PIMS provides better coordination, improved data management, and better handling of property based issues within the design, planning, finance, communications and property teams within and across agencies. This in turn drives down costs, improves accountability, reduces duplication and errors, and ultimately improves outcomes for claimants and authorities.
Capabilities
- Multi agency/project – PIMS can be configured for use by multiple agencies to cater for the differing business needs within the common property land assembly framework and legislation.
- Secure - Data is encrypted on the server and when travelling between client PCs and the server.
- Workflow driven – a common, well defined and easy to follow workflow is built into PIMS to allow the creation and management of Projects, Properties, Interested Parties, Titles, and Financial Transactions.
- Extensive reporting – an extensive library of reports is available to report on cases, projects, finances, expenditure forecasts, cash reconciliation, and much more. Reports are parameter driven providing flexibility and control for the end user.
- Mapping capability – the map interface brings together project specific layers and other generic layers common to all projects. This functionality allows users to quickly locate a property, its proximity to project design and boundaries and understand its full context in respect of a project.
- Audit trail – behind the scenes the system captures all operations on all application forms. PIMS provide an interface to administrator users to view and report on this information within the application.
- System Administration – PIMS comes with an extensive Administration capability to allow the set up and management of all aspects of the system, including users, projects, reports, etc.
- Web application – PIMS is a client / server web application that can be run on any platform and any modern web browser.
- Roles based security – access to data, function and reports is controlled by roles assigned to users and activated on login to the system.
- Case management – case negotiators and managers are able to conduct all their relevant activities and report on outcomes associated with land acquisition on a case by case basis. The My Cases form provides a great summary of all the cases being worked on by a case negotiator.
- Financial management - PIMS captures a range of standard land expenditure cost components to enhance future project estimating by comparing budget components to actual costs. PIMS forecasting provides case workers with a snap shot comparison of budget, forecast/accrued expenditure, cash transactions and the Total Forecast (TEC). It also provides project reports summarising the overall project financial position.
- Highly configurable – PIMS allows the administrator users to configure all system parameters to suit each project via the Basic Data functionality. i.e. options that appear in drop down lists, Interested Party action generation etc.
- Data Import/Export - capture of initial property data sets is commonly undertaken in Excel spreadsheets. PIMS has bulk data upload routines to import and create database records from CSV text files generated from Excel. Like-wise database records can be exported to Excel for further data analysis and ad hoc reporting.
- Flexible hosting - PIMS can be hosted in the cloud, on premise, or a combination of both.
Proven Business Benefits
- Better coordination, improved data management and better handling of property-based issues within the design, planning, legal, finance, communications and property teams of an agency;
- Integration of spatial and aspatial (tabular) data in one enterprise application;
- Capacity to better align and target data work flows across portfolios, and escalate the delivery of joined-up services;
- Sharing of data intelligence among a broader team audience, leading to new ideas around its use;
- Greater access to property-based information to reduce duplication of effort, and to target resources;
- Places agencies in a strong position to respond to the increasing property management needs of government, industry and the community;
- Greater recognition of and demand for high quality property information;
- Greater alignment between policy and service delivery agencies and organisations (government at all levels, utilities and the private sector) using property information as a common denominator;
- Increased commitment to greater team participation, better access to information and improved service delivery for agencies.
PIMS Forms
Property
The property form has seven tabs to capture a range of different property data. At the bottom of the details tab the form displays the names of the parties with an interest in the property, e.g. the freehold owner and any lessee or tenants. The details of these parties are contained in the Interested Parties form.
Interested Party
The details on the Interested Party form include budget, financial forecasting, possession dates, offers, claims and action milestones in the negotiation process.
Expenditure & Cash Flow
PIMS incorporates in its forms and admin functions, detailed methodologies for estimating total costs of acquisition, and thereafter forecasting cash flow requirements. In addition, it captures the different legislative steps to acquire each category of land, e.g. freehold, Crown or Public Authority land resulting in an enormous amounting of knowledge capture (Intellectual Property) being incorporated into the application.
Reporting
PIMS provides extensive reporting across financial, statistical and task management processes. Tailored reports with specified parameters allow users to focus data outputs as required.
As much of the property data starts life in Excel spreadsheets developed by client authorities, there is a bulk import and export report processes to create PIMS records from Excel files and then export updated records back to the clients for purposes such as mail merge correspondence.
Standard reports include:
- Financial
- Statistics by Property and Interest Types
- Milestone – Actions vs Program
- Supplier
- Bulk Import and Export
- Case Load
- Asset Register
- Property-Polygon Validation
Additional reports can be built and included as needed.
PIMS Map Interface
The power of visualising and querying a project from a spatial perspective cannot be understated. Being able to see the location of a property in context to project elements and then access detailed activity and financial information at the click of a button is a proven major efficiency gain.
PIMS provides a map interface where users can find, select and identify properties based on location, address and many other key parameters. Once selected from the map interface, users can then access property information that includes details of ownership status, progress of acquisition cases and actual and forecast expenditure.
It also provides for map overlays of critical project features such as road design, project boundaries and other significant background data such as aerial photography and planning zones. As a consequence, it is a useful resource for project communications staff, engineers and planners.
The Map interface brings together Project specific layers and other generic layers common to all projects. This functionality allows property case negotiators, planners, engineers, communications staff and management to quickly locate a property, its proximity to project design and boundaries and understand its full context in respect of a project.
The Map interface comes with a variety of tools to assist with understanding a project from a spatial perspective. For example, there is a spatial selection tool for querying and reporting on multi-storey buildings with multiple owners.
Users can either search for properties via a text search, or spatial selection via the map. Once selected, users can then click on form tabs, e.g. Property or Interested Party, to obtain detailed information on the status of the property or case negotiations.
Implementation Services
Cohga works with you to take advantage of the capabilities of modern, state of the art software. Our team is experienced in the development of IT solutions, from the establishment of system requirements through to testing and commissioning as well as post-implementation support. Our commitment to innovation and research is materialised in the design, development and support of our Weave software, which forms the foundation for the PIMS solution.
Weave is a systems integration and Information delivery framework for rapidly combining disparate information systems in an easy to use environment.
Weave provides a very powerful set of tools for integrating corporate information systems, and for viewing, searching, editing, and reporting across these systems, without users needing to know the integrated systems.
Weave allows corporate information to be easily shared and disseminated across the web and Weave’s strong web mapping capabilities allows information to be viewed and analysed in a spatial context.
Cohga will work with your agency to adapt and adopt the PIMS solution in the most effective and efficient manner. Our staff are experienced with the property management business and are ideally placed to maximise the business outcomes from the PIMS solution.
Clients Using PIMS
Cohga’s Weave technology has been recognised as an industry leading solution, winning multiple awards.