May 15, 2019 By: Sumit Hazra
Digital transformation is better expressed as the amalgamation of digital technology into all the line of business, intrinsically changing the way an organization tackles their most complex business challenges and deliver value to their customers. The aim of digital transformation is to use digital technology, not just to replicate/digitalize an existing service or process but to transform the entire process or service in a way which adds value to the organization as well as the society.
The government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) took a bonzer initiative to integrate 33 departments, 315 agencies to cater 745 plus services using the Pega Government Platform as a technology backbone for this humongous digital transformation project to drive the highest citizen satisfaction. The government of Andhra Pradesh chose the Pega software, which is proved to have the leading Digital Process Automation (DPA) technology to rapidly build these integrated digital services on a robust unified platform thus becoming a pioneer in conceiving and executing the state-wide enterprise architecture and implementing eGovernance.
Solution Architecture with Pega – High Level
Anatomizing the architecture with a bottom-up approach, we have:
- Pega Product Stack – The foundation of the platform which flavours the Pega Government Platform as the backbone of the application. On top of it, we have the GoAP (AP Government Enterprise Layer) catering the Authentication & SSO, business calendars, etc. and the Core Framework layer catering the re-usable services such as CLGS (Certificate Less Governance System), LMS (License Management System), etc.
- Department Extension Layer – This layer caters to the need for various departments viz. Education, RERA, Sports, etc. inside AP Government. The service applications for various departments reside in this layer.
- Department Self-Service Configuration via One Portal – The configuration privileges, certificates, roles, etc. are saved in this layer. Minimal IT involvement may be for alignment and initial enablement is required in this layer.
- User-based Configuration & Process Usage in One Portal – The end-user viz. the citizens, business users, government employees interact in this top layer in omnichannel – Web, Email, Phone, Social, Chat, Call Centres, etc. The much-needed 360 views of a citizen can be obtained from this layer.
Implementation of eHighway
eHighway happens to be the most integral part of the core platform of ePragati which integrates the API of different services across departments and publishes it using Mulesoft.
To pen down a few benefits using eHighway within the landscape of this project:
- A Common gateway to Govt Depts, Citizens, Developers and Business entities.
- A wholesome Government API depository.
- An API Governance Framework.
- An Enterprise Information Integration.
- A Reusable API Inventory.
- A framework is capable of monetization to unlock the value from the API program.
- A lightweight Integration platform which manages Message Routing, data Mapping, reliability, security, scalability, protocol conversion.
How Pega Interacts with MuleSoft?
MuleSoft is an abstraction layer between Pega and all the services it is consuming. For example, if MeeSeva exposed a SOAP service via WSDL, MuleSoft will consume that WSDL and provide us a REST service over JSON for the MeeSeva service. So Pega will communicate with MuleSoft and MuleSoft will communicate with MeeSeva service. MuleSoft is going to convert all the Service types whether it is SOAP, MQ, DB, File System to a REST API and Pega has to communicate through the REST API exposed by MuleSoft.
How Did the Departments Reap the Benefits of This Humungous Implementation?
Till date, most of the services in every department were done offline using pen and paper – giving us a green field to digitally transform the way the Citizens interact with the government.
We were privileged to be given a chance to revolutionize the way, Real Estate Regulatory Authority (AP RERA) interacts with the citizens of Andhra Pradesh. We digitally transformed the following services for AP RERA:
- Grievance Redressal – Any citizen can now lodge a grievance against any department within AP RERA and get a resolution within just 2 days, which prior to the transformation took more than 7 days, resulting in more than 70% faster resolution.
- Amicable Conciliation Forum – Any aggrieved person can approach to file an application or complaint instead of directly going to the authority by availing this service – wherein a separate committee formed with representatives of Developer’s Association, Grahak Panchayat and AP RERA will help both the parties to amicably resolve the disputes, resulting in 30% faster and better dispute resolution!
- Complaint Redressal – Any allottee can now register a complaint against a developer or vice versa online and can expect to get the resolution within 4 days, compared to the typical offline resolution which took almost 20 days – resulting in 80% faster and effective resolutions.
- Project Registration – Juxtaposed to the prolonged process of registering any project in Andhra Pradesh, in pen-n-paper with manual verifications, which took almost 30 days to complete the process – it now takes only 7 days to approve a project with the APIs published in eHighway, resulting in more than 75% faster approvals.
- Agent Registration – Any property agent can now become a registered “Agent” with AP RERA and get the registration id within 5 days, wherein the manual process took almost 20 days to get the approval. This transformation resulted in more than 65% faster approval and greater citizen satisfaction.
- Visitor Management System – Any citizen can now book a visitor slot with any employee of AP RERA online with the help of a click. This service resulted in a 40% increase in employee efficiency, 70% better visibility and accountability, over 80% increase in improved customer satisfaction, professionalism and staff morale.
- Asset Management System – The entire AP RERA experienced a 40% faster asset allocation and de-allocation to their employees with the help of this service and over 80% better clarity in managing the assets.
While we were still busy raising the toasts to celebrate the success of RERA, we were given the opportunity to transmogrify the services of the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh. Till date every athlete, coach or association had to manually come down to the department to get registered in the system – which ideally took more than 20 days (approx.) to generate the registration id after the manual verification. In lieu of the above coercion faced by the citizens, we digitally transformed a few of the services for SAAP and by enabling the online registration modules for Athlete, Coach and Association, SAAP experienced over 90% faster registration process and customer satisfaction.
All these transformation projects were completed and made available for the citizens to use in a minimal amount of time for which, the ability to rapidly build integrated digital services on a robust unified platform, of Pega, takes the cake!
