Case Study
Enabling Digital Transformation with an Intuitive Citizen Portal
Client
The State of South Dakota
Services Provided
ServiceNow Expertise
Research & Insights
Organizational Change Management
Citizen Services Workflows
Wireframe Design & High Fidelity Mockups
Custom Portal Development
Integration Services
Mobile Optimization
Key Project Indicators
76,374+
New mySD single sign-on accounts since go-live
7,710+
Virtual agent chats, converted to ~700 live chats
13,025+
cases opened since go-live
Most Popular Services
driver’s license renewal, reemployment assistance, low-income energy assistance, and childcare assistance
01
Overview
Supporting Digital Transformation in State Government
The South Dakota Citizen Portal began as a state-wide digital transformation initiative championed by the state’s CIO, Deputy CIO, and CTO and backed by the Governor. They envisioned modernizing South Dakota’s citizen services and improving accessibility, value, and quality of the services provided to residents, businesses, and visitors.
02
Challenges
Digital Transformation
South Dakota’s original website lacked overall modernization and mobile accessibility. Additionally, the original website lacked a centralized contact section and process to re-direct inquiries, so most requests had to be manually resolved and re-routed by employees in the Governor’s Office.
Service Silos & Overall Navigation
Most citizen services existed in silos on various agency websites, and citizens struggled to find and access the services they needed. Citizens had to know which department to navigate to access specific services, and agencies lacked consistency in navigation and structure.
Adoption Across Agencies
The citizen portal initiative accommodated 17 agencies and 4 bureaus, with consistent navigation and overall structure across the board. Widgets and services needed to be easy to replicate and repurpose.
Knowledge Management
To improve citizen self-service, South Dakota needed a hub to store knowledge and content that would be easy for citizens to access and understand, while also being easy for the agencies to update and manage on their own.
“We wanted to be more responsive to everyone. For instance, people with health conditions and single parents working two jobs can’t wait for assistance. They don’t have the time to navigate a complex site, wait on hold on the phone, or travel to government offices.”
—Heather Perry, Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Information & Telecommunications (BIT), State of South Dakota
03
Process
Establish Strategy & Vision
We held workshops with representatives with each agency, established a vision and strategy with those representatives, and developed a multi-year roadmap highlighting the recommended path forward.
Validate Proof of Vision
Deployed a test instance of ServiceNow to demonstrate capabilities.
Build Common Service Model
We cataloged all current citizen-facing services and their underlying systems. We then prioritized which applications and services to digitize and replace according to agency needs and obsolescence of systems.
Implement, Iterate, and Grow
Servos championed buy-in from all departments and determined 35 services from all agencies to include on the Citizen Portal when it was initially launched. We established a cohesive, unified design for the portal and citizen experience, and then continued to iterate with additional services added with each subsequent release.
04
Solution
Intuitive Citizen Profile
Leveraging MySD single sign-on, citizens establish a profile where they can track their requests and store personal and household information.
Unified Citizen Experience
Citizens utilize their MySD single sign-on as a single point of entry for all services across each agency within the state, with centralized, federated search pulling from all department and agency sites. The portal’s design is custom and designed to reflect South Dakota’s unique character, conveying a sense of “home” to citizens. In addition, it is optimized for mobile accessibility.
Improved Self-Service Capabilities
Servos collaborated with each agency and department to develop robust knowledge bases that could be easily added to and maintained by state employees. These knowledge bases help citizens find the answers they need, through written articles or a virtual agent, without requiring the submission of a request. The solution also digitized requests for services making the process faster and more streamlined for constituents and state employees, providing employees with deeper insights into citizens’ needs and allowing them to re-direct their attention and resources towards the important work of addressing those needs.
Universal Services
We identified service functions that needed to be easily replicated and repurposed including online payments, e-bidding facilitation, content management, and events management. From there, we developed the necessary widgets that state employees can reconfigure quickly and easily as needed for specific services. Other identified areas of iteration are licensing and grants management which are currently underway.
Phased Implementation
We understand getting buy-in from your entire organization is a challenge. Working in phases allowed us to quickly deploy South Dakota’s most critical services in the new Citizen Portal while also planning for and implementing additional services and capabilities. Phased implementation allowed South Dakota to see their return on investment faster, serve their citizens more effectively, and become a beacon for other states looking to deliver their citizen services on an intuitive, scalable platform.
“Servos has been instrumental in our efforts to digitize the way the State of South Dakota does business and provides services and information to our citizens. Their expertise and passion for government service makes them a great partner. “
—Pat Snow, Chief Technology Officer, State of South Dakota
About the Author
Doran McBride
Director of Client Services
As our Director of Client Services, Doran McBride leads our team of Engagement Managers and Business Analysts in keeping our client’s projects on-track and our implementation teams running like well-oiled machines. She is proud to be the Client Manager for South Dakota’s multiple Digitial Citizen Services projects. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with her husband and cheering on her two children at their sporting events.