Following the COVID-19 outbreak, a Canadian province needed new digital services to help control the spread of the virus, protect citizens and assist affected businesses.

Addressing urgent priorities

A long-standing Canadian provincial government client had several urgent COVID-19 priorities to address by launching new digital services:

  • Allowing citizens to apply online for COVID-19 testing
  • Validating and authorizing travel to the province through online permitting requests
  • Enabling small businesses to apply for pandemic relief

They asked our experts to help them deploy these services as quickly as possible using our proven platform, which delivers more than 1,000 digital services and handles millions of transactions annually.

Our team worked collaboratively with resources from multiple client departments to gather requirements and design, develop and deploy the various solutions. The team worked in an agile environment, implementing releases over multiple 2-week sprint periods.

Reducing physical contact and call volumes for testing requests

Allowing citizens to request COVID-19 tests online not only minimizes physical contact, but also reduces call center volumes. The new test request solution both streamlines the test intake process and reduces backlogs for call center teams.

Integrated into health systems, the test request solution securely collects and stores information and securely sends PDFs containing patient information to remote testing stations to ensure all information is on hand. The solution also provides the government with the critical data needed to analyze and predict COVID-19 patterns.

Enabling effective management of border permit requests

Also built on the platform is a COVID-19 travel permit solution to manage requests from anyone wanting to enter the Province.

Designed, developed and implemented in less than 2 months, the solution has handled more than 1.7 million transactions.

Citizens, emergency call operators, and border permit officers use the solution on multiple devices (e.g., PCs, tablets and smart phones) to manage travel permits. Additionally, several government teams use the solution’s back-office management component to:

  • Review, validate and approve permits and update permit data
  • At the borders, from desktop and mobile devices, validate or deny users from entering the Province. The solution tracks every case for reporting purposes.
  • Follow-up with users who are instructed to self-isolate to confirm they are doing so
  • Integrate with call automation software to automate isolation callbacks
  • Integrate with reporting systems to enable critical insights used for policy decisions

Helping businesses recover

Also using our platform, CGI and the client deployed a portal solution to allow businesses to quickly and easily apply for government funding and grants to help recover from the pandemic-related economic downturn. Businesses provide financial information and upload financial statements through the portal. The platform then creates work orders that allow financial officers to manage applications from inception to completion, through multiple levels of approval.

This critical initiative for the government was designed, developed and implemented in less than one month.

Building on a robust platform

With CGI’s help, the Province was one of the first to enable centralized citizen access to government services by integrating online service delivery with over-the-counter and teleservices. The solution has allowed the Province to:

  • Make it easier for citizens to conduct business with the government
  • Rapidly create responsive, secure online forms that are accessible any time, from any device
  • Shift from in-person channels to web-based services
  • Provide a unified platform for digital services
  • Integrate data captured with existing applications and databases
  • Provide time-sensitive reporting dashboards for critical decision makers
  • Ensure data protection and security and comply with accessibility requirements

The platform also allows citizens to renew driver’s licenses, make online payments (e.g., traffic tickets, utility bills, etc.) and perform non-financial transactions such as problem reporting.