In previous posts we looked at how to retrieve repair works orders  and then pull back full works order details  from Civica Cx. If you have not already seen that post, I suggest you read that first. That’s great, but only a piece of the whole picture. Typically Cx is the client system, and a 3rd party contractor is using their own in house, or off the shelf software. I refer to this as the external system. Once the external system has received a works order and started d

With Scottish draft regulations mirroring the intent of Awaab’s Law, housing associations can’t afford to wait until reporting deadlines arrive to think about data. Early decisions on how damp and mould information is captured, structured and flowed through Civica Housing Cx will determine whether future reporting is meaningful or misleading. This piece explores why early thinking matters, how Scottish and English approaches differ, and five practical, data-first steps Cx tea

We previously explored retrieving lists of work orders using Cx Repair Contractor web services. While that approach suits queues and dashboards, real integrations often need to interrogate a single work order in detail. Cx provides several closely related SOAP methods for this purpose, all accepting the same identifiers but returning different levels of detail depending on intent and audience. Understanding their differences, prerequisites, and security behaviour is key to ch

Picking up where the token post left off, this article moves on to something genuinely useful: retrieving repair work orders from Cx using the SOAP web services. Despite newer versions and endless documentation, WSRepairContractorService is still doing real-world heavy lifting. This post walks through a working GetRepairWorkOrders call, highlights common gotchas, and explains exactly what data you’ll get back.

Find out about the July 2025 ARC Changes coming in to force from April 2025. Read now and don’t be caught off guard!

Databases have a habit of growing quietly in the background until, one day, they’re suddenly everyone’s problem. Storage might feel cheap, but the ripple effects of an oversized database are anything but. Longer nightly ETL runs, sluggish reporting, bloated backups, and clogged networks all trace back to unchecked growth. The result? Your business loses precious time and flexibility, especially when jobs that should finish in an hour creep into the early morning. This post i

Automated communications are only as good as the data they carry. In Civica Cx, built-in tags go a long way - but only so far. What if you want to pull in precise, situation-specific data into your emails, letters, or texts? That’s where Conditional Data Tags  come in. And once you understand them, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them. Why Conditional Tags? Out of the box, Cx provides a limited set of built-in tags. But modern workflows demand flexibility. Its far

I have the great pleasure of working with so many Civica Cx sites, and one question that seems to come up fairly frequently is: "Should I...

We're all no stranger to the ever-evolving landscape of regulatory requirements. From April 2025, changes to the Annual Return on the Scottish Social Housing Charter (ARC) will take effect, bringing with them new reporting expectations and removing some existing requirements. Stay ahead of these changes, look at data capture now, and make your reporting life easier! I know firsthand that keeping up with regulatory changes can be a challenge, but with the right approach, you c

The Importance of Forward Planning in Census Data Integration for Cx Housing System Introduction Census data collection within housing associations is essential for understanding tenant demographics, improving service delivery, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. However, too often, the surveys are collected and passed over to someone to load in to a system with no involvement to data and the task of unravelled the ball of wool begins! Get it wrong, and it l

In this post I show you how you can pull information field responses in to Communications Remove manual entry?, improve communication quality? reduce error? be more efficient? It’s been a while since I posted on here. 2024 didn’t start quite as I expected but we’re going to finish on a high. As a family we were incredibly lucky to not lose anyone to Covid, and in our small metaphorical and literal bubble, life was simpler. I had been grounded by BoJo and his chums. This d

In an earlier post, web-services-and-why-you-should-care we talked through what web services are and what you can do with them. We then also learned in soap-vs-rest , how Civica are due to rebuild all the current web services on the REST protocol. All that said, SOAP remains a valid candidate on which to build your integration project and so over a number of posts, I'll be talking through how each of the important web services work, and how they can be used. What lang

Lets cut right to the chase....this is pretty specialist stuff. You either want to know it, or you are one of the 99.999999% of people out there who almost definitely don't know this even exists, or care. But....if you are that 0.000001% of people who do, then wouldn't it be great to find the answer right here! What on earth are Stored Procedures for Bulk Communications? One of the most powerful aspects of Cx is the communications engine. It is centred around the Contact,

In the first article in the series, we learn about what web services are and some key concepts