The Technology Forge

tf cloud Project Management Software

A web driven property / capital works project management system from TF. Functionality includes property, plant, project management, risks, issues, actions, change requests, progress, identified work, timesheets, stages & gateways, work packages & tasks, budgets, funding sources, applications for payment, invoicing, fee management, documents, RAG / highlight reporting, Gantt chart.

Features

  • Property and asset managment
  • Project management
  • Risks, issues, change requests & progress management
  • Identified work management
  • Timesheets, work packages and task management
  • Stages and gateways management
  • Financial management - budgets, funding sources, cash flow, payments, invoicing
  • Mobile access from any device (Android, Apple, Windows)
  • Third party portal access - contractors, schools, surveyors etc
  • System integration to third party products through RESTful APIs

Benefits

  • Manage property from any location
  • Share real time information with internal staff and third parties
  • Drive cost savings
  • Cost effective and configurable system with customisable workflow
  • Rapid deployment
  • Access via PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones
  • No software installation (browser based)
  • Mobile access from any device including offline access
  • Interfaces to third party systems to drive effciencies
  • Powerful reporting and KPIs

Pricing

£1,680 an instance a year

  • Free trial available

Service documents

Framework

G-Cloud 12

Service ID

1 2 5 1 8 2 3 0 5 3 6 2 8 0 3

Contact

The Technology Forge Tom Whittle
Telephone: 0113 288 2575
Email: sales@technologyforge.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Public cloud
Service constraints
N/A
System requirements
  • Internet connection
  • Web browser

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
In line with the standard Help Desk SLA.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
None or don’t know
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
All clients are entitled to full support from The Technology Forge Help Desk at no extra cost. Support requests can be logged by phones, email or logged via our web portal. All calls are allocated a unique ID for tracking the issue through to completion. Each call is also assigned a priority in line with our standard SLAs. Support requests are categorised as Urgent, High, Medium or Low and responded to in line with urgency. In addition to unlimited Help Desk access, all clients are provided with a dedicated Account Manager which any support issues can be escalated to. The Account Manager is also included at no extra cost for the duration of the contract.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
As part of the provision of tf cloud, we can supply services including project management, consultancy and training.These services can be delivered onsite or online, depending on user preference. User documentation is provided with all training and user guides can be downloaded from within the tf cloud system by users.
Service documentation
No
End-of-contract data extraction
At the end of the contract, the data would be retained by the client. Data is returned to the client within a set time period as defined in the Terms and Conditions. Users can extract their data at any time throughout the contract using data export routines.
End-of-contract process
The tf cloud service can be switched off at a time appropriate to the client and all data is retained by the client and not The Technology Forge. Data is returned to the client within a set time period as defined in the Terms and Conditions. There is no charge for the return of data or switching off the service at the end of the contract.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari 9+
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
The full tf cloud system is available across desktop and mobile services. All that is required is a web browser and tf cloud's responsive design resizes the system the device screen.
Service interface
Yes
Description of service interface
There is API access available as described in the API section. This can be enabled by The Technology Forge as part of the contract so that the user has the necessary permissions and access tokens. The TF API supports all of the RESTful API using the four main methods - GET, PUT, POST and DELETE. There are no real limitations for users with the appropriate license and access permissions to use the relevant API.
Accessibility standards
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Accessibility testing
None.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
API access can be enabled by The Technology Forge as part of the contract so that the user has the necessary permissions and access tokens. The TF API supports all of the RESTful API using the four main methods - GET, PUT, POST and DELETE. There are no real limitations for users with the appropriate license and access permissions to use the relevant API.
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
PDF
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
There are various elements of the tf cloud system which are customisable including user defined fields, workflow functionality, the ability to change naming conventions and corporate branding options.

Scaling

Independence of resources
The platform is hosted on a shared storage infrastructure but dedicated servers. The hosted platform allows for more servers to be spun up on demand so we are able to ensure other users aren't impacting the service.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
No

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Conforms to BS7858:2012
Government security clearance
Up to Security Clearance (SC)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
United Kingdom
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Managed by a third party
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Users can export their data at any time during the contract, directly from the tf cloud system. There are extensive export options where data from different parts of the system can be exported to CSV or XLS format.
Data export formats
CSV
Data import formats
CSV

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
Data protection within supplier network
Other
Other protection within supplier network
We do not transmit data within our network.

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
We guarantee availability of 99.5% for the tf cloud service. All clients have the right to cancel based on non-performance. We do not have a standard agreement relating to refunding / service credits. However, with some of our clients we have entered into a service credit arrangement.
Approach to resilience
Tf cloud is hosted within a virtualised failover clustered environment with separate web and SQL servers. This caters for hardware failure whereby the virtual server will transfer to another node in real time so there is no down time. The application is functional within a CSV (Cluster Shared Storage) so any file data is not lost in the event there would be a physical server failure. We use only UK data centres with one live centre with redundant power and external network connectivity.
Outage reporting
We appreciate that system outage can have a significant impact on our customers and in the worst case scenario can prevent them from operating their normal business functions. Therefore, our software and infrastructure is designed to ensure that such outages do not occur. In the time that tf cloud has been in existence, there has never been a system outage. In the likely event of an outage, we would provide alert all clients by email. Where there are any planned outages, this would be done out of hours and we would notify users 2 weeks prior.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Management access is limited to user permissions.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
Alcumum ISOQAR
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
03/02/2020
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
The scope of the certification relates to:

"The development and supply of property, facilities, estates and asset management software and associated services."

Anything outside of this scope would not be covered by our certification. However 100% of our business relates to the delivery of such software and services.
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
Cyber Essentials Plus

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
The Technology Forge is ISO 27001 certified and we have robust policies and procedures which underpin this security management system. Policies include:

- Acceptable Use
- Backup
- Equipment Security
- Information Classification
- Network Management
- Physical Security
- Change Management
- Access Control
- Business Continuity
- Exchange of Information
- Development Security

We are required to follow these policies as part of the ISO 27001 certification. They are issued to all personnel and published on the company Intranet.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Any configuration / change management is processed via The Technology Forge Help Desk service. The Help Desk is available for logging any issues, raising enhancement requests or simply asking for advice. Users have unlimited access to the Help Desk as part of the ongoing contract. Any change requests are reviewed in the weekly operations meeting with representatives from each department to assess feasibility including demand and impact on security. If changes are approved, they feed directly into the development stream for the next release.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Any high priority or critical vulnerabilities will be patched as soon as a fix is available. Lower priority vulnerabilities will be patched at the next available maintenance window. Potential threats are identified via our regular penetration tests which produce a report identifying any vulnerabilities and the criticality of them.
Protective monitoring type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach
All systems are continually monitored by Rackspace, UKFast and The Technology Forge using Rackspace Monitoring Agent and Zabbix. These monitor everything from drive space to processor and network usage. Once a trigger is enabled, email is sent to the IT Manager who investigates the cause immediately.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
We have a detailed Security Incident Policy which we can supply upon request. There are predefined processes in place for common events and all incidents are flagged as either Critical, Significant or Minor. Users can report any incidents via the dedicated TF Help Desk service. Post resolution of an incident we conduct full reporting which is taken from the Help Desk system and summarises the incident, the impact, actions taken to resolve the incident and further actions being taken to mitigate the risk of future occurrence / impact.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Pricing

Price
£1,680 an instance a year
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
We can supply potential clients with a free trial of the tf cloud system upon request. The included areas of the system would depend on the individual requirements of the user but we are able to make any modules available. The standard free trial period is 1 month.

Service documents