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Time Date	System Updates
Update 1404 8 May 2026	Address Lookup Following some further developments and thanks to Graham at NNR for some advice, we now have some improved options to offer! There are two options for everyone, which apply to both address lookup in HOPS and in the retail systems: Option 1 HOPS has managed to become a 're-seller' of the address lookup service, which means we have been able to obtain much better volume rates. We will be able to re-sell this to railways at 3p per address (an improvement on the previously-advertised 5p). This is ready to go almost straight away, so please let us know if you would like to join this. I have updated this page so that you can see the estimated costs for your railway based on previous volumes: https://www.hops.org.uk/address_lookup_preview.php Option 2 Ideal Postcodes, the company that provides the address data, also has rates for charities with a turnover of less than £10m: * Up to 100 addresses = free * Up to 2000 addresses = £9/month * Up to 25000 addresses = £49/month. https://ideal-postcodes.co.uk/sector/charities We have heroically arranged it so that railways can set up their own account with Ideal Postcodes and obtain the charity rate directly with them. You will then provide us with your api key and HOPS will integrate with your account. You will settle your bill (if any) directly with Ideal Postcodes, and HOPS will charge railways £5 a month for the integration (same prices as it used to be). There is a 10% discount from Ideal Postcodes for "annual billing" - I'm not sure if this is in rear or in advance, they also have some concept of credits which expire after a year, so I'm not sure the annual option is necessarily better. But it might be. Railways that aren't charities are welcome to sign up directly with Ideal Postcodes if you want to, but of course you won't get the charity rate and probably won't get a rate as good as we can offer as a re-seller. If you wish to do this please sign up with Ideal Postcodes via their Charity sign-up form (link above). They will send you some other forms and terms to agree to, and you will also need to follow their instructions to sign up for a Royal Mail licence. We have just been through it all to set it up as a test and we were guided through it by a real person - it is advisable to tell them that you will be using a third-party developed service so you won't need all the technical assistance. Let us know when you're signed up an have an API key and we will put it in HOPS. You can also use this same account to integrate in other systems that you have if you wish, it won't affect the HOPS integration (it is advisable to use separate API keys for each integration). --- If anyone planning on Option 2 wants to use Option 1 in the short term before moving to Option 2 when that's set up that is fine to do. Please let me know. I have made you a lovely chart which shows the best (cheapest) option for different volumes of addresses. The tipping point is 467 addresses. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3092328450962876 This doesn't consider the 10% for annual billing advantage, or the potential disadvantage of unused credits, so I think on balance it's honest. All the above relates to address search. Phone and email validator is available as well, but we'll negotiate about that later. Please let us know if you have any queries, if you wish to use the HOPS-re-sold service, or when you have your own API key you wish to use. Thank you Danny Scroggins.
Update 870 15 June 2022	The availability matrix in HOPS has a new 'white stripe' added when a person is fully utilised. A person is considered fully utilised when they have been allocated the number of turns they asked for or, if they indicated 'unlimited', when they have been allocated a turn on every day they are available. This makes it easy to visually distinguish a 'Yes' that is able to be used (green) from a 'Yes' that can't be used as the person is already working their max amount (green with white stripe). If all Ys are green/white, the max utilisation has been reached and therefore the best efficiency from the roster availability. Link to examples: https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps/photos/a.274448152666082/5101371096640406/
Update 693 20 November 2020	Further to Update 691, it has become apparent that permissions 403 and 404 were not moved across correctly. This would have resulted in some users not being able to view postal addresses where they previously could. I have run the process again so everyone who used to have 091 has now been given 404 again (if they didn't already have it) and everyone who used to have 090 has now been given 403 again (if they didn't already have it).
Update 691 18 November 2020	The permissions for viewing user details have been separated out in order to facilitate more granular control over viewing different elements of a user's personal details. Permission 091, to view user contact details on (and from) the railway staff list has been replaced with new permissions: 379 - view photos (existing) 404 - view postal address 398 - view email addresses 153 - view telephone numbers 399 - view DOBs Everyone and every group who had 091 has been automatically allocated the new permissions that directly replace 091 so no action = no change. Permission 090 (per department), to view user contact details on (and from) the department staff list has been replaced with new permissions: 378 - view photos (existing) 403 - view postal addresses 400 - view email addresses 154 - view telephone numbers 401 - view DOBs In both cases, 405 - view HOPS User Account Details. Everyone and every group who had 090 has been automatically allocated the new permissions that directly replace 090 so no action = no change. The permissions for editing details will be separated out in future. Also, the organisation staff list permissions no longer apply to the department staff lists. It used to be the case that if you had 'view contact details' for the org staff list, it automatically showed it all to you on all the dept staff lists as well. This no longer applies and the specific permissions for the department(s) are required. Everyone who used to have permissions for the org staff list now has the new equivalent permissions for 'all' depts so no action = no change.
Update 404 27 October 2016	A new permission 251 is available to allow users to see a summary of Group Bookings information on the Daily Operations page but without being able to drill down into all the detail visible by permission 180. This might be appropriate for guards or station staff, etc.