ALISS roundup 2024
- Area of Work: ALISS
- Type: News Item
- Published: 23rd December 2024

The ALISS programme has continued to grow and develop over 2024.
The ALISS programme continues to go from strength to strength, successfully delivering on its existing four objectives – more data, better data, better experience and more users, and adding a fifth this year: better insights.
Roadmap
Working intensely over a six-week period, the ALISS team created a three-year product roadmap. This highlighted a range of ‘to-be’ improvements as well as more aspirational ‘could be’ components.
Engagement
ALISS engagement continued with a range of partners including:
- Aberdeenshire Council who intend to use ALISS as a signposting tool within local Family Wellbeing Hubs.
- Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire who are now promoting ALISS as the local community directory in place of their previous Locator system.
- East Ayrshire HSCP who are promoting ALISS for people to find community services and support.
- Weekday Wow Factor and University of Glasgow who are using ALISS as a signposting tool to deliver drop-in community signposting sessions.
- North Ayrshire Community Planning Partnership who are using ALISS for their Community Directory.
- NHS Shetland, Shetland Islands Council, Shetland’s IJB and Voluntary Action Shetland who are using ALISS for their Shetland Community Directory.
Help centre
The Help centre is a new section of the ALISS website which provides advice and guidance as to how to make best use of the system. It includes six video guides, four downloadable ‘how to’ pdfs and five ‘what makes a good…’ documents. Also available is information about accessibility tools.
DACS project
‘Democratising Access to Community Services (DACS)’ was funded by Innovate UK and concluded in March 2024. It sought to make significant improvements to ALISS as well as adding new access points for ALISS information. This was achieved through human centred design approaches lead by the ALLIANCE, working in partnership with Tactuum, TL Tech and the Access Group. Outputs include:
- Addition of new claims functionality, allowing users to claim individual services.
- Improvement of ‘add to ALISS’ process, including the addition of accessibility features and the intended audience for services.
- Search enhancements. A ‘what’ keyword search has been added to the existing ‘where’ location search. Additional filters have been added to the search results page.
- Implementation of data quality measures, with automatic emails being sent to users encouraging them to keep their entries up to date.
- Creation of a voice application for ALISS on the Amazon Alexa platform, “My Scottish Community”.
- Integration of ALISS data with the Access Elemental social prescribing software system.
Artificial intelligence
Following the CivTech 7.6 challenge, the Connecting You Now search assistant was implemented on ALISS, starting as a beta test and now working towards a more integrated user experience. This provides an alternative to the traditional search model, allowing users to describe their circumstances, with suggestions provided through a conversational interaction.
Integrations and links
ALISS data is now being used as part of the recently launched Shetland Community Directory.
ALISS data is now being displayed on the GIRFEC Aberdeenshire website and on Our Aberdeenshire.
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) have added a link to aliss.org to the Foodbanks page of their website in order that CAS Advisors and general public can access ALISS to find local foodbank information.
ALISS data is now available through a Community Directory on the North Ayrshire Community Planning Partnership website.
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