s) affected, back-track to find out when the problem occurred, resolve any data issues, resolve the underlying cause, and then report back. We also discuss any such issues at our next ISO9001 certification visit.
We've just had one such issue. When we analysed the problem, we found that fewer than 50 fibre analysis records across the millions of records captured and analysed in Alpha Tracker were found to be faulty because of a software bug. 50 is 50 too many of course!
A detailed piece of work to find the root cause and fix it is now complete and we've contacted and apologised to all affected customers.
Onwards and upwards!
PS congratulations to Darroch McCartney at our Alpha Tracker client ABS for their recent ISO9001 success, it was his LinkedIn post that prompted me to write this article about our own ISO9001 activity!
We absolutely believe in openness and transparency. We want our customers to know how long they will have to wait if they need to log a support call with us. This is especially for asbestos surveyors who are working out in the field and need help with their Tracker Mobile asbestos data collection app. They don't want to be waiting long for help!
Every month, we publish our support stats so all of our customers can see how we are doing.
In August, 91% of high priority calls were resolved within 2 hours or the timescale set by the customer. That's really good news if you're waiting for help.
|
Month |
In time (%) |
In time (H) (%) |
In time (total) |
In time (H) (total) |
Total solved |
|
2020-08 |
87.14 |
91.47 |
366 |
118 |
420 |
|
2020-07 |
89.90 |
94.70 |
463 |
143 |
515 |
|
2020-06 |
86.57 |
94.35 |
419 |
167 |
484 |
|
2020-05 |
90.03 |
92.16 |
289 |
94 |
321 |
|
2020-04 |
90.06 |
93.75 |
290 |
105 |
322 |
|
2020-03 |
87.18 |
94.48 |
408 |
154 |
468 |
Over the last 6 months, support performance has been pretty consistent(ly good).
If want more information about our 24x7 personal support service which we offer to all asbestos consultancies who use our Alpha Tracker asbestos software, get in touch!
A very warm welcome to MDK Analytical asbestos consultancy to the Alpha Tracker family!
Based in Carrigtwohill, County Cork, MDK is the latest Irish asbestos consultancy to choose Alpha Tracker to be their asbestos software system.
We'll be working on the asbestos report templates for MDK very soon (Alpha Tracker produces asbestos reports in your format, not ours) and then they will be ready for the training and go-live. We love meeting new asbestos consultancy clients!