Arete

Arete Software is an independent software house based in Bracknell, Berkshire, specialising in relational database software systems for Education professionals. Established in 1988 they have a proven track record in providing solutions to local authorities in both Education and Social Services. Their flagship product IMPULSE is a Pupil Administration Database Management system for LEAs. IMPULSE is designed to provide a complete solution to LEAs for administration of data relating to pupils, establishments and people within the organisation.

In 1997 the new government announced plans to improve standards in State Education. Since then, pressure has been put on LEAs to modernise systems and make use of computer and Web technologies to improve the standard of services provided to State schools. This includes establishing high quality pupil administration databases and using the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) to exchange data between schools and LEAs. However, historically the quality of data has been poor, with many errors and much inconsistent and inadequate information, in particular for pupil addresses.

To eliminate error and enhance the quality of their database address records, LEAs desperately needed a solution that was able to correct incoming address data, and cleanse and enhance existing database addresses. To meet this demand, Arete decided to incorporate an address management solution within their flagship product IMPULSE.

After thoroughly bench testing various address management solutions on the market, Arete decided to choose Capscan's Matchcode and Zapcode, and in January 2001 they joined the Capscan Partnership Programme. Tony Brown, Managing Director explains, "We looked at several options, but Capscan provided the most comprehensive and cost effective solution to the problem of validating and cleansing address data used in LEA systems. Capscan also provided all the geo-coding data that we required. By ensuring all address records are geo-coded, we can provide links to GIS mapping systems used in the schools admissions process to measure distances between homes and schools. The data gathered can then be analysed in many ways and presented graphically using maps to show complex information, such as the density of school populations by area."

Tony Brown continues, "Integrating Capscan addressing software with IMPULSE has reaped great benefits for our customers. They are now able to capture, cleanse and geo-code addresses with considerable accuracy. For example, one of our customers had 23,500 addresses of which only 20 of these could not be geo-coded."

On the ease of integrating Capscan software with IMPULSE, Tony Brown adds, "It was very easy considering the slightly unusual way we have integrated Capscan's technology into ours. The integration was tailored to our exact requirements to offer our customers the both batch and interactive functionalities of Matchcode. This was achieved relatively painlessly thanks to Capscan's excellent service and technical support."

"Our relationship with Capscan has always been good and looks even better for the future. We are very much looking forward to working further with them, especially with the provision of forthcoming additional information such as Local Authority Ward Codes, LEA Codes and NLPG datasets," concludes Tony Brown.