About Start Software

Start Software is an award-winning developer and leading publisher of asbestos software, systems for the legal services industry and more.

Want to know more about asbestos software Alpha Tracker? Alpha Tracker is the most used asbestos software in the UK, Australia & New Zealand with more than 60m items of asbestos data stored.

Our legal services software Alpha Legal helps will writers, accountants, solicitors, IFAs and estate agents to communicate securely with clients. Read about developments here on the blog.

Or need help with Alpha Anywhere or Alpha Transform projects or software development? You'll find useful info here.

What's new in Alpha Tracker Release 42? Is it the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?

42 is famously the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.  Take a look at The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy if you don't know the reference!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a work of genius

Alpha Tracker Release 42 is not quite that, but it is still a huge update, with the usual hundreds of improvements, new features, performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Important! It will probably also be the final major update to the core Alpha Tracker system before we begin rolling out our complete rewrite, built using a new technology stack, later in 2026. You can read more about our plans on the Alpha Tracker roadmap.

Jack, Ferry, Judy, Kim and the rest of the team have had a lot of fun creating this release. As always, we have also worked hard to implement ideas and suggestions from our wonderful customers.

Release 42 highlights

  • More than 600 improvements and updates across every area of Alpha Tracker

  • Major Water Hygiene enhancements, including clearer risk logic to improve how water risks are presented on the Client Portal

  • A new LRA Review water project type, making it easier to revisit, review and update information from previous Legionella Risk Assessments

  • Instant AI analysis of survey items from photographs, helping surveyors assess materials more quickly and consistently

  • Further support for Australian asbestos material assessment scoring, helping asbestos teams work in line with updated Australian requirements

  • A new Report Dashboard on the Home screen, giving teams a clearer overview of report production across their projects

  • Improved Alpha Tracker performance, thanks to an updated version of the underlying software framework

  • Faster imports using the Alpha Tracker Work Queue, improving the speed of some of our most popular data imports

  • Improved site-sharing visibility, making it clearer which sites have been shared and helping teams manage access more confidently

  • Enhanced site register controls, including a new hidden-items tab and site-level QR-code password protection for greater control over site information

Update on the new software framework

We have received a small number of reports of instability following the framework update. As of 25 July 2026, we believe we have identified and fixed the issue, and deployment of the fix to affected systems is under way.

More Info & Webinar

Full details of Alpha Tracker Release 42, including the Release Notes and Highlights document, are available on our latest release page.

You can also join us for our Release 42 webinar on Tuesday 28 July at 11:30am.  Find out more and register for the Release 42 webinar



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