2022 Year in Review

2022 saw lots of exciting new developments for WJPS. We launched new features for both MRS and WCS, welcomed new customers, launched a new service, and took part some great conferences and events. 

What a year it has been. We have made lots of progress this year on both sides of the business, and are looking forward to carrying this on through 2023.

It has been a year of firsts- our first business website launch, first sixth form Work Experience Student, and our first team away day!

This year we welcomed new customers for WCS, MRS and EBM.

Joining us on WCS this year we have had Morton-on-Swale Parish Council & Ingleby Arncliffe Parish Council launching websites with us this year. Eastfield Town Council have begun the process of hosting their site with us, which will be launched in the early months of 2023. We have had Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust adopt MRS for their quality assurance software, replacing paper forms and spreadsheets. We have also welcomed Blackpool Teaching Hospitals onto EBM, our Emergency Box Management software.

This year we also begun building E-Commerce websites for businesses. We have created sites for SewSoEco, a small Eco Refill business based in Bedale, allowing customers to order products online. We also created a site for PM Wines, an Independent Wine Merchants & Consultants based in Bedale Hall. 

In 2022, three more of our existing WCS customers opted for a full site overhaul to update their site, and run an accessibility check. Early in the year Bedale Community Minibus had a site update to make sure their website was as accessible and easy to navigate as possible. Bedale Town Council have been running their site with us for a long time, in which many new features had been released, so we implemented these features and tidied up any older pages so the Council can keep enjoying their site. In late November we began updating the Bedale Community Library website, to make sure all information was up to date, and any library staff could edit and add information easily, this will be completed in the new year.

Many more WCS features have been rolled out this year, including a new Galleries Display Style, the option to show the three most recent News Stories on a page, and a New Profiles Display Style.

We have also added new features to MRS, firstly we added an optional Second Read that can be set up to require a second check on results read into the system. This is set up for a certain percentage of results that are read into the system, this percentage can be configured. Secondly, we added a Web Bookin system allowing customers to book in the plates themselves using the MRS 3 Web interface. This can help reduce transcribing errors and can speed up the process for the labs once the plates have been received.

2022 saw the start of our WCS Newsletter. Each quarter our Council and Organisation WCS Customers receive a newsletter packed full of new features, updates and news from the office. This has helped us open lines of communication between us and our clients so we can offer the best help and support. 
 

This year, for the first time, we welcomed a student from Richmond School for a week of work experience. Eve has sampled a taste of life in the office and experienced all aspects of the work we do- from Office Management tasks with Jo, Source Control and Collaborative Development with Steven, to learning about the Installation Processes with Toby. Eve has also sat in on demos with James of both our MRS Web and EBM software, along with working with Bee to learn about Customer Support and Website Development using our WCS Software.

"I liked working in an office environment as while it was quite relaxed, it was still easy to get work done" - Eve.

You can read more about Eve's time at WJPS on our Work Experience News Story.

In July, James joined numerous other local professionals from a wide range of industries at Bedale High School to take part in their Ready For Work Week. This gave students interview experience and vital knowledge on many industries to help them choose the path they think they want to take. For more information about James' visit to Bedale High School see our Bedale School Ready to Work Week News Story.

Also in July, our Lead Developer Steven started his two year Masters Degree Apprenticeship as a collaboration between QA and Northumbria University. The course is a level 7 post graduate degree, undertaken in a blended approach through 80% on-the-job learning, and 20% attending online lectures. We feel that the benefit of this is that we have someone at the business who has a recognised qualification, not only in Computer Science, but in business management also, this will also be beneficial for many of our clients.

In September the team had an away day at C4DI Northallerton campus to take some time away from our everyday office environment and dig our teeth into some important aspects of the business- like our future goals and plans, sharing new ideas, and brainstorming together.