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Strategy Mapping & Reporting Technology

Escendency News

December 2018

OnwardsandUpwards launches new look website

Escendency relaunches its OnwardsandUpwards website with a new look.

Like us on Facebook,
follow us on Twitter &
join us on LinkedIn.


Special Needs LondonNovember 2011

SEN Green Paper and Achievement for All Conference

Escendency participate in a one day national conference in Birmingham, the the 9th Annual SEN Green Paper and Achievement for All. Leading outstanding SEN provision, managing the implications of the Green Paper and ensuring high-quality support and better learning outcomes.


5 October 2011

The Escendency System
We are excited to announce that Escendency 2011 will be released on Friday October 28th. Before that there will be a full version pre-release on October 14th and customers will be invited to populate the pre-release system with new and existing data.
System administrators will be able to book a slot to access assistance in setting up their Escendency 2011 training systems between October 14th and October 28th.

Features

Behind the smart new look front end there are a number of powerful enhancements to this extremely versatile online progress reporting system. Many of our customers' comments and suggestions have been acted upon and we have completely re-written the Escendency User interface to provide cross-browser support with a highly user-friendly and intuitive means of interacting with your measurement data.

Until then…

Over the next two weeks we will be concentrating on finalising this release.

Onwards & Upwards

Mark Robinson
Founder, Escendency

Pulling it all together
As usual, our delivery team can be reached through support@escendency.com

Special Needs LondonSeptember 2011

Launch of Escendency 2011 for Special Schools

Escendency launches Escendency 2011 for Special Schools at TES Special Needs London on 14th & 15th October 2011 - the world's largest gathering of SEN professionals. See us on Stand 76.
See Special Needs London for more information.


Special Needs LondonOctober 2010

Escendency Exhibit at Special Needs London

Escendency are exhibiting at Special Needs London on 15th and 16th October 2010 (stand 76).
See Special Needs London for more information.


8 March 2010

Announcing Escendency 2010 with Powerful New Interface and Tools for Holistic Progress Reporting in Real-Time

Escendency, innovation leader in holistic real-time progress reporting, today announces the upcoming release of the latest version of the Escendency System, the software standard for physical modelling of strategy. Escendency 2010 (pronounced “twenty-ten”) provides numerous functional and usability enhancements and will be supporting on a number of different platforms and browsers for the first time. With the new release Escendency again lives up to its name of developing flexible, simple and intuitive tools for education, local authorities, agencies, social enterprises and businesses. more…

  • Escendency 2010 is easily adjusted to the different profiles of users and now comes with a completely customisable dashboard allowing users to promote information to the dashboard from anywhere in the system and at any level.
  • Users benefit from the remarkable combination of the most user friendly interface enhancements with the flexibility and formalism of a true cross browser platform. Utilising new advancement in web technology Escendency 2010 combines the usability of desktop applications with the internet collaboration.
  • Delivering this new edition, Escendency has responded to the growing demand for an open standard for exchanging data. Whether users wish to integrate, import or export all is now supported by common tools that utilize XML, the common standard for data exchange.
  • Escendency 2010 now supports real-time measurement and analysis of data, allowing measurements to be made by the second with real-time reporting. This will now allow Escendency 2010 to integrate with the majority of assessment, measurement and third party applications.
  • And finally, Escendency 2010 will be released with its own custom report designer, allowing users to access their data, format it (even using their organisations document templates), and deliver it as information inside and outside their organisation. Export reports to popular formats, including Excel, PDF, XML, HTML, RTF, and more.

Mark Robinson, Founder of Escendency says “As we reach the sixth birthday of the Escendency System it has continued to grow and evolve through enhancements suggested by our growing number of users from ever more sectors.

Escendency 2010 is a quantum leap and we offer it as an exciting and fun “thankyou” to our fans, new and old”


October 2009

Escendency launches 'Escendency for Special Schools' at Special Needs London

See 'Special Schools'


May 2009

Rights Issue

Escendency launches successful rights issue to provide for further expansion.


March 2009


Gillian Ridgway, Head Teacher, & Kath Taylor, Deputy Head,
Cedar House School
Holistic Progress Reporting Delivers Unique Pupil View

A unique pupil progress assessment system designed to provide a holistic view of pupil progress has gone live at Cedar House Residential Special School in Cumbria. The solution, developed by progress reporting system specialists Escendency of Lancaster stores all student assessment data under one master reporting umbrella, allowing the school to instantly capture real-time progress information at all levels, from overall school to individual pupils.

Gillian Ridgway, Head Teacher at Cedar House, believes the system will significantly enhance the school's ability to identify and respond to progress patterns, which in turn will assist in the efficient rollout of individual and group learning programmes, development plans, action plans and target setting.

"The system pulls together reporting from the myriad of sources we work with into one system and as a result we can immediately identify patterns of satisfactory, good or outstanding progress and those needing improvement, she commented. "We can then use the Action planning functions to create and monitor the implementation of progress improvement programmes at all levels and in real time."

Note:
Cedar House Residential Special School belongs to the Witherslack Group of Schools, an independent provider of specialist education and care for children and young people with communication difficulties, complex learning difficulties and behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. Cedar House School is recognised as an outstanding provider for education and care by Ofsted.

Escendency is the developer and provider of the Escendency System which is currently applied to monitor, manage and improve progress in a diverse range of organisations and sectors across the Private and Public Sectors, including BT, various Councils and Higher Education institutions.


February 2009

Escendency Helps North West Firms Realise their Potential with Pioneering New Web Based System

Lancaster company Escendency is enjoying commercial success with a pioneering performance management programme developed by a team headed by founder Mark Robinson.

The web-based SMART (Strategy Mapping and Reporting Technology) system is helping a wide range of organisations become more successful by accurately monitoring their progress and efficiency - and is being adopted by a variety of companies from PLCs to local authorities, schools and colleges and even small businesses.

Article Continues... (Provided by the Government News Network)


January 2009

Special School Pioneers Holistic Performance Reporting

Cedar House Residential Special School in Cumbria is pioneering the development of a pupil progress assessment system designed to provide a truly holistic view of pupil progress for the first time. The solution, developed by progress reporting system specialists Escendency of Lancaster, will go live next month.

The Cedar House system will pull together data from existing tools such as PIVATS, GOAL and B Squared as well as other internal sources deemed relevant to overall pupil assessment, providing a holistic measure of academic, social, behavioural and emotional progress. It will be used to assess individuals, class groups and other relevant units such as Looked After Children (LAC) and ultimately the whole school roll. Outputs from the system will be used to prepare individual and group development plans and track improvements over time.

Gillian Ridgway, Head teacher at Cedar House, is driving the pursuit of a holistic method of pupil, group and whole school assessment:

"Our assessment needs are complex and no one system on its own provides the holistic analysis sufficient to assess overall progress. The Escendency system will, for the first time, give us the opportunity to take a 360 degree view of overall pupil and group progress at a glance and monitor improvement over time efficiently and accurately."

Mark Robinson, progress management specialist and founder of Escendency, is excited about the application of its system in education:

"One of the great strengths of our system is that it can take lots of diverse data strands and aggregate them efficiently into one easy-to-view progress assessment. It is already being deployed in Higher Education and we're delighted to see the Special School Sector preparing to implement it for the first time. It is ideal for creating the holistic progress view at both individual pupil and group level that Cedar House is looking for from the myriad of progress data sources it currently works with."


January 2009

System Release 4.2

The latest upgrade to the Escendency System is now available.

This release contains features, some of which as usual were suggested by our customers for the benefit of all users.

New enhancements include the ability to:

  • Add evidence to assessments.
  • Allow a system administrator or manager to remotely set-up and customise a new user's dashboard.
  • Drill-down from even high-level strategic (computed) performance gauges to the underlying performance detail of the section of strategy map, and below.
  • Facilitate the administration of the system.

In addition the online help has been completely over-hauled to make navigation much easier:

Download Release Note (pdf - 660kb)


December 2008

Escendency Moves Onwards and Upwards

Former InfoLab21 resident company Escendency have now grown up and flown the nest to start the New Year in their new offices in Lancaster city centre.

After a three year incubation period in InfoLab21 the intensive development period of their web-based SMART system, whilst continuing, is evolving into the next phase of deployment to their increasingly diverse customer base.

During 2008 Escendency grew over 22% but this is projected to accelerate, despite the economic recession, to over 100% in 2009.

See full news item on InfoLab21 website


December 2008

Escendency Expands

Escendency has tripled the size of its office space in its new move from InfoLab (Lancaster University) to offices on Castle Hill (an historic conservation area of the city opposite Lancaster Castle - see contact page).

The new offices are centrally located and only a short walk away from Lancaster railway station.

We would like to thank the University for our incubation time at InfoLab21.


November 2008

New Servers Commissioned
More Capicity - More Speed

New servers have been commissioned for the Escendency system which are now operational.

With more memory, more processors and approximately 8x faster performance, our customers will benefit from additional reliability. Improvements in speed will depend on their connection to the Internet.


September 2008

BT Chooses Escendency

BT Group have chosen Escendency's web-based SMART System to monitor, manage and report all BT's activities regarding the environment, climate change, sustainability and corporate social responsibility operations globally.

BT join a growing list of Escendency SMART system users which include Local Authorities, Universities, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, a School and a Neighbourhood Management Community Programme.

We are all looking forward to working with BT as the first major corporation to recognise the power, flexibility and cost effectiveness of the Escendency SMART system.

See BT Chooses InfoLab21 Company Escendency.


August 2008

Escendency Raises Third Round of Equity Funding

To accelerate expansion plans Escendency successfully raises a third round of private equity finance.

This latest share offering values the company at over three times what it was in August 2006.


July 2008

System Release 4.1
New Funcionailty

Strategy map searching: Search strategy map for measurable strategy map item and/or target location.

Comment Editing: Allow measurement/validation comment edit facility to user.

Strategy Map Data Tag and Report: Data tags are a way to add qualitative data and information to strategy map items and also performance targets.

Download Release Note (pdf - 421kb)


March 2008

System Release 4.0
The primary purpose of this release is to introduce the new assessment module

The assessment module allows system users to easily perform non-indicator based performance assessments that encompass a range of categories on any type of system item or as a stand alone assessment. It will be possible to perform assessments on a regular basis and to report progress in a number of ways.

Download Release Note (pdf - 767kb)


November 2007

System Release 3.4
New Funcionailty

Action Plan Types: Action plan types allow action plans to be tagged and identified easily in their place in an action plan hierarchy or relationship to a specific project.

Action Plan Graphic Dashboard Display: The Dashboard has been reconfigured to add an action plan graphic display of task progress.

Action Plan Header fields: In order to select the type of action plan a new field needed to be created in the Action Plan header. Based on several client requests a cost field has also been added to the action plan header.

Download Release Note (pdf - 679kb)


April 2007

System Release 3.3
New functionality

Equation List Report: This new report link is situated in the reports list accessed via the reports tab.

Dashboard Counters: The counters enable users to see a quick summary of their due tasks without having to click on their task tab.

Visualisation of the Corporate Performance Overview report: This new report link is named Corporate Performance Explorer and offers a 3D look at the strategy map with zoom in and out features.

Enhancements

Validator's screen to show more data.

Overdue measurements report to include equation measurements.

Performance Indicator Status report modification.

Ability to edit phase targets.

Ability to change measurer after target creation.

Ability for users with relevant access right to add oversight comments to performance reports.

Export of all reports (not just group reports) to Excel.

Search performance indicator lists.

New Access level 'Auditor'.

Download Release Note (pdf - 2mb)


12th March 2007

Escendency Sponsor and Present the 2007 Local Government Chronicle People Management Award

Escendency sponsored and presented the 2007 LGC award for People Management to the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham on the glittering stage of the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London.

Highly commended were Leicester City Council, London Borough of Newham and Swindon Borough Council.

Shortlisted were Birmingham City Council and Salford City Council.

Rory Bremner hosted the evening.

Photo: Mark Robinson, Founder of Escendency, presenting the award with Rory Bremner


6 - 7th March 2007

Escendency participates in the Local Government Association Annual Improvement Conference in Nottingham

The theme of the conference was driving improvement for people and places.

The conference explored driving improvement through partnerships and Local Area Agreements, the future of inspection and ways in which councils can prepare themselves for a new sector-led performance management framework post- CPA.

Speakers included:

  • Rt. Hon. Ruth Kelly MP
  • Sir Michael Lyons
  • Cllr Sir Simon Milton
  • Darra Singh
  • Lucy De Groot

5 - 6th February 2007

Escendency participates in the Local Government Association Urban Conference in Newcastle

The theme of the conference was thriving economies, cohesive communities.

Speakers included:

  • Cllr Nargis Khan - DCLG Commission on Integration & Cohesion
  • David Frost - Director General, British Chambers of Commerce
  • Adele Blakebrough MBE - Chief Executive, Community Action Network
  • Alan Duncan MP - Shadow Secretary of State for Trade, Industry & Energy
  • Cllr Richard Kemp - Deputy Chair LGA
  • Dr Adam Marshall - Centre for Cities, Institute for Public Policy Research
  • Steve Broomhead - Chief Executive, Northwest Regional Development Agency
  • Meg Munn MP - Minister for Women & Equality, Communities and Local Government
  • Margaret Fay OBE - Chairman, One North East

11th December 2006

Lord Sainsbury visits InfoLab21 and meets Escendency

Lord Sainsbury visited InfoLab21 to look at the links between Lancaster University and business as part of a government review into how the development and exploitation of scientific research can be improved.

The review's remit included an examination of knowledge transfer between universities and business in the context of globalisation.

Accompanied by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Paul Wellings, he toured both the Lancaster Environment Centre and InfoLab21 and spent some time talking to Escendency.

Photo: Mark Robinson, Founder of Escendency explaining the principles of the system to Lord Sainsbury.


7th December 2006

Escendency reaches the finals of the BIBAs 2007 Awards

Escendency has been short listed to the final four in the Best Use of E-Business category in the BIBAs Be Inspired Business Awards Lancashire 2007.

After further judging the Oscar style awards ceremony takes place at the Empress Ballroom, Winter Gardens, Blackpool 1st March 2007.


26th October 2006

Escendency Sponsors the LGC Conference "Preparing for the 2006-2008 District CPA Framework"

Held at Earls Court, London this conference was dedicated to providing practical guidelines for improving performance using the inspection process

The conference was chaired by James Hehir, Chief Executive of Ipswich Borough Council.

Speakers included:

  • Sandra Prail - Local Government Delivery Manager- Audit Commission
  • Adrian Barker - Policy Manager - I&DeA
  • Christopher Bally - Corporate Performance Manager - Tendring District Council
  • NickCave - Head of Policy & Performance - Harlow District Council
  • David Petford - Chief Executive - Maidstone Borough Council
  • Derek Stevens - Chief Executive - Rother District Council
  • Richard Tulej - Head of Corporate Strategy - Lancaster District Council
  • Mark Poppy - Deputy Chief Executive - Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council

September 2006

System Release 3.2

Ability to subdivide scorecard perspectives into categories.

Ability to link action plans to perspectives.

View associated actions plans in scorecard report.

Download Release Note (pdf - 543kb)


August 2006

Escendency raises second round of equity funding

To accelerate expansion plans in parallel with the recruitment of additional key staff Escendency successfully raises a second round of private equity finance.


InfoLab21 Company to Create Jobs14 July 2006

We're making headlines

Read InfoLab Latest and
Domino at Lancaster University


Mark Robinson & Ben Wallace MP10 July 2006

Congratulations

Ben Wallace MP for Lancaster & Wyre congratulating Escendency at their InfoLab21 offices on reaching the North West regional finals of the National Business Awards for Business Innovation of the Year.

Photograph by Boswell Photographic

Pictured from right to left:
Ben Wallace MP & Mark Robinson Founder Escendency


July 2006

System Release 3.1

One click exporting of standard system group reports to Excel.

Download Release Note (pdf - 235kb)


22nd June 2006

Escendency Sponsors the LGC Conference "Transforming Performance in District Councils"

Held at Earls Court, London this conference was dedicated to tackling practical performance management challenges in district councils.

The conference was chaired by Ian Orton of Braintree District Council.

Speakers included:

  • David Pottruff - Audit Commission
  • Ingrid Koehler - I&DeA
  • Geoff Bushell - South Oxfordshire District Council
  • Tricia Taylor - Watford Borough Council
  • Nigel Riglar - Stroud District Council
  • Nick Easton - LGA, Guy Mallinson RSe Consulting
  • Julie Simmons - Harlow Council
  • Katherine Edwards - Tesco
  • Ian Salte - South Cambridgeshire District Council
  • Alan Balkham - Worthing Borough Council.

14th-15th June 2006

Escendency Sponsors Workshop at the Public Sector People Management Conference "Expo 2006"

Held at the Manchester International Convention Centre over 2 days Escendency sponsored the workshop "People Management & Technology - Delivering the Business Benefits Through E-HR". Mark Robinson, Founder of Escendency spoke alongside Yvonne Skingle - Strategic Human Resources Manager, Essex County Council and National Lead Officer for E-HR issues PPMA (Public Sector People Management Association - formerly SOCPO) and Richard Tulej - Head of Corporate Strategy, Lancaster City Council.


June 13th 2006

Escendency article in The Times
"What Worked for Us"
clipping from The Times - link available below

Read the article in www.timesonline.co.uk

Press Release
Web company helps improve public services

A company, based in Lancaster University's InfoLab21, is working in partnership with Lancaster City Council to transform the way in which it manages its performance.

more…

Web company helps improve public services

A company, based in Lancaster University's InfoLab21, is working in partnership with Lancaster City Council to transform the way in which it manages its performance.

Escendency.com - a web-based management systems company - has designed and produced a unique real-time, people-centred, organisational Performance Management System which is improving effectiveness at LCC making it more open, accessible and accountable to local people.

The Escendency System is easy to use and is tailored to the needs of the Public Sector which needs to measure much more than purely financial data.

The Escendency System enables an organisation to translate high-level strategic objectives into measurable targets and provides managers, employees and members of the public with up to date information which is held on one central database rather than dispersed across different departments.

Lancaster City Council employs nearly 1,000 people located at a number of sites throughout the district. With such a widely dispersed workforce, collecting real-time information is a difficult task but this information is vital to enable senior managers and elected council members to plan strategically.

Richard Tulej, Head of Lancaster City Council's Corporate Strategy Service, said:

"We, as an authority, are constantly being challenged to demonstrate that we are able to deliver value for money, customer-focused services, use our resources effectively and at the same time deliver efficiency savings through continuous improvement. It was very clear to me that the Escendency Performance Management System would change the Council's whole approach to monitoring and managing its performance and is exceeding all our expectations."

Mark Robinson, CEO of Escendency.com said:

"The key point of the Escendency System is that it is people-centred. Ultimately it gets everyone directly connected to the organisation's mission which in this case is in improving the general well being of our community and environment. The work we are doing in partnership with Lancaster City Council is forward thinking and pushing new boundaries in the use of technology in meeting the needs of its people."

Escendency.com was formed in Lancaster in 2004 by Mark Robinson and his experienced management team.

The company is now based at Lancaster University's InfoLab21, the North West Centre of Excellence for ICT. InfoLab21 contains a cluster of technology-based companies and provides a wide range of services for ICT companies across the North West. Escendency has had a long term relationship with the University and started out as an Associate of InfoLab21. As the company grew it decided to take up residency in the building to take full advantage of the support available.

The company's customer base has also recently grown significantly with Arun District Council and Bridgnorth District Council taking up the system.

ENDS

For further information please contact Mark Robinson at Escendency on 07932 070691 or mark.robinson@escendency.com

Or Amanda Ross, Marketing Executive, Knowledge Business Centre, InfoLab21, email a.ross@lancaster.ac.uk or call 01524 510451

Notes for Editors

Escendency Company Profile

Escendency is an Application Service Provider (ASP) that has created a web-based, pan-organisational management system. Its use is primarily within the public sector, where it has been used as a catalyst for culture change by Rother District Council and Lancaster City Council. Uniquely, the Escendency system provides a common framework for the whole organisation to help focus the activities and energy of its employees. It simplifies communications, not just internally but also with external stakeholders. The company sees many opportunities for collaboration within InfoLab21 and the wider University to further develop the software and to investigate how people interact with it.

www.escendency.com

InfoLab21

Lancaster University's world-class research, development and business centre in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). It is a well equipped, high tech environment for academic research staff, research students and businesses. For more information see www.infolab21.lancs.ac.uk

The £15m InfoLab21 building was made possible with funding from Lancaster University, the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Project part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund NW Objective 2 Programme 2000-06 NW Knowledge Based Action Plan www.nwua.ac.uk Delivering an Entrepreneurial and Digital Economy in North West Lancs.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) is responsible for the sustainable economic development and regeneration of England's Northwest and has five key priorities: Business Development, Regeneration, Skills & Employment, Infrastructure and Image.

For further information visit:
www.nwda.co.uk
www.englandsnorthwest.com


April 2006

National Business Awards Regional Finalists

Escendency have made the finals of The National Business Awards North West Regional Programme 2006, sponsored by Orange Acknowledged by The Chancellor of the Exchequer as the UK's Business Oscars, The National Business Awards have been established to reward and recognise the importance of both national and regional business excellence to the success of UK plc. The programme recognises exceptional business, without exception.


April/May 2006

System Release 3.0

Equation builder

Download Release Note (pdf - 270kb)


February 2006

System Release 2.9

Download Release Note (pdf - 433kb)

Dashboard

Risk Scoring

Reporting Enhancements


December 2005

System Release 2.8

Target Editing

Reporting Enhancements

Download Release Note (pdf - 68kb)


September 2005

Escendency Moves to InfoLab21

At the start of September 2005 we expanded our office space and moved into the high-technology environment of InfoLab21 at Lancaster University. Whilst we are a commercial organisation we now also have access to the University's internationally renowned Department of Computing, Department of Communications and the 6 star rated Lancaster University Management School who are working alongside us in our vision of creating the world's best value and standard management system for sustainably thriving organisations and communities.


August 2005

System Release 2.7.1

Enhanced Organisational Views of performance

Download Release Note (pdf - 239kb)


July 2005

System Release 2.7

Staff Appraisals

Measurement Planner

Advanced reporting by category/type/perspective

Download Release Note (pdf - 122kb)

News Article No 9


March 2005

System Release 2.6.1

Reporting Enhancements

Download Release Note (pdf - 43kb)

News Article No 8


Spring 2005

System Release

Enhanced reporting functionality to enable better historic reporting, along with introduction of user focussed performance reporting.

News Article No 7


Autumn/Winter 2004

System Release

Enhancement system administration functionality was introduced, along with a maintenance release for the action planning module.

News Article No 6


Autumn 2004

System Release

During late summer/ early autumn 2004 a terminology review was undertaken in order to simplify and improve consistency in the system user interface.

The new terminology was released as version 2.5.

News Article No 5


Summer 2004

System Release

Reporting Groups feature added, allowing consistent views of selected performance indicators to be provided to groups of users.

Further usability enhancements were also introduced along with significant enhancements and additions to reporting and graphing capabilities

News Article No 4


Spring/Summer 2004

System Release

Release 2.2 of the Escendency system introduced the Action Planning module, a major functionality addition.

In addition improved data export features were added.

News Article No 3


Spring 2004

System Release

Initial releases of the Escendency system focussed on addressing known issues in the existing product and re-branding with the Escendency look and feel.

Several usability enhancements were also introduced based on feedback from existing users.

News Article No 2


March 2004

Escendency forms Spin-off from Entropy International

Escendency Ltd spin off from Entropy International to focus on organisational performance management. It continues to be a very busy but exciting time for us all here taking on new customers and staff.

News Article No 1