The Municipality of Sipoo sought to focus on improving financial processes and centralizing reporting from officials to politicians and citizens in one place. Previously, data was extracted from financial systems and then manually embedded as images into financial documents. The municipality decided to find a partner to eliminate this manual work and replace it with maximum automation of numerical data. Sipoo began its collaboration with Softwave in October 2023.
– It was important to us that Softwave was familiar with the CGI Kuntamalli system we use for financial planning and management and that they had previously implemented integrations for it. Additionally, I set a threshold condition before the procurement decision: we needed to lock sections of reports written in the system during the reporting process. This was crucial for us, especially as a bilingual municipality. Previously, even after we had agreed that a Word document in Teams was ready for translation, one of our 70–90 contributors might still edit it. Now, this is no longer possible, and the translator can immediately start working on the locked report sections, explains Sipoo’s Chief Digital Officer, Ethel Eriksson, praising the tailored locking/approval feature developed by Softwave.
Another critical aspect for Eriksson was ensuring the system maintains the structural integrity of documents. For example, no one can now “mess up” others’ contributions, and structural elements such as headings and formatting are preserved since only a few designated individuals have permission to modify them.
– User permissions can also be configured so that everyone can see their pending tasks. Each person can work on their section of the report independently without disrupting others and at their own convenience, Eriksson adds.
Previously, reports were often created by editing the previous year’s document, which occasionally caused confusion among users. Now, at the beginning of the reporting process, only headings are visible. According to Eriksson, it is more efficient to draft texts from scratch than to edit old files. She is also satisfied with the automatic daily updates of numerical data.
– Transparency has increased significantly, the elimination of version control has improved productivity, and automation in financial services will save time, Eriksson says.
A Rewarding Implementation Process
– During the implementation process, we aimed to thoroughly discuss reporting needs, report content, and processes. Transitioning from one system to another involved four simultaneous tracks, which greatly accelerated the process. On the first track, our communications officer, acting as the brand guardian, made decisions about the document’s visual appearance. The second track focused on integration with the financial system. The third track compared the content required for financial statements, while the fourth track involved financial services defining numerical data. We also transitioned to a two-column, bilingual documentation format, which initially posed challenges for users but will significantly simplify our work in the future.
“The time-consuming work we did during the implementation process was worth it, as we now have more data and significantly improved content. I believe we also opened a door to continuous development.”
ETHEL ERIKSSON, CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, SIPOO MUNICIPALITY
Advancing the Opiferus® Product Family
The municipality currently uses the Opiferus® Financial Document solution for financial statements and interim reports, with plans to implement it for budget planning. The aim is to deploy the Management Dashboard in the coming months, including a tailored dashboard for our investment manager.
Another long-term goal is reporting that goes beyond mandatory financial aspects. Ideally, only one document would need to be created, from which content for various political bodies could be directly extracted – continuously building the final version.
– We’ve had the opportunity to ask Softwave experts how certain tasks are typically handled in other municipalities. We’ve also been able to adopt ready-made models and gained valuable ideas from them.
“When Softwave tailors Opiferus® solutions for us – or when we come up with a new idea for them – the end result can also benefit other municipalities. That feels truly rewarding and meaningful.”
ETHEL ERIKSSON, CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, SIPOO MUNICIPALITY
– We are eagerly awaiting the municipal benchmarking feature on the Management Dashboard, which will eliminate the need to retrieve data from other sources and conduct manual comparisons. This feature will allow us to analyze public data from municipalities we choose as benchmarks and assess whether we are similar, lagging, or ahead. This will help us with development efforts and goal setting in the future, Eriksson concludes.
