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Update 1308 1 October 2025

Drugs & Alcohol | Library | Document System | Retail Systems Meeting HOPS CHEMISTRY - Drugs & Alcohol Screening Service For railways that are subscribed to the drugs and alcohol screening service, the current provider (Synlab) has sold its drugs and alcohol testing business to 'Eurofins'. Eurofins will provide the service going forward. There are no changes to the method of calling the service out or how it is used - but we'll advise you if this changes. You may just start to see a different company name on the paperwork. --- If you are not already making use of the centrally-negotiated drugs and alcohol screening service, provide a great saving to each individual railway subscribing to a contractor in their own right, more details can be found here; https://www.hops.org.uk/drugs Please let us know if you would like any more information. ================= HOPS LIBRARY Some years ago we proposed a HOPS Library of useful documents for heritage railways. Unfortunately we didn't get it off the ground at the time, but the developments to the file uploading system for Operations, General and Department Documents has provided a good opportunity to use HOPS Library as a development ground. So here it is! https://www.hops.org.uk/library The HOPS Library is also in the Services menu. HOPS Library is available to Advanced HOPS railways only at this stage. So far we have collated resources relating to various parts of the HOPS system that we have published in the past in the library, plus a collection of signalling-related drawings. This enables us to start off small and address any errors or bugs in the new file system. We intend to increase the scope of the Library to all documents that may be of use to railways, not just those related to HOPS, particularly including traction and pway documents, and will be glad to receive these from railways who are willing to share. (You will see, as we have done in HOPS Resources, that we will make clear that the donor railway is not taking and responsibility for the user of their documents. https://www.hops.org.uk/library/competence ) If you have documents you are willing to share please do send them to admin@hops.org.uk (or provide a link to where they are stored on your HOPS and we will pick them up from there). We hope the new Library system is useful, and we look forward to rolling it out into the other document systems in HOPS. ================= ARCHIVING USERS An extra traffic light has been added to indicate if the user has any open 'Cases' before being archived. ================= MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION Work is continuing on this. Thank you to everyone who has volunteer to test it out. We have enough offers now. When we get a bit further developed we will contact users who have kindly agreed to help. ================= DOCUMENT SYSTEM MIGRATION - * ACTION REQUIRED! * There are now 1044 documents remaining in HOPS with more than one file on them. This is good as 40% of the documents we started with are now dealt with. You can find these documents that require your attention in HOPS Admin > Continuous Improvement. For more information about the document repositories updates, please see https://www.hops.org.uk/system_updates.php?search=action+required+repositories&t=-2 or video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQqrCyS0R5c Note this opportunity won't last forever. The new document file/folder system contains a lot of developments that a lot of railways have been asking for, so we will need to implement it eventually. At that stage it will be necessary for all outstanding files to be treated to Option 1 or Option 2 automatically. ================= DISPOSALS GAZETTE A reminder that HOPS provides the heritage railway disposals gazette service: https://www.hops.org.uk/disposals This facility exists to provide organisations requiring to dispose of heritage assets an opportunity to demonstrate having taken reasonable steps to advertise to advertise the assets to other preservation organisations before they are sold or scrapped. ================= HOPS HELP The HOPS Help pages now have a search facility: https://www.hops.org.uk/help Results with the searched terms in the title are shown first, followed by results with the searched terms in the body. We hope this helps! ================= TIME REGISTER The Time Register Android app for signing on points has been updated, and many issues that have occurred over the last few years as Android OS has moved on have been resolved. The new apk can be downloaded from https://www.hops.org.uk/signin_records.php?t=7. This app significantly reduces the ease with which a user can navigate away from the TR app (accidentally or deliberately). If they press 'Home', or sleep/restart the device, it will return to the TR app. Note this is only intended for use at tablets at signing on points, NOT for users who sign in on their personal mobiles. When installing, your device will probably warn you that the app is not an official Android app and ask you if it's from a trustworthy source (which it is). ================= TIME TO START THINKING ABOUT 2026... We are pleased to report positive uptake of the HOPS suite of retail systems this year, with many railways and other HOPS user organisations now benefiting from these specialist packages. In October this year we plan to run two Teams sessions, open to all, to update those of you not yet availing themselves of the Retail system in HOPS, as well as providing opportunity for discussion from interested companies, and companies already using the system. The first session will be at 13:00 on Wednesday 22/10/25 and a further session will take place at 18:00 on Sunday 26/10/25. (The two sessions are identical, it is not necessary to attend both) If you wish to join one of these calls, please let our Retail Systems manager Steve Morris know by email at steve.morris@hops.org.uk We are of course always available to discuss getting you on board at any time and Steve can be contacted as above or by calling 0118 225 0021. (NOTE Steve is now away until 13 October. He will send links to the meeting when he returns. If you would like to discuss anything sooner than that please contact danny.scroggins@hops.org.uk thank you) We look forward to seeing you on one of the calls in October! ================= ACCOMMODATION BOOKINGS The Accommodation Bookings tab of the daily calendar has been updated to show bookings to users with permission 470 (previously only shown to users with 473). The name of the person for whom the accommodation is booked is still only shown to users with 473. =================