Ateb Housing

Value

£1.2m

Industry

Social Housing

Technology

Dynamics 365

Location

South Wales

Transforming core housing management solutions. Moving 12,000 tenants over from legacy end-of-life platforms to a modern solution built on Dynamics 365. Delivered 40% faster than standard vendor timeline estimates.

Challenge & Solution

The Challenge: A Race Against Legacy Obsolescence

Ateb Housing Group faced a critical deadline: the expiration of their support agreement for 'Open Housing,' a legacy management system. With the incumbent vendor leveraging the timeline to demand exorbitant support fees, the project was no longer just a digital transformation, it was a high-stakes migration against a hard deadline.

The technical challenge was to replace a deeply embedded legacy core with a modern Dynamics 365 ecosystem while integrating two mission-critical third-party platforms:

Propeller: For complex compliance and asset management.
TotalMobile: For real-time operative scheduling and field service.

The Solution: Agile Decoupling & Accelerated Delivery

To beat the deadline without sacrificing system integrity, we moved away from the traditional 'Waterfall' housing rollout. As the sole Solution Architect, Recursive designed a unified platform that brought Repairs, Arrears, Onboarding, and Income Collection into a single, coherent workflow. By prioritising technical user stories and a rigorous Agile Scrum framework, we reduced re-work by 50% and ensured the "Must-Haves" were live before the legacy support expired.

Our Process

The Recursive Methodology: Delivery Under Pressure

Success in high-pressure migrations requires a focus on Conceptual Integrity over procedural noise. Our approach centered on rapid, accurate translation of business needs into technical reality.

Unified Process Design: We redesigned the core tenant journey from the ground up, ensuring that Repairs and Income Collection weren't just "moved" to the cloud, but optimised for the modern Dynamics interface.

Technical Stewardship: By authoring every technical user story, we eliminated the 'Translation Tax' between the housing officers and the developers, leading to a significant increase in deliverable accuracy.

Integrated Ecosystem: We managed the complex three-way integration between Dynamics 365, Propeller, and TotalMobile, ensuring data flowed seamlessly from the back office to the operative's handheld device.

Rapid Adoption Strategy: Knowing that a fast rollout can often alienate users, we led a focused change management strategy that resulted in a 90% user adoption rate within the first three months.

Result Driven

The Outcome: Performance Beyond the Deadline

Despite the significant time constraints and legacy pressures, the Ateb transformation became a benchmark for efficiency in the housing sector.

Exceptional Commercial Performance: The project was delivered 22% under budget and approximately 40% faster than standard industry timelines for a housing system migration.

Measured Service Improvement: The new ecosystem drove a 20% improvement in service delivery efficiency and a 10% increase in tenant satisfaction, as verified by Voice of the Customer (VoC) feedback.

Architectural Maturity: By migrating from fragmented legacy silos to a unified Dynamics/Business Central platform, Ateb gained a scalable foundation that eliminated the threat of vendor lock-in.

The Ultimate Endorsement: The success of the delivery was so pronounced that the primary software vendor engaged the project lead immediately following the successful cutover to apply the same methodology to their wider client base.