The personal area is the point of contact between users and the platform. It has been designed with two user access scenarios in mind. The first scenario involves the user independently accessing the authority’s website (through SPID authentication) and finding in the personal area the deadlines for activities to be completed, the archive of documents and concluded applications, or resuming a previously started but unfinished application, and of course starting a new one (selecting among the various available digital services clearly described in the authority’s services section). The second access scenario involves the registered user receiving an email notification about something: the opening of the school canteen enrollment period, a fine notification, and so on. Through a simple click on the link within the email, the user can immediately perform the required action, or do it later by returning to the personal area of the municipal website. The platform integrates with the IO app, so citizens can also receive notifications on the app.
The personal area is the section through which the user can manage the activation of services. When starting an application (or request), the user can see at any time the full set of steps required for its completion. The application (request) is saved as a draft (which is kept on the site for at least one year) and can therefore be completed later. Once the required information has been entered, the user sees a summary of the application and confirms the submission. The authority confirms the acceptance of the request and provides the maximum completion time, meaning the deadline by which it is required to provide a response, according to the terms already described in the service page.
By returning to the personal area, the user can view the status of the request at any time and monitor the progress of the application. At each stage of progress, the user will also receive an email notification (also visible in the messages section of the personal area) signaling the application’s progress (for example, a request for additional information or a notification of a positive outcome). In this way, the user is no longer forced to contact the authority just to find out the status of a submitted request.
In addition to applications, the personal area allows managing all the services the user is enrolled in (e.g., nursery school). Enrollments have a duration, provide for a cancellation procedure (automatic or user-initiated), a renewal procedure (automatic or user-initiated), and a payment procedure that can be recurring (when required by the service). A fully automated data flow within the authority that offers benefits for citizens, for example by reducing the amount of data to enter; and benefits for the authorities, who for instance can write to all users enrolled in a specific service and extract socio-demographic statistics on enrollees in tabular format (CSV) and via API (see statistics pattern). Some enrollment services also include the possibility of publishing the list of enrollees, sorted by certain attributes, with the option of anonymizing the enrollees for privacy reasons.
Most municipal services result in the issuance of a document that also represents the certification of the service execution. The documentary output can take a digital form (PDF or digital card identified by a QR code) and - in rarer cases - a physical form (identity card or library card). In these cases, the service includes a delivery procedure (shipping to the address provided by the user during service activation) or on-site pickup (identification of the location where the user can collect the certificate). Documentary outputs are classified by type (enrollment certificates, civil registry certificates, parking permits, etc.) and must always be available to the citizen in the documents section of their personal area, as well as being notified via email and the IO app. Finally, in addition to documents, the personal area makes available payment receipts made by the user, giving the citizen the ability to view them at any time.
Like all OpenCity Italia components, the module is available as open source (published on Developers Italia: OpenCity Italia Citizen’s Room) and in a SaaS version on ACN-qualified cloud.
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Our primary concern from the beginning was to create digital services that are easy to use, based on a microservices architecture. Subsequently, we focused on how to best aggregate all the actions performed by the user (applications and service enrollments, messages, and service outputs such as documents and payments).
From this, the OpenCity Italia personal area was born, developed consistently with the IO personal area, the public services app of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, to facilitate integration and allow citizens to use both systems according to their needs and circumstances.
The platform also allows integrating information from services managed with other technologies, so that the personal area can display messages and documents from other services, even if not managed within OpenCity Italia. Authorities simply need to ask their suppliers to make them available as required by regulations (interoperability guidelines).