About Galway County Council

Galway County Council (also known as Comhairle Chontae na Gaillimhe) is the government authority responsible for County Galway and its 250,000+ citizens. Galway County Council takes care of countless key services, including housing, transportation, urban planning and development, as well as culture and entertainment.

The Challenge

Up until early 2021, Galway County Council, like many local authorities, were using paper based application forms that were submitted and processed manually. Pioneers within the council knew that this could be done far more efficiently, in a way that wouldn’t leave room for human error. A digital transformation was needed to modernise this process, streamlining housing form submissions, speeding up internal processing times, and improving overall UX for citizens and staff.

The Solution

Galway County Council chose to partner with Bluewave on a project to modernise the Council’s current paper based application forms, and provide an easy-to-use digital platform for Galway’s clients to complete their Housing Forms online. This would involve the use of Salesforce Experience Cloud to act as a portal for Council members to access, where they would have options and links to start, progress, and complete housing application forms which were created in Form Assembly. Responses would be stored in Salesforce and synced back to iHouse – the council’s internal housing management system.

The Process

Bluewave experts advised Galway County Council that an Experience Cloud solution with elements of Service Cloud and Salesforce Core was needed, once these solutions were optimised and configured, this would allow Council members to intuitively conduct their business in a more efficient manner. Form Assembly, a leading form solution for Salesforce, was also deployed in order to create a more agile, user-led approach to Galway housing applications.
One of our Senior Salesforce Certified Application Architects took the lead in building the form submission portal for this project and had this to say:
“I took what was initially a fairly complicated form and improved the user experience significantly in order to make it easier to complete. I then integrated that within Experience Cloud (the Salesforce solution previously known as Community Cloud) which offers a single-sign-on experience that allows users to log into several interconnected systems via a single username and password.
One useful change we built in was the ability to pause the form at any stage and resume completion later on, rather than having to start again from scratch. This resulted in vastly improved UX for the public completing the form and council staff.” – Senior Application Architect at Bluewave
In order for County Galway residents to complete a Housing application form, they need to confirm their income, note down any housing benefits they’re receiving, and add info about the number of dependents living in the house, amongst many other things. A basic navigation menu was provided to link to the submitted applications, as well as to generate and review cases. Hyperlinks on the front page also provide a quick launch pad to the housing application form, resulting in a seamless experience.
An additional form also needed to be built, to cater specifically to Galway’s disabled citizens, as their circumstances often required bespoke housing solutions, such as a larger home. One challenge within the application process was that in order to be approved for a larger home, a healthcare worker must confirm the applicant meets the requirements. After speaking with the housing experts at Galway County Council, our consultants realised that a lot of disabled residents were struggling to get sign-off from their doctors. Often, an emailed or digital form would go neglected, so Bluewave crafted a hybrid solution to resolve this issue. We integrated a PDF form that can be printed out and taken to doctor appointments, ensuring that the healthcare provider could sign it there and then.
“While we’re all about looking to the future at Bluewave, we want to meet the needs of our clients’ target audience. As a result, we don’t blindly adhere to a digital-only method if it’s not the best course of action. Our consultative approach means we work with our clients and listen to their needs in order to meet them effectively.” – Senior Application Architect.

The Bluewave Way™

What sets Bluewave apart from other organisations is our collaborative approach to projects. At the beginning of an engagement, we take the time to listen to the problems our clients are experiencing, suggesting relevant solutions, and working with them every step of the way.
“Upon conversing with Galway and learning of their requirements, the chosen technology stack for this project; Salesforce, Experience Cloud and Form Assembly, really enabled us to fulfil all requirements in an efficient and coherent manner.
Experience Cloud provided a self service interface for clients to submit their information, via forms built on Form Assembly and exposed via a component in the Experience Site- this was all captured in Salesforce CRM, where the data could be processed and progressed accordingly. Overall, this proved to be a solid foundation to enable Galway County Council to digitise their Housing and DIsability forms.” – Senior Salesforce Consultant at Bluewave.
Our project management team held up this standard by keeping a channel of communication open between Galway County Council and our technical team.
“From a project management perspective, it was a very collaborative process. There was 100% input from both teams every day, allowing for great communication and fast decision making. The co-operative way in which we worked really contributed to the success of the project.” – Project Manager at Bluewave.

The Results

This unified digital experience resulted in less human error, increased applicant interaction, and the establishment of an infrastructure that can be easily leveraged for similar requirements. The improved UX of this system wasn’t just a positive for Galway citizens, but also for council staff as processing applications became significantly easier and faster. The efficiencies gained through the digitisation of the housing application form process has realised ROI in a very short timeframe, and that ROI will continue to grow as the infrastructure is further leveraged.
Through the combined efforts of everyone involved, the portal is now live as of 2/9/21 and Galway County Council has already begun onboarding their clients onto the portal.

If your organisation is in need of a similar digital transformation, please get in touch with a member of our dedicated team today. Our consultants are fully equipped to develop bespoke solutions designed to meet the needs of your users and internal teams.

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