Placecube's Open Place Directory for Bristol City Council
Adam Harris, Chief Customer Officer of Placecube talks about their journey developing a compliant Open Place Directory for Bristol City Council.
At the time the standard was first being considered we were working closely with the Local Government Authority (LGA) and Porism. We were developing the Open Place Directory with Bristol City Council and we could see the benefits of a national standard for service data. So following discussions with various stakeholders we agreed that it would be the best approach for our software and APIs.
The challenges
There were no notable barriers of challenges for us in adopting the Data Standard. We had to make some additions to our database structure, but nothing too arduous.
Benefits
The benefits of a data standard (improved quality & consistency of data and the interoperability of software solutions) are beneficial to all parties within the entire service directory ecosystem. We have benefited from working with other like-minded organisations, including other software providers, in order to drive a better solution and therefore better outcomes for end users of the services.
Advice
The key thing to consider is ownership of service data assurance. Adoption of the standard will only deliver benefits if there are suitable mechanisms in place for ensuring ongoing compliance with the standard.
Feedback
Placecube has developed some of our own extensions to the Standard, to meet our customers needs. The standard doesn’t need to be restrictive in any way.