Dotted Eyes News

Our 3 peaks challenge team return safe and sound after successfully climbing (and descending) Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon.  Congratulations to Matt Asbury, James Bowler, David Eagle, Charlie Gilbert, Vickie White and Steve Davies. Luckily the weather stayed fine throughout and they managed to complete the challenge within their 24 hour target – suffering only a few bumps and bruises along the way!

With 13 hours of climbing and over 9 hours of driving in between peaks, there was little time for rest stops, food or sleep! Not forgetting that Steve was also tasked with driving the group up to Ben Nevis for the start and back from Snowdon once the challenge was complete.

Money raised through donations from colleagues and friends will go to the nominated charities; Parkinson’s UK and CLIC Sargent.

See our 3 peaks challenge gallery below – click the images for a larger view.

Members of Dotted Eyes staff are gearing up to take on the National 3 Peaks Challenge this weekend. Our 5 climbers: Matt Asbury, James Bowler, David Eagle, Charlie Gilbert and Vickie White, will be helped along the way by driver Steve Davies.

The challenge involves climbing the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales and our intrepid group will attempt to complete the challenge within an impressive 24 hours.

Covering a distance of around 24 miles with approximately 10,000 ft of ascent the climb begins in Scotland on Friday afternoon. Our climbers will take on the mighty Ben Nevis (1,334m), followed by a drive down to the Lake District for an early morning ascent of Scafell Pike (978m) and finally Snowdon (1,085m) in North Wales – by which time Steve will have driven them over 1,000 miles!

Managing Director, Ben Allan stated “I am proud to support the staff in such a demanding endeavour and have no doubt they will succeed in scaling all 3 peaks.”

Charities being supported include Parkinson’s UK and CLIC Sargent, which have special meaning to those taking part.  If you would like to make a donation you can follow the links: Parkinson’s UK and CLIC Sargent  all contributions gratefully received.

Keep track of our team’s progress in real time by visiting our ’3 peaks’ page from 5pm this Friday 10th June – 3G signal reception permitting!

Dotted Eyes staff rose to the challenge when tasked to create a new and exciting garden area for the children at a school in Bromsgrove. Each year the company donates a day to work on a project in the local community and last Friday 20^th May, 30 members of Dotted Eyes’ staff visited Charford 1^st School with gardening tools at the ready.

Taking an unused and overgrown area of the school’s grounds, the challenge was to transform it into an attractive garden, complete with giant chessboard for the children, in just one day.  Among the finishing touches also created were new benches, flower beds, a pathway and lawn area.

Bromsgrove’s MP, Sajid Javid visited the site to see the progress being made and show support for this community driven project.

Ben Allan, Managing Director of Dotted Eyes stated, “With funding cuts taking effect throughout the public sector, it was unlikely that this school would have had the opportunity to carry out this work themselves.  We are delighted to be able to offer our help in this way.”

The project also relied on the kind support of businesses such as building supplier, Travis Perkins who helped with the provision of materials for the chessboard and pathways, and local nursery Singleton’s who donated plants for the new flower beds.

Head Teacher Anita McLaren stated, “We are all very excited about the new garden which gives the children an opportunity to learn about chess in a new and fun way.  It is also shows them how well communities can work together.”

Visit our events page to register for any of the following events free of charge:

Save money through the efficient use of GIS breakfast briefings:

27th January, Birmingham

1st Febuary, Leeds

3rd February, London

8th February, Swansea

 FME 2011/FME User Group:

8th February, FME 2011 webinar

5th April, FME UK User Group, Leeds

7th April, FME UK User Group, Southampton

Members of the Dotted Eyes team will be at the MUGUKI meeting on 13th Jan at Birmingham to talk about effective MapInfo licensing and our new online services which are designed to streamline the delivery of GIS services.

The MapInfo User Group is a very effective resource for MapInfo Professional users, offering peer support and regular educational meetings.

If you’re planning to attend, and would like to arrange to meet with one of our team, please contact us on 01527 556920.

The National Trust has now fully deployed Contractor Portal, the latest innovation from Dotted Eyes.  Providing the National Trust contractor network and staff with a complete, self-serve system for facilitating all OS and internal data access requirements, Contractor Portal saved 300 man-hours in just six weeks.  The solution enables users to request National Trust and Ordnance Survey data using a web portal, and download the cut-out data at their convenience.

For a minimal outlay the return on investment is sizeable. Using a hosted system that is served and supported externally, the National Trust is now able to better manage resource requirements.  Contractor Portal also helps to eliminate manual data access procedures, reduce administration time, free up internal resources and reduce time billings by subcontractors.  Most importantly, this easy to use solution ensures that all users have access to the most up-to-date datasets in a quick and convenient way.

Download the full National Trust case study here or call us for more information on 01527 556920.

Automated access to Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and OS data better serves contractors and staff, and presents future benefits for planning collaboration with Kent Connects

Dotted Eyes, the market leading GeoData and information software specialist, today announces the deployment of its Contractor Portal data sharing system by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council (TWBC).  Completed on time and on budget, the system is already meeting the Council’s need for a low-cost solution to providing automated data access to contractors, partners and internal planning staff.

TWBC identified Contractor Portal as the optimum system to accommodate its data sharing requirements late this summer. The system was quickly deployed; immediately facilitating self-serve access to Ordnance Survey data licensed under the Mapping Services Agreement (MSA), whilst delivering automated compliance and critical audit trails.

In line with the simplicity of the Contractor Portal system, TWBC just authorizes data access for contractors working on behalf of the Council (including individuals, charities, town and parish councils, other agencies and private companies), the data is then cut out, distributed and charged directly to the respective contractor by Dotted Eyes.

“Contractor Portal has quite simply alleviated a significant time, cost and resource- intensive responsibility for TWBC staff,” said Peter Wain, GIS Manager at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.

“We have some 25-plus key contractors as well as planning staff and engineers needing critical data access which previously would require manual servicing to identify the mapping data, write DVDs and post off individual packages – each request often taking half a day at a time.  Quite frankly, it’s a low investment with potentially very high returns.

“Encouragingly, partners within the Kent Connects network have already shown interest in adopting the system which would be of huge benefit to all parties in collaborating on joint planning projects – such as the current A21 development.”

“Self-service and simplification is key to opening up important data access as it enables more people in more organisations to make better and faster decisions,” said Ben Allan, Managing Director of Dotted Eyes.

“We’re really pleased that Tunbridge Wells identified the benefits of Contractor Portal so swiftly. We’re keen to hear how Kent Connects responds to TWBC’s initiative as we believe that the partnership has much to gain in realising low-cost, accessible data sharing.”

With a long heritage as innovators of software, data and information solutions developed for some 900-plus public and private sector customers in healthcare, local government, not-for-profit and the commercial sector, Dotted Eyes’ mantra is to ‘simplify, automate and integrate’  data and information.  This approach uniquely equips senior and departmental levels of organisations to access, visualise, analyse and share complex data in simple, useable formats to make more cost-effective, locally-relevant decisions.

Further information

The National Trust saved over 300 man hours in  just 6 weeks by using Contractor Portal deployment to serve internal and OS data to staff and contractors. For more information about Contractor Portal, and to register interest for the autumn/winter 2010 seminars, visit:  www.dottedeyes.com/cp.

Dotted Eyes has expanded its range of training courses with the addition of a one day PostGIS training course, starting in October 2010.

The PostGIS course joins Dotted Eyes’ expanding range of open source services and solutions, including GeoServer training and a new Open Source Spatial Starter Kit, which is designed to allow organisations to launch a web mapping application within just one week.

To discuss how open source is a viable alternative to proprietary software, call our Commercial Team on 01527 556920 or email info@dottedeyes.com

Dotted Eyes, the leading GIS specialist, has delivered the first in its new series of open source GIS training courses. Delegates from West Midlands Fire Service received training in the use and administration of GeoServer the leading open source, standards based spatial data publishing platform.

Tim Needham, from West Midlands Fire Service comments, “The training we received from Dotted Eyes has allowed us to replace our heavily-utilised mapping solution with an open source alternative within tight timescales. In the short-term we have seen considerable functional and performance benefits, while the year-on-year cost savings are very welcome in the current financial climate.”

The addition of an open source training capability is a natural step forward for the company which already has considerable experience in supplying open source support and development services to clients, and which uses open source technologies in its own solutions. It also follows on from Dotted Eyes’ popular and free open source seminars which have helped over a hundred delegates understand the benefits of open source.

Ben Allan, MD of Dotted Eyes, comments, “I am delighted that we have been able to add this component to our open source services offering.  We now provide our customers with a comprehensive range of solutions, from top level vendors through to open source technologies, all wrapped in our complete service packages.  This means that our customers can mix and match licensed and open source technology to achieve their optimal GIS environment. Our new Open Source Spatial Starter Kit and our open source courses are key to this. ”

David Crowther, Training Manager at Dotted Eyes, adds, “The GeoServer course will shortly be followed by OpenLayers and PostGIS courses, bringing a complete open source GIS technology stack under the Dotted Eyes training umbrella.”

Anyone interested in open source training from Dotted Eyes should can view the GeoServer training page, or call Craig Dean on 01527 556920.

Dotted Eyes, data and information specialists to the UK public sector and commercial business, today announces that Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Partnership (BHWP) has selected its Health Portal solution to facilitate unprecedented information sharing at every level of the Partnership organisations.

Hot-on-the-heels of the new NHS White Paper release, which focuses heavily on shared information for patients, local authorities and healthcare professionals, the BHWP announcement marks the formal launch of Health Portal, developed by Dotted Eyes to meet the burgeoning need of healthcare professionals to access, visualise and share data through a simple and cost-effective system; freeing up the resources of data analysts and decentralising cumbersome data hubs to deliver access at the point of need.

“In many ways, the key imperatives of the new healthcare reform are already established principles of Birmingham Health & Wellbeing Partnership,” said Jim McManus, Joint Director of Public Health at BHWP.
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