My File NYC — PATH Pilot Case Study
About My File NYC
My File NYC is a document storage and sharing mobile-first website managed by the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity). It provides New York City residents a safe and secure place to store their family’s vital documents (such as IDs, social security cards, utility bills, and income statements) and an easy way to share them when applying for City services. My File is operational with a limited scale pilot with the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) and is being utilized by families applying for temporary housing through the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) Center.
My File is informed by people-centered design research and developed to improve the provision of government services. It accounts for the complexities and realities facing New Yorkers and program administrators. The pilot is helping the City accelerate the creation, implementation, and evaluation of a digital document solution that could be leveraged for other benefit access tools and the City’s service delivery strategy.
The My File NYC pilot has been designed and managed in partnership with the DHS PATH Center and is supported by the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative, a program of New America.
Addressing a Known Challenge in Service Delivery
Document management and submission is a crucial step for New Yorkers to access City services. Depending on the program, applicants may need to submit documents such as birth certificates, proof of address and income, social security cards, or utility bills. Maintaining and sharing documents to prove eligibility is challenging, especially for housing insecure New Yorkers. The lack of documents is a primary factor for delays in service and denials.
My File NYC provides New Yorkers a secure mobile-friendly way to manage their family’s documents, reducing a primary barrier to accessing services. New Yorkers have agency over how their documents are used, who they share them with, and for what purpose when applying for services. My File isn’t the only way users can access services, but it is one way to reduce the time it takes to gather, upload, and submit documents. It also improves the service delivery process for administering agencies that process clients’ documents and follow up with them.
My File NYC Pilot
NYC Opportunity and the DHS PATH Center co-designed and launched a two-phased pilot in 2022 and 2023.
Pilot Program Goals:
- Provide families seeking shelter with a safe and secure place to collect, store and share documents with DHS for temporary shelter.
- Provide families who use My File NYC with a safe place to store and download their documents for other uses, with the City or not with the City.
- Improve document management workflow for DHS PATH staffers to move families’ applications along more efficiently, saving them time and helping them better organize.
Phase 1 ran from August 2022 to October 2022. The team found that My File NYC is a simple to use option for families to share documents and an easy tool for PATH staff to manage and incorporate in their workflow. Challenges included language accessibility, building awareness and trust with New Yorkers, and sign-up support.
The NYC Opportunity and PATH teams iterated and launched Phase 2 in spring 2023, leveraging learnings and additional quantitative data. In Phase 2, we sought to learn if tackling the identified challenges would increase usage and enhance families’ experiences. The team focused on reaching families in non-English languages (translating the product and creating multilingual videos and materials), streamlining the sign-up process, boosting accessible outreach materials to encourage sign-ups, gathering feedback, and improving workflows and search functionality for PATH.
The pilot is now in Phase 3, having met previous goals.
Pilot Design
NYC Opportunity worked with New America to leverage open-source code through the City of Baltimore’s Data Locker project and customize it for New York City. Two Bulls (now DEPT), worked on the original code. NYC Opportunity’s product team did research with PATH to understand how services were being delivered, challenges, and goals for better supporting families. City stakeholders identified requirements, key features, and the best method of integrating My File into their process without disrupting operations.
NYC Opportunity customized the code to meet the City’s rigorous security and quality standards (e.g. availability in NYC’s local law languages). My File takes advantage of the City’s technology services (such as NYC.ID single sign-on) and was customized to meet New Yorkers’ and staff’s needs with new feature, such as dashboards, multipage documents, and sorting.
We strategically deployed My File NYC in phases to evaluate how well it worked, identify its successful elements, and find areas that needed improvement. We quickly realized that technology, although crucial, is only part of a complete solution.
We engaged families in a personalized and situationally sensitive way. This meant meeting them in-person to support enrollment and to see how they use technology, communicating in their preferred languages, and reflecting anecdotes and observed pain points in how we design the product.
Using a variety of multi-language media materials was another key strategy. We launched a video ad to play at PATH, offered one-pagers, FAQs and an illustration-based sign-up guide. These multimedia tools were crucial in making complex information easier to understand, building trust and raising awareness in engaging and accessible ways.
Finally, we placed a strong emphasis on supporting DHS staff during the pilot. It was important to help them adapt smoothly to the new system, ensuring they could provide the best service and engage effectively with the community.
Outcomes
Over 1,200 families have signed up for My File NYC since launch (as of summer 2024).
We set metrics to understand if My File NYC is a user-friendly and reliable product, including:
- Reception and observation — resident and staff sentiments while using My File NYC
- Issues — number of technical issues reported; unusable documents (e.g. blurry, cut off)
- Drop-off rate — created account, didn’t upload files; uploaded files, didn’t share them
Phase 1
8/1/22–10/31/22
Goal: Launch limited pilot at PATH to test initial assumptions and make changes for a longer-term Phase 2.
159 families enrolled during Phase 1, and five staff members were trained-active users. Families had a viable option to submit documents and secure backups for future use, and staff were satisfied and wanted to continue usage. Phase 1’s performance set the goals for Phase 2.
Phase 2
2/1/23–12/31/23
Goals
- Enroll 500 families and increase the percent of families sharing documents.
- Families learn about and use My File NYC independently, requiring less DHS time for facilitated sign-ups.
- Increase accessibility for non-English speaking families, especially Spanish.
- PATH continues to value using My File NYC.
In Phase 2, we increased awareness and independent enrollment via engagement materials and log-in improvements. For example, 130 families enrolled in September 2023, and 82 of those signed up independently (without facilitated enrollment) — up from single-digit individual enrollments in Phase 1.
Writing clearer UI copy helped families create My File accounts faster, leveraging NYC’s Single Sign-On from accounts they have with other City agencies. This reduced the sign-up process by about 10 minutes.
Phase 2 saw the site available in 13 local law languages with 10% more families accessing the site in a language other than English compared to Phase 1.
PATH staff and leadership see My File NYC as a viable option. Processing physical documents takes 10–15 minutes per family, but only 2–5 minutes using My File NYC. Documents previously emailed are consolidated on the staff dashboard. Fifteen additional staff have been trained, and PATH is working to support expansion at DHS shelters and other intake centers.
Anecdotally, DHS staff described the processing time for family documents dropping from 10 minutes to 2 minutes.
Traffic dramatically increased at PATH over the summer of 2023, with school on break and a policy change requiring families to submit documents in person. Families who only needed to submit documents were able to use My File NYC and clear the building faster, reducing the need to come back for future document-only visits.
Initial Findings and Insights
While the pilot is still underway, it is already possible to share preliminary findings:
- My File NYC is a good option for families to retain agency over their digital identity while sharing documents for faster service. It can help staff reduce processing time.
- The success of the pilot required building trust and awareness with families, engaging families in their preferred language, and persistent focus on the families using My File with their needs at the center of the work.
- The pilot demonstrates power of strong cross-agency and civic partnership collaboration.
- Leveraging (and re-sharing) strong open-source code can help expedite development and learn from previous projects.
- Government can build resident-first products that support administering agencies and facilitate better applicant experiences.
- It’s scalable and replicable!
The pilot was recognized at “The Best of New York City 2023 Awards” at The NYC Technology Forum in Brooklyn and received the award for “Best IT Collaboration” for the partnership between the DHS PATH Center and the NYC Opportunity team.
My File NYC’s primary focus is to better support families to get through the temporary-to-permanent-housing journey at an accelerated pace. By integrating My File NYC into the initial stages of families’ housing journeys at intake centers like PATH, essential documents can be reused when families interact with other agencies for permanent housing after entering the shelter system. This will drastically speed up the collection, storage, and management of documents that are rarely subject to change, and accelerate the sharing of more dynamic documents, such as income.
Scaling and Replication
The pilot was designed to test the viability of My File NYC at the PATH Center. With the preliminary learnings, we are now focused on how to scale and replicate My File NYC for other services. We’ve turned our attention to:
- A new data model that will enable other city agencies, or even jurisdictions, to use My File NYC to share and receive documents.
- Rebuilding the infrastructure so it’s easier to iterate on, maintain, and scale, e.g. moving from over 30 micro services to four.
- Introducing enhanced features such as agency-based workflows, document checklists, and re-uploading.
The My File NYC pilot demonstrates that collaborating on an open-source digital solution can simplify and streamline critical government services, which makes life easier for both families applying for these programs and the public servants working tirelessly to deliver for them. We hope that this pilot will lead to more efficient and effective digital service delivery in NYC and beyond.
- Allison Price, Digital Impact and Governance Initiative at New America
Additionally, our partners with New America are working on replicating the solution for implementation outside of New York.
Pilot Reflections
My File NYC stands as an example of how leveraging a relatively straightforward technology solution, such as a dependable document management tool, can significantly enhance the accessibility and efficiency of public services.
The pilot underscores the importance of strategic collaboration among city agencies, particularly those involved in public health and human services. Such partnerships are invaluable in gaining a deep understanding of the unique demands and challenges each agency faces, as well as the diverse needs of the residents they serve.
Tools like My File NYC empower individuals by granting them greater autonomy over their personal documents. They enable residents to manage access to their sensitive information, fostering a sense of control and security.
Furthermore, the development of public solutions like My File NYC, rooted in open-source code and principles, is instrumental in ensuring these tools are not only efficient but also adaptable. This approach facilitates effective scaling and replication, making it possible to extend these benefits to a broader spectrum of public services and communities. By doing so, we can create more inclusive, accessible, and responsive public service ecosystems.
