The computerized social profile is an extremely valuable professional tool for evaluating ongoing social policies and planning future ones. It is a means of sharing social knowledge that gives life to a community of practices in which we can identify good forms of intervention, which is a starting-point for re-launching territorial planning of services. In this way the computerized social file expresses and interprets to the full the principle of participation and bottom-up public welfare policies. This essay discusses both its strong and critical points. only subscribers can see the full article