Being an efficient agency, achieving excellence in the services provided and building trust are common goals for organizations. That is why Gobierno en Línea (Online Government) promotes social inclusion and the country’s competitiveness through the appropriate use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Because of the many different technology platforms and numerous information access points, such as institutional portals, phone lines and service centers, it was difficult for citizens to access the information they really needed.
As part of the Gobierno en Línea strategy, a portal was implemented as part of a comprehensive citizen service plan (www.sivirtual.gov.co). It answers the questions citizens face when fulfilling their obligations to the State or accessing services it provides, becoming an access point for information and transactions and promoting the quality of State services. For the Government, it is vital that people have high-quality online services that build trust and foster communication with citizens.
One of the problems with Government procedure services is that citizens do not know the procedures or the agencies that provide them, and there are different institutional portals and information access channels, phone lines and service centers; as a result, figuring out which agency to contact to complete a procedure was time-consuming.
Many State-related procedures are essential to people’s daily lives, since they allow them to acquire a right, access a service or fulfill an obligation. It is therefore key for the State to make it easy for people to learn the names, steps to follow, service points and required documentation, and even to complete their procedures online.
One of the key components of this portal is Creangel’s Search-Based Application, which uses the Google Search Appliance as part of its platform
SOLUTION
Implement a Search-Based Application for the SI Virtual portal (www.sivirtual.gov.cco). Within this application, tools were developed to give citizens and/or stakeholders easy access to State service transactions and procedures, centralized through the SI VIRTUAL portal.
The implementation of the Search-Based Application helped the agency comply with Law 1712 of 2014 (Transparency Law), streamline the online procedures and services it must provide to the community, and encourage citizen participation.
Citizen service satisfaction levels increased, response times to internal and/or external information requests were reduced, staff productivity rose, and the agency achieved greater efficiency in the use of its technology resources.
- Notable technology developments include:
Spell checker, question modules that let citizens use their everyday language, indexing of physical service points, and search of the public offices directory.
