Practitioners can now digitally enable services themselves!
EPCAS has been working alongside public sector and housing association staff who are tackling fuel poverty and the citizens they support. Like many other services, the front-line staff in this service capture data required to support citizens, with a range of issues and entitlements, on paper forms. Therefore an ambition of our project from the start has been to not just build web apps for citizens and energy advocates but to build a tool that would take the cost and time out of building, maintaining and updating web apps for this and other similar applications. We are excited to announce that this ambition has now been realised and the Web App Generator is live!
We were very pleased with the positive feedback about the web-based apps that we received from citizens and energy advocates during our co-design process. We also received some constructive feedback and have used this when using the Web App Generator (WAG) to make the first web apps for citizens on a journey towards more affordable warmth, along with all important energy advocates who support them on that journey. When used, these web-based-apps will reduce time, cost, effort and friction for both citizens and energy advocates. Critically the web apps will empower citizens, or as one energy advocate put it:
“Empowering the client to not only control their data but also to be part of the journey, whilst applying for Warm Home Discount or trust fund grants, allows them to understand the process. It also allows them to look at the other factors we address with every visit, e.g. their energy consumption, supplier and tariff choice, as well as payment methods.”
So web apps will be useful and useable but what about the WAG itself, how useful and useable is it?
The core concept of the Web App Generator (WAG) is “no programming required”. Following several cycles of internal testing, where staff with no programming background were asked to simply use it based on what they knew about the services they deliver, showed indeed that they were able to use it. We were excited to be able to demonstrate the Web App Generator (WAG) to the practitioners in public and third sector services that it is designed for. Practitioners using the WAG see two main features, the:
- Mapper, which enables them to map the journeys experienced by different actors such as tenants, tenant support officers, and service managers. These can be existing journeys or desired journeys. The mapper enables the key steps for each actor to be captured and defined. The actors’ personal assessment of the online and offline experiences is recorded showing where there are challenges. Critical to all services is personal data that needs to be captured and used. The mapper allows all of the datasets needed to be linked to the steps, e.g. contact details, meter readings, benefits entitlements. With all this key information captured the practitioner can then decide what steps need to be given their own web pages on the journey with the simple tick of a box. The mapper includes a “generate apps” button which creates a first version of the web based apps for the defined actors.
- Builder, which enables the practitioner to edit and build on the initial versions of the web-based apps. For example, they can; add headings and text; edit the fields required in data sets; add functions such as file upload; include secure messaging; and include many other features in the web apps they design. The builder enables a preview of the web apps; this is a function which can be used to quickly iterate and improve how they work with the people who will be using them. The Web Apps that are created are compliant with good practice such as Scotland’s Digital First Standard and the Government Digital Service’ Service Design Manual. The look and feel of the web apps, including branding, can be controlled simply and easily from menu driven settings giving them the experience desired. They are integrated to the Mydex Platform to provide secure privacy protecting identity services and personal data services that enable secure storage of data under the control of citizens. The builder culminates in the ability to deploy and run live web-apps!
We were absolutely delighted to see that practitioners who tested the WAG were able to grasp how it worked really quickly and intuitively. They could map an existing service they know well and generate initial web apps in under half an hour, with very little support and instruction. The practitioners who tried it said:
“Anyone that can use basic software like word processing can use this- it is really user friendly ” Team leader
“The web app generator looks great and I would be eager to use it myself to generate apps that allows myself and my colleagues to streamline our processes. The ability to tweak and amend the apps will surely be of use.” Front-line worker
Practitioners also gave us further insight into just how useful this will be:
“We currently work in a very much paper focused environment and copy all of this onto excel spreadsheets and then try to collate this data and use it annually. We really need software to allow us to streamline the process whilst allowing clients control over this data, how it is used, and who it is shared with.” Energy Advocate
So, with the EPCAS project, we have demonstrated how paper-based services, which were fragmented, could be joined up through digitisation of an end-to-end journey for energy advocacy. We have shown how it is possible to do this in a cost effective manner using the Web App Generator and the Mydex Platform for identity and personal data sitting underneath these journeys. These elements working together solve the challenges of identity, data delivery, collection, storage, sharing and exchange whilst ensuring GDPR compliance.
Many other public sector and third sector services still work with paper due to the low volume nature of their activities and the high cost of creating digital solutions for them. We see this as the “long tail” that commercial software vendors and hard-pressed IT departments are not able or interested in addressing. Being able to address this “long tail” in a way that works for the public and third sectors as well as citizens; leveraging their own knowledge and skills without requiring expensive software development, can deliver innovations that work for everyone and help transform public services at a fraction of the time and cost currently required today.
Mydex CIC are already working with partners on the application of the WAG to improving a range of services. We would like to hear from any other public and third sector organisations who share our vision of removing cost, friction and effort from public services and empowering citizens.
