A proof of concept exercise to ensure that local CRM applications can integrate with the Citizen Account System (CAS) is being carried out by Lagan and East Dunbartonshire Council.
Whilst 17 local authorities have adopted the Lagan CRM application, the project will benefit all 32 councils in providing a generic message handling design document to assist with CAS integration to any local CRM application.
The proof of concept exercise has delivered two key outputs:
- East Dunbartonshire Council, Lagan and the Customer First CAS team have established physical connectivity between the CAS on the National Infrastructure and the local East Dunbartonshire Council Lagan application. A new Lagan e-form proved the ability to send the Revoke Account and the Re-open Account Messages to the CAS Web Service infrastructure and outgoing CAS notification messages have been used to update Lagan's Web Services, proving the Lagan CRM application's integration with the CAS infrastructure. Any longer term solution will need to cater for both automatic and manual message handling, but for this exercise the message process has been manual.
- In conjunction with the CAS team, Lagan have developed a design document for Citizen Account message handling detailing the mechanism for handling and processing messages that is CRM vendor independent. Once finalised, this will be available to all local authorities within Scotland as the principles will be relevant irrespective of CRM software. The design document details the message processing mechanisms applicable for both Lagan and non-Lagan users and specifies what happens for messages, how exceptions are handled and the flow of messages based on whether middleware is used or not. The design assumes that each CRM application has case management capabilities.
In order to determine the findings of the proof of concept exercise a formal review session is due to be held at the end of November. This will assess the outputs, any additional unexpected outputs, and what might be required to provide a formal integration to the CAS in the longer term. The design document should provide sufficient detail to enable the Improvement Service and Lagan to provide costs for a full rollout of Lagan CRM integration to the CAS infrastructure if required.
