16 February 2010

Information self service:

A case study at Immigration NZ

Immigration NZ environment

Global reach• 72 branches or agencies (17 in New Zealand)• 44 countries• 1,967 staff• 600 front line Officers• 500,000 Visa and Permit decisions per yearNumber of products• 130 Temporary entry categories• 22 Residence categories• International obligations - Refugees, Pacific access, etc

Information history

Infrastructure• Limited number of available tools• Limited information infrastructureOrganisational awareness• Growing recognition of the potential value that exists

in the data heldInformation access• 147 regular excel reports• Many Access databases and applications• Limited delivery mechanisms

The road to self service

Approach• Support and infrastructure• Assess information landscape• Analyse current reporting

2 phases:

- Level 2 creation

- Detailed analysis of existing reports

Report investigations findings

What we found• Most reports were for basic information• The same information was presented in different ways• Common variations

- Day, week, month, quarter, year- Organisation, Market, Operational Unit, Individuals- Type, Category, Sub-category, Unit- Stage of processing

Why we chose self service

• Service a large number of users with similar informationdemands quickly

• Opportunity to get alignment of information• Test requirements for further reporting• Visibility

Experience so far

Challenges• Some technical limitations

- Develop some custom filtering• User buy in

- Getting users to test and provide feedback• Getting users out of their old habits

- The portal as supplementary information• Getting started...

Experiences so far

Successes• Uptake

- A core of early adopters and frequent users• Visibility

- Exposure through the managers ranks down to line manager level

Experiences so far

Improvements• Building trust

- Users don’t trust themselves • Training

- Easy to use but formal training still required• Marketing

- The need to get out into the business to generate and maintain interest

And this is what it looks like

Basic reporting

Operational reporting

Filter

Result set

Result options

Direct drill through

Other presentation styles

The future

• Improvements and refinements- Advanced filtering

• Limits to what can easily be delivered- New modes of delivery

• Further work on managerial reporting