The City of Vienna’s Digital Calling
Key Takeways
- Less administration thanks to self-service.
A range of new self-service features was able to reduce the time and effort spent on administration. - Digitalization improves user experience, collaboration, and expertise sharing.
It's easier to create and edit web content with the new Intranet. Collaboration tools, blogs, and wikis make it easier for employees to work together, and third-party applications can be uniformly integrated. - More internal communication increases satisfaction.
With the Intranet being enthusiastically adopted as a communication platform (including the blog feature and the option to notify users about new publications), internal communication was optimized and email volume reduced.
Background
After having been established in July 2018 through the merger of three separate IT departments, Wien Digital made its information and communication technology available to the approximately 86,000 employees in all the municipal authority's departments and the Vienna Healthcare Network. In this context, MD 01 is responsible for the installation, maintenance, and operation of around 113,000 workplace end devices, 5,100 servers and around 69,000 telephones, and maintains 14,300 PCs, 3,900 notebooks and 5,500 printers in Vienna's schools. With one of Europe's largest computer networks, Wien Digital has created the technical foundations to enable its inhabitants to have quick, state-of-the art interactions and communication with the municipal authority. The availability of securely stored data, especially for diagnoses and therapy in the Vienna Healthcare Network's health institutions, is also among MD 01's core responsibilities.
However, MD 01 is not just responsible for administering and maintaining all the IT services, but also ensuring security standards are adhered to and developing new products and service offerings, such as replacing bureaucratic procedures with online services — the key idea here being a "virtual authority".
Challenges
- Implementing a new intranet page with self-service features.
Third-party applications were not able to be integrated or visualized with the portal in use at that time, so it was impossible to create a uniform user experience. - Replacing the old content management system.
With the CMS they had been using, it became difficult to create, manage, and publish web content. - Implementing a company-wide push communication platform.
With so many messages, internal communication via email was difficult to manage. Through communication based on push notifications, the volume of internal emails could be reduced.
Implementation
Because of its application range and the amount of cooperation agreements, Liferay Community Edition (Liferay 6.2) was migrated to Liferay DXP (initially Version 7.1, now 7.2) in a follow-up project. For the implementation, the City of Vienna relied on various certified Liferay partners after bidding on a framework contract had taken place.
Results
Since the implementation of Liferay DXP, the City of Vienna has been enjoying the following benefits:
- Simple web content management and an enhanced user experience.
As well as improved features for creating and editing content, the City of Vienna also uses collaboration and social media features such as blogs, wikis, and transmitting non-essential work documents. Third-party applications can also be uniformly integrated, improving the user experience. - Reduced internal email volume.
A large number of regularly recurring emails were able to be replaced, making in-depth use of the blog feature and its notifications. As a result, the flood of emails receded with the option to subscribe to internal blogs. Similar to well-known social media features, users can be notified of news inline in the browser. As a result, internal communication is more manageable. - Less time and resources spent on administration.
As user self-service features were introduced, administrative time and effort could be reduced. The Liferay-based Self-Service Portal meant telephone options could be configured, such as activating call forwarding through a web application. As a result, users are less dependent on a central administrative office.
Because Wien Digital maintains several hundred applications in the internal network alone that are critically important to the municipal authority's various departments' work, and, consequently, for its inhabitants as well, Liferay DXP shall going forward serve as a central launchpad for these applications and embed them in a uniform design.