Help
Welcome to the Derby Community Directory Beta site. This site has been deployed to elicit feedback and requirements for a pilot deployment to be released in September/October 2025.
Please be aware that the data and features within this site are at BETA stage only, designed purely for the purpose of feedback and discussion. You are welcome to share this site with others linked to this initiative.
Derby's Community Directory is designed to act as a discovery portal for those looking for information linked to providers of health and wellbeing activities. It contains data related to events, organisations and locations. This data has been sourced from a wide range of sources. As such the data varies in quality and completeness.
Using this site a user can:-
- - Search for items by location [link]
- - Search for items by keyword [link]
- - Browse the directory by category [link]
- - Filter the data using a number of categories/metrics [link]
- - View items in detail and link through to the provider [link]
- - Bookmark items of interest [link]
- - Print, download or email bookmarked items to yourself or a third party [link]
- - Add a missing organisation to the directory [link]
- - Subscribe to a search if it returns empty and be altered of items in the future that match their requirement [link]
- - Tell us about a feature or item that is missing [link]
Searching
Using this site you can search for items using the search box at the top of the entry page. This has two entry boxes, one labeled “Where” and the other labelled “What”. Please note that presently these searches do not work together, this is a planned future feature.
“Where” search
Entering the name of a location in the “Where” search box will look for all items in the given area or location. For example typing ”Kedleston Road” will bring back all events, locations and organisations located in Kedleston Road.
“What” search
Entering a sport, pastime, support service or other keyword in the “What” search box will carry out a keyword search using the text you have supplied. For example typing”cycling” will return all events, locations and organisations linked to cycling across the Derby area
Browsing
You can browse the directory by category, simply click the category button below the search panel. Please let us know if there are any categories missing that you would like adding to the directory.
Filtering
Once you have completed a search or browse operation you can then filter the results down further by clicking on the “filter” icon shown on the search results page. This will open up a filter panel where you can refine the results using the following filters:-
- - Mental health level
- - Average group size
- - Age
- - Facilities available
- - Language spoken
- - Activity Venue
- - Ward
Click "Search" to apply these filters
Viewing Items
The item view allows you to:-
- - View the item website using the link top left
- - Bookmark the item using the bookmark icon
- - Report a problem with the item using the Report link
Bookmarking
Bookmarking is a powerful feature that allows you to bookmark items of interest for viewing at a late date. You can also print, email or download these bookmarks and pass them onto another individual or organisation. This can be useful if you are browsing the directory on behalf of someone else.
Once items are bookmarked they can be viewed by clicking the bookmarks menu item at the top of the page. This will show you all of your bookmarks as if they were a search view, you can click on each one to view it in detail.
At the bottom of the screen there are three additional buttons:-
- - Download - will create a CSV file from the bookmarks which you can download and import into a spreadsheet or other system
- - Email - will ask you for an email address and then send the bookmarks via email
- - Print - will show you a print view of all of the bookmarks that you can send to your printer or download as a PDF file
Add an Organisation to the Directory
The current BETA site receives data from a wide range of sources including, OpenActive, Open Referral, Active Places, NGO website data and manual entry. Data can also be added via file upload and guided entry forms. These are not part of the current BETA site and require admin privileges to use.
However, you can add an organisation using an experimental feature that we have created that utilises a chat interface. Click the “Add New +” menu item at the top of the screen and you will be presented with a chat window. This uses a combination of AI and image processing tools to gather information from you about the organisation.
You can provide a website URL, an image of a poster or leaflet, a PDF document or simply chat with the AI to provide the relevant information. Our AI will do its best to understand you and create a draft record for the organisation that will be stored in our database. This will NOT be published until an administrator has viewed and approved the record. We are not planning to publish data during the trial but please make use of the feature as it will allow us to assess how viable this mechanism is.
Subscribe to a search
Sometimes users cannot find what they need in the directory and this can be because the item has not yet been added. The BETA site has a feature whereby an empty search will show a form allowing the user to log their search and their email address. The system will periodically retry this search and if items are returned the user will be sent an email with a link to them
This feature is visible if a search does not return any results.
Request a feature
User feedback is one of the most powerful mechanisms for evolving a site to meet as many needs as possible. The BETA site includes a feedback form where any user can suggest a new/missing feature or data item/category.
Click the “What’s missing” link on the top menu to send a feature request. Currently these are gathered anonymously.