Although OpenCity’s strength lies in the presence of digital service models already defined and ready to use, we believe it is equally important to give municipalities and local authorities the ability to customize them and create new ones. For this reason, we have created a dedicated back-office environment that introduces the flexibility needed to meet the authority’s specific requirements. At this level, the authority is able to carry out a number of configuration actions, including describing the service according to a predefined format (see the service catalog), scheduling the automatic opening and closing date of the service, defining the specific requirements the user needs to activate the service, and other options. Once the first instance of a service has been created (e.g., food bonus), the authority can configure new instances (e.g., housing bonus) by duplicating the already created service and modifying its configuration independently. Some options are available to officials (for example, service managers) while others are reserved for the authority’s technical managers.
The platform is built according to a pattern and microservices model, which can be seen as components (or “building blocks”) that allow the creation of all services: in this way, we configure all types of services that the authority offers to citizens using the necessary modules each time: the activation module for requesting an authorization or permit (useful, for example, for the service that issues parking permits for people with disabilities), the pattern that provides for the granting of benefits or activation of enrollments based on position within a ranking list (useful, for example, for nursery school enrollments or a public competition), the component that manages payments (whether they are due, such as fines, associated with the delivery of a service, or recurring), the module that manages the granting of economic benefits or concessions (useful, for example, for determining and crediting the amount of a bonus), the one for booking an appointment at the authority’s office counter, and so on.
Authorities can adopt a gradual approach to service digitalization. The approach suggested by the guidelines for service digitalization and by the annexes to the PNRR notices that fund municipal development activities suggest starting with a few services, modeling and creating them to establish a reference point and a quality standard (in terms of effectiveness and user experience) that the development of all other services can aspire to. We can call these services - designed to show the potential of a modern approach to digital services - flagship services. When choosing which flagship services to create, it is advisable to include all design patterns (payment module, booking system, bonus granting flow, enrollment flow with a ranking list, etc.) so that each pattern has at least one reference implementation. At that point, it will be easier to progressively create other similar services with the same quality level.