Development of an intranet portal in state organizations: year results

Good afternoon friends!
The general trend at Habré suggests that people miss the good IT security articles. So let me make a contribution today.

So, for about a year in our organization [the Office of the Federal Registration Service in the Kurgan Region] I laid the first byte of the code :-) into the system of electronic applications. Time has passed, and all this has grown (I will not be modest) into the organization’s internal intranet portal. Today is the time to wipe the sweat from the face, crumbs from the keyboard, and sum up some of the work.


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Electronic applications: how it all began

It all started with the "electronic applications" - a system that allows any employee to report problems with hardware, software or office equipment. I have already written an article about this system, so I will not dwell in detail. In general, its introduction gave three significant advantages:

1. put things in order in the work of the IT department itself (there are regulations, there are applications, there is a responsible specialist for each application, and there is demand from it)
2. reduced the number of telephone conversations (all necessary official information is already indicated in the application). In addition, the repeated calls disappeared: “I already called, and someone (!!) promised to fix me, but so far nothing has happened!”
3. allows you to report on the work of the department and each specialist. By the way, there was a real case when they tried to hang on us the failure to comply with the application (with all the ensuing consequences). They picked up the archive of applications - there has never been such an application.

The only difficulty is that some continue to call in the hope that it will solve their problem faster. It is necessary to explain the benefits of using the system, in the worst case - to refer to the order on the Office, where everything is regulated.

Now we have successfully passed over 1500 applications (for the year of operation of the system), which is very, very good. Another idea is to connect the Everest program to this system so that the notifications from the latter immediately enter the list of applications (for example, it happens that the hard disk is running out of space).

Conclusion: successful automation can greatly simplify your work.

Step Two: "electronic queue"

The next system that appeared in the local network is the “Electronic queue”. You can read about it here and here . In short, this system allows you to pre-register citizens in the queue (instead of tedious waiting in a queue you come to the appointed time, and you are immediately accepted).

Now I want to draw your attention to the next moment: think over the architecture of your system as thoroughly as possible , and at the very early stages. Personally, I spent somewhere for about a week to work through this question, but then the work went much faster. In fact, I stopped thinking about access permissions, plugging in modules, and so on. I just sat down and wrote the components themselves, without being distracted by trifles.

Some figures: in about 10 months about 5 thousand applicants were entered into the system, of which 600 + 1300 + 300 = 2200 applicants arrived at the appointed time, which is very good. You can even estimate how much man-hours were saved.

By the way, quite recently this development won the competition in the Kurgan region , and now it also participates in the “Zvorykinsky competition” .

However, there are many controversial points. On the one hand, the feeling is that we in the mass are not accustomed to convenient things. Better we will wait from 5 in the morning under closed doors, rather than recorded in a queue. Plus, the leaders themselves are rather inert (who simply does not want to introduce, who says that there is no money, who else is something). On the other hand, some are interested in developing and even asking for source code to implement. In general, time will tell.

Findings:
Careful design before coding is a very important step. Do not miss it.
Be prepared for the fact that you have to make a lot of efforts so that other people understand and accept your development (although it will be obvious to you personally).

We increase functions

The next serious development within the framework of the same intranet portal is the “Lawsuits” component. It was developed for our department of judicial protection and allows you to keep records of all court cases in which the organization participates. The component turned out to be quite difficult in coding (both in the server and in the client part), but, thank God, everything works. By the way, it was during its development that I rested on the “ceiling” of the original system — everything that was laid at the very beginning was already beginning to interfere with the implementation of functions. So we had to look for some workarounds, to attach some small (I think, not very noticeable) crutches, etc. About 7 thousand cases were exported from the old program to the new one.

Another simple component that I added in a week is the “telephone directory”. Of course, there is nothing outstanding in it - the usual search by last name and by department, but, in my opinion, this is more convenient than viewing the word document in search of the right person. Even worse, when everyone has their own (sometimes outdated) version of the directory. Now all information is stored in one database and is accessible from any computer online.

Finally, there are several other tasks in mind, for which you can also create your own components, but these are purely our internal needs, and here I will not write about them.

Conclusion: Analyze the real needs of your organization. If something is uncomfortable somewhere and everyone complains about it, this is a great opportunity for automation!

General conclusion

Thus, for the year of operation, an intranet portal was created, consisting of a number of convenient and actively used components. The structure of the system in the form of a designer has proven itself many times, significantly speeding development. The entire system has made it possible to increase the orderliness of work of at least six departments (IT department; department of judicial protection; 4 departments working with applicants). It's time to praise yourself, take a pie from the shelf and finally relax, but ...

There is still a lot of work ahead

First, I continue to adhere to the idea of ​​development, open to all. That is, if you write me a request letter, I will send you the source code and instructions for deploying the system. However, as correctly noted in one of the comments, the open system in the encoding win-1251 is wrong, so now I'm redoing everything in utf-8.

In September, the city administration promised to listen to the reports of the winners of the regional competition, so there is hope that the “Electronic line” somewhere will be implemented. Certain hopes are pinned on the "Zvorykinsky contest" and "Interru", which will be held in Novosibirsk. So, many more interesting things await us! As someone said, the only way not to be left behind is to constantly move forward!

PS Well and, of course, everyone who wants to participate in this movement is invited to this group .