Technology is constantly evolving creating ever expanding demands for user experiences that leverage the latest tech innovations in an intuitive and elegant manner. For government agencies keen to maximize the ROI of their internal development platforms, this requires a delicate balancing act wherein new technologies are investigated through the lens of a long-term innovation vision. Evaluating new technologies through the filter of an overarching innovation roadmap equips agencies to be responsive in assimilating new innovations that look certain to stand the ‘test of time’ while simultaneously mitigating demands for trendy technologies that present more likely as a ‘flavour of the month.’
As stewards of the POSSE Platform, the solution experts of Computronix maintain a comparable discipline rigorously evaluating emerging technology trends to ascertain the innovations most worthy of assimilating into the ongoing refinement of our award-winning solution. This assessment of both current and emerging technology trends and their envisioned integration into the POSSE Platform are expressed in the POSSE Product Roadmap providing both conceptual and practical insights into where this new technology is headed and how it will be leveraged by millions of POSSE users going forward.
In this technology trends excerpt from the POSSE Product Roadmap, we summarize where the latest innovations are leading us and their eventual adaptation within your ‘Powered by POSSE’ Solutions.
Remote Work
Post pandemic, we see both public and private sectors embracing the remote work model. This coincides with the pre-existing generational trend for seeking greater work-life balance and flexibility in the work environment. These trends will impact urbanization and perhaps even the face of urban centers in the future.
Throughout the pandemic and into the present day, our POSSE Solutions have proven the value of automation assisted, self-service portals that equip citizens and internal staff alike to carry on the essential services of governance on a 24/7 basis from any device and any location.
Decision Intelligence
While multiple data sources have become more ubiquitous, there remains the challenge of which information is relevant to use, and to what extent to automatically drive organizational decisions. Privacy is a major concern, with mounting legal challenges to the unapproved use of user information.
While misuse of information is largely confined to the private sector, government organizations have come under increased scrutiny with attention to information usage and transparency of governance.
From a platform perspective, the onus is on allowing collection and secure access to business analytical information related to our process automation solution. This includes ongoing refinement of the data mart and dashboards, availability of workflow statistics, and observability from the systems perspective.
Cloud-Native Platforms
Advancements in deployment, scaling, and management (logging, monitoring, microservices), and the technical maturity of such, make products such as Kubernetes and Docker, par for the course in modern cloud hosting. The underlying technology and architecture of the POSSE platform fits well with cloud-native concepts. While we currently use a custom communication layer and broker, the architectural components (presentation server, application server, worker processes, databases) are already isolated using internal APIs.
Low-Code / No-Code Solutions
The trend toward low-code/no code platforms (or the no-code revolution) is based not only on the pending IT skills crisis, but also business enablement.
The POSSE platform has leaned toward enablement since its inception, with business users completing much of the configuration for many client sites. With our latest WebUI module, POSSE has now solidly settled in as a low-code offering. We firmly believe in providing business-focused configuration with flexibility where needed for complex business and integration.
Important: Our PLS and ABC COTS products are built on top of the POSSE platform to offer a No-Code Platform for their respective lines of business. Note that the POSSE 8 architecture also allows more complex business components to be developed and reused by business users across the organization.
Digital Transformation
The recent pandemic has been a catalyst for the acceleration of “online everything.” Along with the economic impact comes a dramatic change in user expectations, driving focus and innovation. The increase in online transactions has also increased user expectations with respect to online government services. In response to this ever growing trend, the POSSE platform provides a fully responsive, multilingual, accessible public portal with ecommerce integration.
Cybersecurity Mesh
Security continues to be at the forefront of software concerns (kudos for 2022’s trend name of the year!). The mesh refers to bringing together all aspects of security and integrating best of breed solutions. Security is only as good as its weakest link.
Note that “Passwordless” authentication has come to the forefront, as the user community tires of the plethora of passwords, special requirements, and multifactor authentication. POSSE security integration is already capable of handling external authentication; therefore, as soon a client implements a new security mechanism, it can be integrated into the POSSE platform.
The POSSE roadmap gives high attention to observability, including data access and security logs that can be used by best-of-class security information and event management (SIEM) tools.
Accessibility
Accessibility covers a wide breadth of usage and challenges: color differentiation, attention disorders, motor skills, motion triggers, poor eyesight, and full blindness to name a few. Technology includes screen readers, braille devices, alternate input controls, pointing devices, speech recognition etc.
Commercial interests have driven many of the first forays into language and accessibility; however, it is government organizations that have the mandate to ensure their citizens are served to the fullest. Regulations provide the foundation for change, along with international organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
With the release of POSSE WebUI, Computronix has established accessibility as a foundational concept. With the release of POSSE 7.4.2, we believe that upwards of 90% of WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance can be achieved out-of-the-box by the WebUI public module, with full compliance achieved through POSSE configuration.
Sustainable Energy Solutions
While not directly related to the software industry, environmental concerns and the reaction to global warming directly impacts our land management, environment, and oil sector clients. Renewable energy has gained momentum throughout the pandemic, increasing its share of the market, while also seeing a cost reduction. For the public, this has also led to greater scrutiny of decisions made in this area.
One of the more direct impacts in terms of work management software is the demand for transparency in governance. The public want to see that decisions are well informed and prudent, that the process includes acceptable checkpoints, and that there are tangible results. The POSSE platform provides a clear view into permit process history, with backing documentation, process checkpoints, and business audit information.
In addition to the above technology trends, the solution experts at Computronix are fully immersed in the process to evaluate and leverage further innovations such as Artificial Intelligence, Hyper Automation, Distributed Cloud Systems, and more as these technologies evolve into more fully realized and mature service oriented solutions. Such innovation planning is a core component of our corporate culture. In fact, Computronix invests in excess of 12 per cent of annual revenue into ongoing product research and development to further refine a government enterprise platform that we’ve already been developing for over 40 years!
That ongoing financial commitment reinforces the fundamental goal of our corporate culture, to build the very best government software solutions in the world to ensure total client satisfaction. By keeping our focus on this goal, we ensure that new technology trends and emerging innovations are evaluated with one question uppermost in mind, “How can this technology be best leveraged to improve the lives of our clients and the citizens they serve?”
This week, we continue our series on Reinventing Civic Services with Intelligent Automation with a look at the factors each of our award-winning government agencies prioritized to ensure winning user experiences for colleagues and citizens alike.
While the long track record of award winning innovations from Douglas County, Albuquerque, and Philadelphia is suitably impressive, it is the way in which all three of these innovation initiatives have been conceived to enhance the service experience for every conceivable stakeholder (both externally and internally) that truly sets these projects apart as examples of transformative
digital governance.
For land and property developers, development approvals in many parts of the country have gone from taking 2-3 months to as long as 10 or 11 months in some of the fastest growing cities in the US (Source). Costs from such delays are doubly punitive for developers: impacting them both directly via increased capital, carrying and interest costs, and indirectly via increased time and labor spent managing complex and manually intensive processes that can vary drastically between jurisdictions.
As a number of recent studies confirm, expediting the land development and review process not only speeds the time to market for entrepreneurial businesses that play a vital role in the economic growth engine, but an expedited development process also fundamentally improves the availability of affordable local housing. With affordable housing projects disproportionally impacted by escalating costs associated with regulatory delays (due to the smaller profit margins of such projects), a protracted development and review cycle inevitably results in fewer affordable housing units being built (Source).
Faced with this challenge, shorter turnaround times for development approvals have now become a key metric for consideration by government leaders keen to address the nationwide issue of affordable housing stocks in their communities.
For innovative jurisdictions like Douglas Country, Albuquerque, and Philadelphia, reducing the turnaround times for development approvals is accomplished through intelligent automation platforms that streamline internal workflows across multiple internal agencies while simultaneously interfacing with developers and citizens in real-time through self-service online portals.
In the Douglas County permitting system for instance, developers are notified via their preferred digital device when they need to submit paperwork or information. Through the portal, they can also access up-to-date status reports to monitor pending decisions which helps them to more accurately schedule pertinent development tasks and milestones.
A formerly manually intensive process that required printing out blueprints, making duplicate copies, signing and sealing documents, pulling permits, and requesting inspections has now been replaced by a transparent and accessible digital workflow where all parties have ready access to the information required to submit plans and applications, communicate updates, notify key stakeholders, and expedite review and approval timelines.
Additionally, in striving to provide open data transparency in the execution of land management workflows, these jurisdictions provide citizens interested in a dialogue on development projects with interactive maps confirming pending projects in neighborhoods of interest.
While undoubtedly a boon to affordable housing advocates, entrepreneurial developers, and engaged citizens alike, the ‘automation of the agency’ is also proving a big win for government staff.
Staff morale and retention are both positively influenced as a result of the reduction and/or outright elimination of time-consuming, redundant, and manually intensive processes. Relationships once fraught with mutual stress and frustration over missed deadlines and inherent inefficiencies improve, as both review staff and developers embrace collaborative digital workflows that greatly
improve communication, transparency and deadline expectations for all involved.
In addition to the direct correlation shown between reduction in review and approval times and a corresponding growth in license and permit revenues, recent studies are also demonstrating the significant impacts of an expedited land development and review process on property tax revenues. In 2016, an economic impact analysis commissioned by the Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Permitting Services (DPS) indicated that adding a single year to the review process can reduce the value of that property by an average of 20% thus lowering the property tax base (Source). Or, in looking at it from a positive perspective, shortening the time from concept to occupancy by one year could save a developer as much as 20% of the project cost increasing the viability for a range of affordable housing projects.
In addition to new development projects, streamlined permitting and licensing workflows such as those facilitated by POSSE PLS help to return foreclosed properties to productive use more quickly, as well as enabling developers to more rapidly adjust to changing market conditions rather than abandoning plans altogether.
This week, we continue our series on Reinventing Civic Services with Intelligent Automation with a look at the factors each of our award-winning government agencies considered to ensure the provision of effective citizen services.
Given the ‘hands on’ nature of internal process work, it can often be easier for agencies to visualize impactful improvements to such workflows. However, another trait that defines Philadelphia, Albuquerque and Douglas County as award worthy innovators is the ability of each agency to think ‘outside the box’ in their reinvention of external facing customer service processes and touchpoints. Each of these digital communities emphasized the citizen’s needs as paramount in their evaluation of emerging technologies, with their final objective nothing less than the delivery of a customer service experience capable of accommodating the most demanding modern digital consumer.
In realizing this ambitious goal, 3 common qualities emerged across these innovative agencies:
Cognizant of the reality that the 21st century customer expects speedy and seamless service, each agency utilized workflow optimization technologies to deliver automation processes that guide citizens towards quick resolutions with positive outcomes. Clean and cleverly designed web interfaces provide users with the ability to access services on their chosen devices on a 24/7 basis. Data-driven workflows prompt citizens when key actions are required, while automated schedule reminders help users to stay informed on key dates and deliveries thus managing service expectations.
All essential services throughout the planning, permitting, licensing, and inspection process are facilitated through interactive civic portals. Carefully designed to guide even inexperienced web users in their completion of common tasks, these data-driven websites can also scale to the needs of more demanding and frequent users providing opportunities to personalize profiles,
archive key information, template repeated tasks, and schedule reminders. For busy land developers and builders for whom timeis money, such tools provide an invaluable resource to expedite the process from initial application through to final approval.
In fully committing to data transparency and citizen led service models, our digital communities are able to break down the silos to empower innovation platforms that deliver true collaboration with citizens and between colleagues. In Philadelphia, interactive ePlans modules afford parallel reviews and real-time revision with multiple stakeholders-both internal and external. In Albuquerque, data-driven mobile apps equip field workers with the ability to both access and share time sensitive intel.
“Our Department of Technology and Innovation consistently lives up to its name. Our goal is to turn government inside out so that residents can
easily access city government, and city government can be more responsive.”
Mayor Tim Keller,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
This week, we continue our series on Reinventing Civic Services with Intelligent Automation with a look at the role intelligent automation plays in enabling internal business process for effective service outcomes.
While improved civic engagement and sustainable revenue growth are the core drivers that spur smart cities to innovate digital service experiences, it is important to recognize another focus
point shared by Philadelphia, Albuquerque and Douglas County. In each jurisdiction, innovation initiatives focused on intelligent automation were leveraged to meet the needs of both external
and internal stakeholders creating legitimate win/win scenarios across the entirety of the organization.
Freed from legacy systems yielding poor data integration and unwieldly processes, each of these award-winning agencies designed automation empowered workflows to realize substantial
process efficiencies for front-line staff while also delivering elegant user experiences for citizens.
To better serve the needs of both citizens and colleagues alike, each of these digital communities followed a best practice approach in their adoption and delivery of automation technology:
In this new model, online self-service modules empower builders to expedite permit applications, inspection requests & schedules, and review inspection results on a timely basis. An accelerated review process moves permits through the workflow: tracking and recording all data at each step, with email notifications sent based on business process triggers such as impending inspection and license expiration dates.
“Project eCLIPSE will transform the way residents, business owners and developers do business with the City of Philadelphia. It will eliminate redundancies and the need for in-person paperwork and payments while emphasizing accessibility and convenience for citizens. Over time, Project eCLIPSE will improve public safety, government efficiency and delinquent tax collections, reduce vacant and blighted properties across the city and help attract new businesses and development by easing the application, permit and payment processes.”
Former Mayor Michael A. Nutter
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This week, we continue our series on Reinventing Civic Services with Intelligent Automation with a look at the role data integration plays in achieving winning customer experiences.
You’d be hard pressed to find three more distinctly different communities than Philadelphia, Albuquerque, and Douglas County.
Yet, despite the great distances that separate them geographically and the broad diversity of the governance innovations they’ve achieved, all three communities share a common ground in their approach to revitalizing citizen services that starts with their approach to data, intelligent automation and a philosophy towards core infrastructure investment that is closely aligned to a clearly articulated and long-term innovation vision.
For a prospective award-winning ‘Digital City or County,’ it starts with a commitment to breaking down the silos across internal agencies to create accessible and actionable data for all stakeholders – both internal and external. Doing so ensures the correct framework for data provision across the full spectrum of potential civic services, and true data transparency for citizens. Of equal importance, it empowers the entirety of an organization to embrace data-driven decision making with subsequent workflows designed to optimize automated processes, rather than servicing inefficient and poorly integrated manual processes.
In realizing the endgame of ‘big data,’ pay close attention to the commonalities of our innovation trio:
Creating improved data transparency across agencies can also have a substantial impact on the bottom line, with rapid return on investment making a strong business case for further innovation investment.
In 2018, the City of Philadelphia began enforcement efforts to increase local non-tax collections through an L&I billing project. When L&I performs work on a property, they bill the owner for the service. If the bill is left unpaid, a lien may be entered against the property and it is the Department of Revenue’s responsibility to collect the obligation. With this Data Warehouse, the City is identifying property owners who have outstanding L&I obligations and billing them directly. As a result, the City has generated $12 million in recovered tax revenues.
The benefit of this connected system is that, “because our departments work so closely together, we need a system that allows us to share data quickly and easily. Using POSSE, separate departments can simultaneously share and review a document, rather than waiting for a hard copy to make its way between multiple people reviewing it individually.”
Assistant Planning Director Steve Koster
Douglas County, Colorado
DENVER, Colorado – Hamilton County’s Environmental Health Division has expanded its usage of the POSSE software platform in anticipation of the emergent need for effective COVID-19 vaccine and materials distribution. The expanded solution provides tracking, reporting and fulfillment capabilities to enable the efficient management of essential materials such as N95 surgical masks, respirators, and other items crucial for maintaining public health for the 338,000+ citizens of Hamilton County, Indiana.
Building upon the robust vaccine management capabilities of their existing ‘Powered by POSSE’ solution, originally developed for the H1N1 virus, Computronix worked quickly with Hamilton County to fast-track this augmented solution, progressing from development to launch in a scant six days!
Anticipating an eventual influx of COVID-19 vaccine and material stocks from both the Strategic National Stockpile as well as private companies and donations, the expanded system equips Hamilton County’s proactive Environmental Health Division to efficiently expedite the distribution of materials critical for stopping the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, real-time data gleaned from the system’s inventory management and vendor traceability processes enable Hamilton County to provide state government stakeholders with timely information to help inform future decisions on vaccine management, ‘Stay at Home’ orders, and other critical pandemic response tactics—crucial information given how the COVID-19 situation can vary both situationally and between regions.
Led by Environmental Health Director, Jason LeMaster, Hamilton County’s continued expansion of the POSSE software platform continues a journey that first began when rapid response to the H1N1 virus prompted the County to, “turn ourselves into a warehouse for receiving and redistributing in about a week with POSSE,” says LeMaster. That effective foray into vaccine and inventory management continued Hamilton County’s expanded usage of POSSE as a core resource for data management and workflow automation. “There’s not one thing we do in our office, data management wise, that doesn’t use POSSE.”
Building upon its initial footprint, as a data management solution for the Health, Survey and Highway and Building departments in 1999, Hamilton County has since expanded POSSE’s business process and workflow automation capabilities into areas as diverse as the Parks and Recreation Department, Community Corrections Department, and Parcel Tax system, as well as the aforementioned Environmental Health Division.
Acknowledging that a six-day turnaround is an impressive accomplishment for technology innovation of this complexity, LeMaster gave credit to the County’s enterprise software solution provider, Computronix, for their ability to expedite the solution, as well as their internal IT department for trusting and empowering individual business unit leaders. “Our IT department supports us, and they know how important it is when a particular mission, like this one, has to get done.” emphasizes LeMaster. “IT let us take the lead, when we need to be the one to take the project lead.”
In moving quickly and effectively to ensure their citizens will have safe and timely access to COVID-19 vaccines and materials, as they’re made available, Hamilton County’s Environmental Health Division is certainly taking the lead at a time when decisive actions and efficient technology can legitimately save lives.
What does a superior government customer experience look like from a citizen’s perspective?
For many, the phrase immediately evokes expectations of an end user transaction and/or information exchange, with most of these interactions increasingly taking place via self-service websites.
The reality however is such interactions typically represent one single milestone in a much longer customer journey, a journey that impacts both citizens and agencies across multiple touchpoints.
Potential touchpoints include the following:
Make no mistake, for government agencies serving the modern, digitally demanding citizen; the ability to rapidly build and launch self-service websites is vital to the mission of delivering an effective customer experience.
However, such front-end transactions and information exchanges are but one facet of a more comprehensive solution requirement: one that meets the evolving self-service expectations of citizens while simultaneously aligning all agency stakeholders within an automation guided infrastructure equipped to facilitate superior customer experiences.
This is where POSSE WebUI comes in.
A powerful toolset for agile customer portal provision, POSSE WebUI empowers government agencies to leverage the award-winning workflow automation capabilities of the POSSE Platform, in addition to a suite of feature rich COTS+ solutions for permitting & licensing and alcoholic beverage control.
The result is a total product solution for elevating the quality of citizen self-service from internal business rules and workflow optimization through to external service delivery across all devices and customer touchpoints.
What does an easy-to-build customer portal look like from a page designer’s perspective?
POSSE WebUI empowers non-technical business users with no coding expertise to quickly and easily create winning webpages and customer experiences.
An initial template gallery, with usability principles based on Google’s Material Design standards, provides the perfect foundation to start.
From there, business users can quickly customize each page layout specific to your customer experience needs, using the simple ‘drag and drop’ features of the POSSE WebUI Layout Painter.
What does an intuitive, familiar feeling interface look like from an end user’s perspective?
Leveraging the React JS framework popularized by Facebook, POSSE WebUI delivers familiar user experiences that naturally flow the end user from initial task selection to final task completion.
Feature-rich dashboard layouts enable customers to quickly assess current task priorities from pertinent ‘to do’ lists, status changes and applications in progress.
What does a superior self-service experience look like from a business user’s perspective?
POSSE WebUI’s single page wizard widgets make it exceedingly simple for non-technical business users to quickly design efficient, effective government customer experiences to facilitate core business processes & revenue streams.
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DENVER, Colorado – Computronix is pleased to announce that the State of Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) has chosen POSSE ABC as the State’s COTS solution to manage the administration of alcohol and tobacco permits and related law enforcement data and processes.
Serving a growing population in excess of 4.6 million citizens, and responsible for the review of more than 30,000 combined new and renewed alcohol and tobacco applications per year, Louisiana ATC’s selection of POSSE ABC replaces the State’s current ATC-GO permitting system in favour of a fully integrated web-based system for licensing, permitting, enforcement, education, label registration and all activities related to alcoholic beverage control.
“With the State’s selection of POSSE ABC from Computronix, we are providing taxpayers with the best of both worlds: a powerful and innovative enterprise solution for alcohol and tobacco licensing, permitting and enforcement—and one that is implemented and supported by a software solution provider with a proven track record of delivering comparable solutions on time and on budget,” said Commissioner Lombard, State of Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.
“Powered by POSSE, an award-winning workflow automation solution inducted into the Smithsonian Institute’s collection of ground-breaking software, the POSSE ABC solution from Computronix will enable the State of Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ABC) to realize its goals for a sustainable, supportable and cost-effective enterprise solution capable of meeting the State’s alcohol and tobacco administration and enforcement tasks for this generation and the next,” said Gordon Meeberg, Vice-President of Business Development, Computronix.
POSSE ABC customers include the Arizona Department of Liquor Licensing and Control (DLLC), Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the State of Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division, the State of New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and the Newfoundland-Labrador Liquor Corporation.
LAKEWOOD, Colorado – Computronix is pleased to announce our 18th Annual Computronix Connect Conference – C3 2019.
C3 2019 is an ideal opportunity for regulatory agency staff and government IT leaders to meet, learn more about the latest in POSSE solutions, and share new ways of using POSSE to improve and transform their business.
To accommodate as many participants as possible, C3 2019 will again be broadcast this year via livestream to various hosted sites across North America. For those unable to visit a hosted site, the event will be streamed in its entirety via YouTube Live.
Of special interest to those with a passion for innovation in governance, particularly through the power of transformative technology, this year’s C3 event will feature the following:
Denver, CO – Computronix is pleased to announce that the City of Pittsburgh has chosen POSSE Land Management System (LMS) as an enterprise-wide software solution to manage planning, permitting, inspections, electronic plan review and licensing. Pittsburgh is a city rich in over 250 years of history, with a metropolitan population of 2.4 million, placing it as the 26th-largest metro area in the United States, and the 9th largest on the east coast. The City selected POSSE LMS following an RFP and a three-tiered selection process that included the departments of Public Works, Innovation and Performance, Public Works, Management & Budget and Planning & Zoning.
POSSE LMS will be used by several departments of the City, including Planning, Permits Licenses and Inspections (PLI), Public Works (PW), Finance and the Bureau of Fire.
The system will be implemented in phases and will transition the City to fully online and web-based end-to-end workflows that are designed to increase efficiencies, reduce backlogs and improve service to the public. “After evaluating the solutions available, we determined that POSSE LMS will be the most effective solution for the City of Pittsburgh,” said Lee Haller – Director of Innovation & Performance. “Selecting a company with a quality product and proven track record of successfully implemented projects were important considerations for us and Computronix was ranked highly in both regards.”
The City of Pittsburgh’s decision to select the POSSE solution will mark the third major Client for Computronix in the State of Pennsylvania, joining the City of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.
“We’re very pleased to be welcoming the City of Pittsburgh to our list of valued Clients,” said Gord Meeberg – VP Business Development. “Implementing streamlined, fully integrated workflow solutions for government is our core competency and we’re committed to providing Pittsburgh City staff and the customers they serve with a consolidated platform for streamlining transactions and improving service delivery.”
Established in 1979, Computronix has consistently fulfilled its mission to provide excellent software and outstanding service to its customers, proving its role as the North American expert in innovative regulatory and e-government software solutions. To date, POSSE government customers have won more than 20 national and international awards for business transformation and improved customer and public service.