Our client, a major city in the Greater Toronto area (GTA) was determined to streamline its processes and improve service efficiency. For this, the City was looking to implement a system that would allow its citizens to submit their service requests through a centralized portal which is both user-friendly and easily accessible. The purpose of this portal was to quickly direct all service requests to the appropriate department and provide the status of individual service requests, in near real time.
THE CHALLENGE
The City was using Salesforce, a cloud-based service, that received all service requests from its residents. These requests were then dispatched to on-premise downstream applications such as Cityworks, Amanda and JDE that were used by the different departments concerned. To avoid delays in communication in this hybrid environment, a tight application integration was required. But the challenge was to find a way lo link the different systems used and managed by different teams with varying levels of expertise. Moreover, each application had its own data structure and accompanying logic. For example, street addresses were stored in different ways in different applications, which meant that the data structure would need to be modified by the ETL process to avoid duplications and mismatches.
HOW WE HELPED
We realized that the complexity of this application integration project was two-fold: human and technical. On the one hand, we had to collaborate and work iteratively with the client who needed to share technical information on the downstream applications, test the developed solution and confirm that the results are correct. On the other, we had to thoroughly understand the existing systems to identify the solution that could help integrate the various systems and provide the results expected.
As the client was already using the FME data integration platform, we configured the FME Server component as a bridge between all their applications to ensure a two-way communication from Salesforce to the appropriate downstream systems and an effective report back on individual work status.
THE VALUE WE PROVIDED
We provided expertise at different levels: design, development and improvements to existing systems like address parsing algorithms. Our objective was to make sure all applications were integrated seamlessly through the FME technology. Considering that the output of the solution is directly visible to the citizens, we took special care during the testing phases to ensure it was meeting the City’s high-quality standards.
And the results speak for themselves!
- 15,000 new cases per year in downstream systems – i.e. 1,250 new cases per month!
- 50,000-75,000 status updates per year
We have experienced a dramatic shift where we have gone from daily integration issues between Salesforce and the downstream applications to very few issues. As a result, our citizens are receiving uninterrupted status updates. We are very happy with the result of this project with Consortech.
Connecting municipal systems and applications to improve the quality of services for residents is what we do!