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About

The current Estates management system (WREN) is approaching the end of its useful life and there is an opportunity to introduce a new, more robust, system.

There are a number of business critical University services that run through the system, including managing our buildings, scheduling and logging essential building maintenance as well as supporting critical health and safety processes, data and security operations.

This project aims to reduce the risk of system failure by replacing WREN with a modern CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) system.

Benefits

• Sustainable support model for a key University solution
• Compliance
• Reduced system complexity
• Reduced risk of disruption to Campus operations on campus
• Opportunity for significant process efficiency through a fit for purpose solution

Strategic Alignment

• Mitigation of Known Risk – technology risk
• Risk and Compliance – health and safety, security, legal (particularly GDPR compliance)
• Operational efficiency

Introducing Concerto

 

This is a brief introduction to Concerto, the University’s new Estates management system.

 

Please watch the or read the description below.

 

 

 

Concerto is a CAFM or computer aided facilities management system. It will help the Estates Directorate to manage all aspects of the estate at the University.

At the centre of the Estates Concerto hub is the Finance Interface, which allows for seamless billing of our estates transactions.

 

Concerto schematic - Finance Interface at the centre

 

Built around the interface are 5 key modules that make up the central hub.

Concerto central hub

• Core Data, where the bedrock of data on the University's estate is stored.
• Projects & Programmes, where we plan and execute our minor, intermediate and major projects.
• Reactive Maintenance, which allows us to manage our short notice daily maintenance tasks.
• Planned Maintenance, for planning and scheduling necessary changes in advance.
• Property Services, where we manage information related to our commercial and residential property assets. 

Around the central hub, are 6 further modules. These modules support and inform the activities that take place in the central hub.

Concerto supporting modules

Those that govern aspects of health and safety throughout the Estates daily lifecycle include:

• Conditions Surveys
• Fire Risk Assessment
• Asbestos Surveys
• Hazardous Materials Surveys
• Permits to Work

Lastly there is the Stock Control module on which our maintenance tasks rely. 

 

UoR Change Plan

Concerto is being delivered over a number of phases. The core functionality, as outlined in the section above, is planned to be delivered in Phase 1 during 2025.

Phase 1 delivery is broken down into three stages, outlined in the diagram below.

• Stage 1 - Build. An intense and significant stage of the project that encompasses: analysing and understanding key business processes, cleaning and uploading of the Estates data and designing and configuring Concerto to meet the needs of the University.
• Stage 2 – Training and Testing. In order for our users to be ready to test the new system and use it for daily Business As Usual (BAU) they will need the necessary training. Training classes, materials and resources, dependent on individual and team requirements will be made available during this stage of the project. Front runners on the project will utilise their acquired systems knowledge to test the freshly configured Concerto system and confirm that it is fit for purpose during User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Stage 3 – Cut-over. Once proved in testing and with users upskilled with Concerto knowledge, the system will go-live and take over from WREN.

Stage delivery model for Concerto

Concerto Environments

This section aims to clarify the system environments that have been created to deliver and manage Concerto during the project and into live.

There are 3 system environments, Sandbox, Preview and Live/Production.

Sandbox

This environment provides a safe and isolated space for the project team to experiment with new features and configurations without affecting the other environments.

Key uses include:

• Early-stage testing of new releases and configurations.
• Experimentation and exploratory testing by the project team.
• Setting up user profiles for staff engagement testing.
• Conducting staff user engagement testing.

Preview

This serves as a near-production environment and is used by the project team for validating new features, fixes, and configurations prior to release into the live environment.

Key uses include:

• SSO (single sign-on) testing.
• Verifying newly released features and fixes meet requirements.
• Allowing stakeholders to explore and review the system.

Live/Production

This serves as the final, fully operational environment for the end users to interact with the system to complete BAU (business as usual).

Note: During the project until the first module of Concerto goes into live operational use this environment will be used as the primary test environment for the testers to undertake User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

Key uses:

• Hosting the operational system for real-world use.
• Monitoring performance and user activity.
• Providing support and resolving production issues.

Concerto environments key

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: When are we expected to go-live with the new system?

A: Concerto is now planned to go-live on 28^th July 2025. Some modules may go live a week or two either side of this date to lower the risk associated with everything going live on the same day.

Q: What has determined the date when we can go-live with Concerto?

A: As part of the UoR digital strategy, there are a number of University wide system changes being planned for 2025. A number of these changes have complex interdependencies.

Concerto is being targeted to go-live in line with the finance system changes as many Concerto modules and Estates Directorate activities rely on the link with Agresso and the ability to purchase items.

Q: If the system is going in earlier than expected, will that mean it requires further development after we go-live in the summer?

A: Yes. In order to meet the cascade of digital strategy dependency / enablement changes for 2025, including the changes to the finance systems, Concerto will go-live on 28^th July with the expectation of further development continuing after that date.

Q: What is the scope for Phase 1?

A: Phase 1 covers the implementation of the core Concerto modules which are essential for teams in the Estates Directorate to deliver business as usual activities. Once the system is live, it is likely that we will find things that we want to develop in order to improve processes and increase efficiency; these developments will be undertaken in Phase 2 and beyond.

Q: What is the scope for Phase 2?

A: Phase 2 covers the replacement of the remaining items which currently run on Wren or other Access databases i.e. car parking, postal services, and security operations. Work has commenced to determine what products might be purchased to replace these elements of Wren.

Phase 2 will also include further development of Concerto to respond to user feedback, improve processes, and increase efficiency.

Q: If we are going live in July, why don’t I have access to the new system yet?

A: Every Concerto module has a Product Owner and each Product Owner has access to Concerto so that they can test and provide feedback on the system. For some modules, development is almost complete and more staff have been asked to undertake system testing. System testing is being undertaken in a controlled manner with testing scripts provided for staff to follow and provide feedback on what is and isn’t working. The software being used for system testing is known as Jira (pronounced jee-rah).

Your local Product Owner may ask you to participate in system testing from May onwards. If you’re not involved in system testing, you will receive training and access to the system in June or July.

Q: What will training look like?

A: Every member of staff in the Estates Directorate will receive face to face training. User guides and ‘how to’ videos are being prepared for each module, so all staff will have these to refer back to as they get used to using Concerto. In the first few weeks after go-live, we will have individuals from Estates, the Project Team, and DTS on hand to help with any difficulties that Estates Directorate staff might encounter; at this stage Concerto will be in ‘hypercare’ with staff from Concerto also on hand to answer any questions.

Q: When will training take place?

A: Exact dates for training are being determined, but will likely be in late June or early July. Training will be offered on more than one date so that anyone who is on leave does not miss out.

Q: Wren’s last day of support by Microsoft will be 14^th October.  What will happen if we’ve not been able to move off Wren by that date?

A: Digital Technology Services (DTS) are aware of this drop-dead date and are working to ensure that Concerto will be up and running before October.  However, DTS will consider how best to avoid a cyber-security incident should we need to use Wren beyond 14^th October. 

Q: Will Wren and Concerto need to run in parallel at any point?

A: Yes, there will be a transition period, known as ‘cut-over’, where both Wren and Concerto will be running.  The aim will be to keep this period as short as possible.  A guide will be produced for all staff so that we all know which activities to undertake in which system during the cut-over period.

Q: Will all communication about Concerto for Estates staff be via the website?

A: This website will contain all updates on Concerto and will serve as the main repository for information for Estates staff.  Further information will be provided via Estates newsletters and all staff talks.  As we get closer to implementation, teams will be invited to in-person training sessions to get hands-on with Concerto.  The implementation team are always happy to be invited to team meetings to give updates.  Please invite us along!  You can contact us by emailing concerto@reading.ac.uk

Q: How will we communicate with stakeholders outside Estates?

A: As we get closer to implementation, we will start to engage with key stakeholders outside Estates.  There will be poster campaigns, information on this website and explainer videos for those who need to use Concerto.

Q: We’ve been talking about Concerto for a long time.  Why is implementation taking so long?

A: As Concerto will cover all areas of Estates, a huge amount of information gathering (analysis) has had to take place to ensure that we know about all processes that need to be available in Concerto.  This work has taken some time, but the knowledge that we have gained has now been translated into workflows (design) which are being built (configured) within Concerto.  Some of the processes and workflows are now in a state where system testing can take place to determine whether everything has been configured as required.  Each module will go through this process, and system testing will take place one module at a time.  Once all modules have been configured, we will be able to move onto training and testing, and then to go live.  This process is outlined in the stage delivery model on this website.