Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Municipalities Centralize Server Environment, Standardize and Simplify Service Delivery
Overview
Country or Region:Portugal
Industry:Government
Customer Profile
The Urban Community of Lezíria do Tejo (CULT) is a regional association of 11 municipalities located outside the city of Lisbon, Portugal. It is responsible for regional economic development and undertakes projects for the benefit of its member constituents.
Business Situation
Complicated procedures using different forms and information systems in different municipalities resulted in complex paperwork and slow service to citizens.
Solution
A central technology environment based on Microsoft® Windows Server System™ integrated server software supports a regional portal and Web sites for the 11 municipalities and interoperates with the different back-office systems. Restructured and automated municipal services now use a standardized set of simplified forms and processes.
Benefits
Simplified services and greater transparency
Working to a common goal
Full autonomy to manage content
Added-value services
Platform for the future / “Reform of the public administration is needed throughout Portugal to gain competitiveness and improve quality of life.”
Antonio Torres, Executive Administrator, CULT
The Urban Community of Lezíria do Tejo (CULT), working in partnership with Microsoft Corporation and Portuguese IT services company Novabase, launched the Ribatejo Digital project to automate and simplify service delivery for its 11 associate municipalities. A central technology environment based on Microsoft® Windows Server System™ integrated server software was implemented to interoperate with different municipal back-office systems using XML-based Web services. The environment also supports a regional geographic information system based on an application from ESRI. Innovative municipal, tourism, and business information and services can now be provided through a regional portal as well as the Web sites of the 11 municipalities. The project is helping the municipalities deliver services more efficiently, and is providing a catalyst for other organizations in the region to modernize.
Situation
The Urban Community of Lezíria do Tejo (CULT) is a regional association of 11 Portuguese municipalities (Almeirim, Alpiarça, Azambuja, Benavente, Cartaxo, Chamusca, Coruche, Golegã, Rio Maior, Salvaterra de Magos, and Santarém) located close to the metropolitan area of Lisbon. The area has a low population density, with a regional population of 240,000 people, most of whom are employed in agriculture. CULT had been working to promote the region’s transition into the Information Society by creating, for example, a network of public Internet access points. However, it recognized a need for a broader and deeper effort, starting with the modernization of municipal services.
“Reform of the public administration is needed throughout Portugal to gain competitiveness and improve quality of life,” says Antonio Torres, Executive Administrator of CULT. “The public machine is very heavy; there is too much paperwork and processes are too complicated.”
In the Lezíria do Tejo region, a straightforward procedure such as obtaining a building permit involved multiple visits to the local town hall, where the applicant would usually be sent away with more paperwork to complete.
“In Portugal, if you ask somebody what public service takes the most time, is the most complex, [and] which requires you to spend the most money, inevitably they would say the construction approval process,” says Torres. “You have to submit charts, blueprints, legal papers, and so on, usually in duplicate, in the correct order, and at different times of the process. We thought this, in particular, was something that we could simplify so it would be seen as a normal process rather than something that people dread.”
Complicating matters was the fact that each local authority in the region had its own internal procedures, so the forms and processes varied significantly from one town to the next. The different processes were each supported by disparate back-office technologies in the different municipalities; some used IBM Informix databases, while others were based on Microsoft®SQL Server™.
“We needed to create some commonality among the 11 municipalities,” says Torres. “It seems like something that should be quite simple, but we had been talking about it for 20 years and it was never done. The people working in the services are not responsible; the legislation is very complex and was interpreted in different ways.”
Solution
The Ribatejo Digital project was launched to support modernization throughout the Lezíria do Tejo region—not only of the municipalities, but also of the academic, business, and tourism sectors. The project involved the development of a central technology environment based on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and other products that are part of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software. The environment acts as a region-wide data-interchange hub through which a regional portal and the Web sites of the 11 municipalities are managed. The environment and portal, launched in the summer of 2005, were implemented in partnership with Lisbon-based Novabase, one of the leading IT services companies in Portugal and a Microsoft partner.
Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 enables staff at both the regional and local levels to create, publish, manage, and store content on the regional portal and municipal sites, while Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003 is used for index and search capabilities. The portal ( as a service desk where people can access municipal, tourism, and business information and services. It links to public services on the municipalities’ individual Web sites as well as to private sector services on a regional e-marketplace site that was developed with the local chamber of commerce.
Under the project, municipal services were restructured, unified, and automated with the same simplified and standardized forms for all 11 municipalities. Microsoft Commerce Server 2002 supports the delivery of services by interoperating with the different municipal back-office systems. This is done using XML as the main standard for data integration and Web services to allow different software applications from each municipality to interface with the environment.
“Users of online municipal services are registered at the regional level using Commerce Server,” explains Torres. “Web services are then used to pick up the necessary information from the municipal back offices and bring it back to our regional SQL [Server] database.”
He adds, “For those municipalities running Informix databases, we act as an intermediary. When a citizen accesses a service or consults information over the portal, he isn’t going directly to the municipality’s back office, he is going to our database, which then synchronizes with the municipality using Web services.”
The environment further integrates data from a new regional geographic information system (GIS) for the management, analysis, and display of geographic knowledge. The system is based on the ArcGIS framework from ESRI, a leading global GIS software developer and a Microsoft Certified Partner.
The regional portal also carries daily news items supplied to it by two local newspapers that use open source software. “We just went to the newspapers and said we want the news integrated into our portal,” says Torres. “By using Web services based on XML integrating into Content Management Server, we are now using news from these two sources.”
Benefits
Simplified Services and Greater Transparency
With automated and streamlined services, the Ribatejo Digital project is providing easier and simpler access to regional and municipal information and services for citizens, businesses, and tourists in Lezíria do Tejo. All data is aggregated in a regional portal, where users are led to their area of interest. An increasing number of municipal services are going online, including the building permit process and utility services, as well as the payment of water bills.
Transactions with the municipalities are conducted with greater transparency. The portal enables people to view the status and track the progress of a building permit application, for example, as it makes its way through each step of the approval process.
“A couple years ago, most municipalities weren’t even using software applications for these kind of services. Now 95 percent of municipal services are automated,” says Torres. “This allows not only for the delivery of services over the Internet, but it also enables back-office restructuring, which further reduces the wait time for a service to be delivered.”
Working to a Common Goal
With the restructured, centralized technology environment, people applying for building permits around the region can now expect to receive the same, simplified treatment from all 11 municipalities.
“We no longer have the situation where, for the same process, you get three different answers from three different people at three different municipalities,” says Torres. “We’ve managed to unify the forms and procedures of the 11 different municipalities.”
In redesigning forms and procedures, CULT was able to take the best practices in each municipality and adopt or adapt them for all municipalities.
“In the end, every municipality has forms and procedures that are simpler than what existed previously,” explains Torres. “It has been profitable for the municipalities to work together like this, rather than each one working on their own, because the ultimate goal is the same for all of them.”
Full Autonomy to Manage Content
While it was important to create a centralized environment, the Microsoft technology also met a key requirement that the municipalities be given full autonomy to manage rich content on their own Web sites.
“That’s one of the advantages of using Content Management Server,” says Torres. “It allows people who may not have a lot of technical knowledge to make the actualizations and manage sites. We created some standard [Microsoft] Word templates that they use, and that’s making life easy for them.”
Simplified management of Web sites is also enabling the inclusion of new dynamic content such as news, event listings, discussion forms, and the publication of council decisions and meeting minutes.
Added-Value Geographic Information
The geographic information that is integrated through the portal has proven to be a popular added-value function with multiple uses. The GIS application includes data on 130,000 buildings in the region, including street and number, and economic activity of the business conducted in building. This information is accessible to anyone over the Web.
Someone looking to open a shop or a café can see what similar businesses are in the area or on the same street to better assess the competition and opportunities available. Citizens can search for specific services and addresses, and tourists can locate monuments, golf courses, restaurants, and more.
The geographic information is also proving useful to the municipalities for service delivery and decision-making support. Digital cartography assists urban planning, and building permits can be issued with greater efficiency because municipal staff can see instantly any building restrictions or zoning requirements.
Environmentfor the Future
The Ribatejo Digital project is laying the foundation of the Information Society in Lezíria do Tejo and is providing a catalyst for many organizations—municipalities, local businesses, community groups—to start a widespread process of modernization in the region.
“The role of the public administration remains important to people’s lives, so it’s necessary for local government to set an example to others and improve our capabilities and the quality and efficiency of our services,” notes Torres.
He credits Novabase for providing advice on issues that could have an impact in the future, and Microsoft for providing technology that is scalable and flexible for future expansion thanks to its use of open standards such as XML.
“This project is not a goal; it is a step in a long process of modernization and innovation. Already we’re making contacts with other organizations and regional associations to use our infrastructure and to host their Web sites,” concludes Torres. “The Microsoft platform gives us confidence in terms of its stability and future evolution of the project.”
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System is a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions. Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business through the strategic use of their IT assets. With the Windows Server™ operating system as its foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration; and core IT operations including security, deployment, and systems management.
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