The Digital Transformation Service is a vital part of the Scottish public sector that helps other organisations in Scotland deliver user-centred services in line with the Digital Scotland Service Standard, identify new and more efficient ways of working, as well as access tools, resources and data to support innovation and evidence-based decision making. The Digital Transformation Service has worked with a number of organisations across the Scottish public sector, including Disclosure Scotland, Social Security Scotland, and the Scottish Public Pensions Authority.

During summer 2020, with the outbreak of Covid-19 and lockdowns happening across the country, Salesforce provided resources and licences to the Scottish Government for the creation of a digital outreach solution. This would allow the government to offer assistance to businesses and the public in a structured manner, with a formal process for evaluation and response. As a result of the high-pressure conditions at the time, this needed to be built at an accelerated pace. Although they are no longer in use, DTS still has access to a number of Salesforce Service Cloud licences and were looking to repurpose the platform in order to meet their updated requirements.

DTS Scotland needed a system where users could register and submit applications for assistance via an online form, rather than a paper one, with the option to save the form as a draft for later review or resubmission. Communication between the user and DTS had to be available, either via email or through the online portal, with all details tracked and status updates visible to selected parties.

We proposed a solution that could provide an online visual presence for DTS, empower potential users of the Digital Transformation Service to search for services and people, provide a structured experience for users that needed to apply for certain services, and would also provide DTS with structured metrics on these customer services and their successes. 

In order to create this comprehensive solution, we required the use of a number of Salesforce products: Salesforce knowledge – a knowledge base and data navigating solution which could be used as a profile searching tool, Salesforce Communities – used to create an anonymous and authenticated portal for user access and request management, this would also give users the ability to register and submit assistance requests in draft and final form. This tool also provides a participation tool that allows users to chat and collaborate on DTS related topics, with full governance and control. Experience Cloud – a Salesforce platform designed to establish connections between customers/constituents, internal staff, and partners – was implemented to connect and empower users with data and records. Finally, we also made use of DTS’s existing Salesforce Service Cloud licences to provide the backbone architecture for case management and tracking, while also granting us SLA capacity, email tracking and responses, plus core Salesforce automation.

DTS engaged Bluewave Technology for our significant experience in community design.  Our team is adept at creating anything from volunteer management solutions to property management solutions, customer insurance management, and aircraft lease management – for commercial and government departmental bodies. Over the years, we’ve built a great number of interactive, external-facing designs to meet the evolving needs of our customers, resulting in the strong reputation we have today.

As time was of the essence with this project, our technical team quickly began creating an online portal that had the following features:

• Different functionality available for anonymous and authenticated users
• A knowledge base of articles that are categorised for visual navigation or global searching
• A catalogue of people with skills and services for searching (this included people who were internal to DTS or linked to external bodies).
• A user self-registration system
• A look and feel that met Scottish Public Sector design specifications, leveraging Lightning Web Component design, as well as CSS and Javascript frameworks to achieve this.
• A re-designed case submission system that allowed users to flag that they needed assistance. This system allowed users to submit a case and automatically get email confirmation and a tracking number, plus the option to interact directly with DTS via email or the portal itself.
• A case management system for internal DTS users that had a structured process for dealing with the case requests they would receive, making case navigation, classification, and updates much easier to deal with. This system allowed DTS to attach files to cases when needed, change the owner of a case, and use case statistics to form reports via dashboards in Salesforce. Users could also record any changes to records, for audit purposes.

“My team was previously spending long periods of time accessing and understanding data and making sense of that data, then reporting upwards. We needed a solution that would allow us to manage our cases through our workflow, direct them to other people, and record everything relevant to a given case in one place. We also needed a way to produce the KPIs and management information that we needed. This is where Salesforce came in.

We chose Bluewave for two reasons: because they were on a framework that had standard pre-agreed contract terms and we could engage very quickly, but also because Salesforce recommended Bluewave so highly.” – Liz Craig, Service Owner at DTS Scotland

The successful completion of our first project with DTS led us to facilitate digital transformations within many different organisations within the Scottish public sector. This includes Disclosure Scotland, Social Security Scotland, and the Scottish Public Pensions Authority, who all had internal and customer-facing systems that required modernisation. One by one, each department was brought online with a Salesforce-powered solution. 

While these transformations were quite similar – as they all required a cloud implementation, a public facing community, a form filling function, and a case management system, they all produced their own unique challenges, as our team members had to liaise with a new group of contacts, technical staff, and internal users for every deployment. They also faced the challenge of crafting a system that didn’t impede and in fact worked with the other systems and departments that were adjacent to it. The platform build also had to be crafted in a way where it wouldn’t affect new onboarded teams’ need to access information that they needed.

“When we first started to communicate with Bluewave, it was clear that their team of consultants and developers really understood the platform and knew what they were doing. They were able to work with my team to elicit our requirements painlessly and very quickly. The work they did was of high quality, but what stood out the most to me was that we also developed a relationship. This wasn’t just with their sales team and project managers, but also the technicians doing the behind the scenes work. We felt like one team.” – Liz Craig, Service Owner at DTS Scotland

As we continue to work with DTS and several departments within the Scottish Public Sector, our technical team has been able to establish a great baseline system and build on it over time, ensuring that as these departments evolve and their needs change – we’re with them every step of the way to improve their systems and make necessary changes. As design and accessibility become more prominent considerations for this customer, we are improving the look, feel, and usability of their platforms. We are also styling these platforms so that they mirror the design specifications that Scottish Public Sector websites adhere to, so that external users get a seamless experience when transitioning from the site to the portal.

“Bluewave helped us build a proof of concept that was proven to be successful in just a few months. Overall, the experience has been really positive. 

DTS Works with many other organisations within the Scottish public sector, and because of this, we’ve been able to advise some of the organisations we work with on adopting and getting the most out of Salesforce. One such organisation, who had a completely separate Salesforce implementation that wasn’t going as planned (they were having difficulty with their supplier), they heard that we were using Salesforce with Bluewave as a partner. Following our referral, Bluewave is their supplier of choice, and that project is now moving forward smoothly.” – Liz Craig, Service Owner at DTS Scotland

Following the successful implementation of platforms for Disclosure Scotland, Social Security Scotland, and the Scottish Public Pensions Authority over the past two years, our team is now working with DTSI Scotland on a similar project with GDS Scotland – the Scottish arm of the NHS’s General Dental Service. We look forward to many more successful projects as part of this ongoing partnership with DTSI.