Save 10% on your European Asbestos Forum booking in Brussels. We're sponsoring the EAF again this year

If you are considering attending the European Asbestos Forum (EAF) in Brussels in December, but still need to book your ticket, here's how to save 10% on your registration.

Start Software is an EAF sponsor again this year, enabling us to pass on a special deal to all Alpha Tracker software users.  Email your registration as normal but mention asbestos software Alpha Tracker in your booking request and ask for the 10% special offer discount.

Highlights from last year's EAF conference

We'll launch an update to our "Damage: The Poor Condition of Asbestos in our Schools, Hospitals and Houses" report at the EAF with the latest statistics about asbestos in schools, particularly.  We will be making this data available to Mesothelioma UK CEO Liz Darlison so that she has the latest information available for her talk on Day 2 (see https://www.europeanasbestosforum.org/programme-and-registration-2024/).

Watch out for our updated "Damage" report with the latest data about asbestos in UK schools

The European Asbestos Forum events are always such good value with high-quality presentations and - more importantly - opportunities to discuss asbestos with leading professionals from Europe and beyond.  In fact, it has become a global event with asbestos experts from every corner of the world attending.

Hope to see you there!

(read more about Alpha Tracker at EAF events here: https://blog.start-software.com/search?q=EAF)

It's our ISO9001 and ISO27001 recertification week where we focus on Quality and Information Security

It seems like Catherine has been preparing for months for our ISO9001:2015 and ISO27001:2013  recertifications.  This week, she's been working non-stop with ISO assessor Chris and our ISO consultant Kieran alongside our Telford team to provide evidence of our conformance to the standards.

Catherine, Chris and Kieran

Keeping our ISO certifications is a long and costly process, so why do we put ourselves through it?

ISO9001 has been the bedrock of our business since we started trading.  ISO9001 is a measure of an organisation's Quality Management System, essentially a guarantee that a company will work in an orderly, consistent and measured way.   Our software is used by hundreds of organisations every day and they rely on us to provide a consistent service.  Our Support Desk has never been busier, handling more than 1,000 tickets each month and we aim to deal with each one in a timely and professional manner.

ISO27001 ensures that we treat data and information within our custody with appropriate care and diligence.  It is an internationally recognised standard relating to Information Security specifically and there are not many companies of our size who have spent the time and money necessary to obtain the certification.

We won't know until the end of the week whether any non-conformances have been found, so please do wish us luck!

Meet Melika! She is half-way through her work experience with Start Software

We're giving Melika a month's work experience to help start her career in software development.

Team Leader Dan helping Melika

Melika is based in Glasgow, but has taken the leap to move to Telford for the month to embed herself in our team, and see how we build software for our clients.  She's been looking at asbestos software Alpha Tracker, ecological report-writing system ecoScribe and some of our other software products.

She is also helping out on Support, too, so do say hello and make her welcome if you call in and Melika picks up the phone.  She's the only one in our office with a Scottish accent so won't have a problem spotting her!

October saw another 1,000+ tickets on the Support Desk

October 2024 was another 1,000 ticket month - 1,167 to be precise.  Zac, Jamie & Lucas were joined by Melika this month, helping customers using our apps to get the most from their software.

6 months of Support Desk performance

Performance dropped slightly but was still good.  94% of high-priority tickets were answered on time compared to 91% of all tickets.