The National Trust says it has reduced time, costs and resources by adopting the Contractor Portal data sharing system from geodata and information software specialist Dotted Eyes this summer.

The product is allowing the Trust to provide hundreds of subcontractors working on its land, properties and at its events with self-service access to both internal and Ordinance Survey data.

The Trust estimates that, based on an average time-saving of two hours per data request compared to the previous manual system, the system has freed up 300 hours since going live in July.

The system also incorporates automated compliance and audit trails for the use of the data.

“Contractor Portal has given us a low-cost, time-saving solution to delivering effective, efficient and accurate location intelligence to the huge number of subcontractors with which we work every day,” said Mike Renow-Clarke, senior land and property data officer at the National Trust.

“The simplicity of the system has removed the burden of managing thousands of map users, whilst liberating data access for the tendering process and smaller, short-term projects.

“Critically, it ensures that our internal MapInfo users and all contractors are accessing the most up-to-date datasets.”

A hosted solution, the Portal is based upon FME, a spatial data software product from Safe Software.