Section ECONOMY
TOPIC

MUNICIPALITY OF HERAKLION
CITYZEN APP SCHOOLS: Application for the proper management and immediate information concerning school's problems

For the Municipality

  • Better organization of the problem submission process
  • Saving staff time for registration as requests will be submitted electronically by schools. There will also be better documentation of requests, as photos and related documents can be attached when submitting a request, which cannot be done over the phone.
  • Central management of requests, and scheduling of workshops
  • Better planning at Service level: To monitor the progress of requests there is a special dashboard, which presents information on all requests, categorized, by state, by school, as well as presentation on a map

For Schools:

  • Immediate information on the status of requests
  • Reduce travel – Save time

Complete request history

Principals of schools

The application has been operational since 8/4/2019

Before using the application, the employees of the Technical Service received a total of more than 25 phone calls per day concerning problems of school units.

Also many times the school principals needed to visit the municipality office to submit their request in writing. The phenomenon of multiple submission of a problem was also common.

Recording of problems was done with handwritten notes, with the risk of something being lost, forgotten or damaged.

Many times the description of the problem did not match the problem that actually existed, with the result that the workshops are not properly prepared and waste time.

For each school request, many more phone calls were required to contact the workshop, inform the school and synchronize workshop - school.

After the start of using the application, the submission of requests by schools is done exclusively through the application, enabling the Municipality's Maintenance and Oversight Department to respond immediately to the requests it receives, which will be routed automatically. School managers can at any time be informed through the application of the progress of a request, without having to call the relevant service

NovelTech – Crete Science and Technology Park Company, which developed the "CityzenApp for Schools" platform

MUNICIPALITY OF HERAKLION

The application has been operational since 8/4/2019. There was an intervening summer when schools were closed and during that time there were no problem submissions.

A total of 1,347 problem reports have been submitted to date.

The benefits for schools and principals are:

  • Immediate information on the progress of requests through the application.
  • Elimination of travel – positive environmental footprint – Time saving. Now managers do not have to travel to the City's services to submit a problem, nor do they have to make a phone call.
  • Complete request history. At any time, they can have an overview of the actions of the Municipality regarding the problem they have submitted and what they have requested in the past.
  • They can submit a problem any time of the day they want, even on weekends.
  • Transparency

Immediately after the first period of use of the Application by the Municipality of Heraklion, a user satisfaction survey was conducted - school principals. The aim was to make sure that it works according to the needs it was created to meet, but also to listen to possible suggestions for improvements, so that it is a useful work tool.

The conclusions obtained from the answers to the questionnaires are:

  • The School Application Management Application has a positive impact on users – Principals at a rate of 95%.
  • The vast majority of the above communication cases, 90%, were made in order to provide them with clarifications regarding their connection process to the Application, while 10% were in order to resolve technical problems that may have arisen
  • 90% find the app very easy to use, while 10% find it easy to use.

It is worth noting that in the first month of using the application, approximately 100 Principals of school units of the Municipality of Heraklion were served directly, either by phone or via e-mail, by Noveltech's Technical Support Team.

Now all Schools submit reports through the application, without any problems.

The application has been operational since 8/4/2019. There was an intervening summer when schools were closed and during that time there were no problem submissions.

A total of 1,347 problem reports have been submitted to date

From these:

  • 620 have been completed,
  • 34 have been submitted again
  • 57 are to be processed
  • 498 in assignment stage
  • 138 were not completed

Most problem reports are about:

  • Plumbing - Heating (325)
  • Electrical (290)
  • Aluminum – Iron (254)
  • Carpentry (113)
  • Colors (112)
  • Glass (52)

The benefits for the Municipality are:

  • Saving of staff employment, about 225 hours of phone calls (1.2 man-months)!
  • Better organization of the problem submission process.
  • Saving staff time for registration as requests are submitted electronically by schools. There is also better documentation of requests, as photos and relevant documents can be attached when submitting a request, something that cannot be done over the phone, which allows Council crews to be better prepared when they go to resolve a problem , saving unnecessary trips (e.g. to get extra tools) Central management of requests, and scheduling of workshops. Better planning at Service level: To monitor the progress of requests there is a special dashboard, which presents information on all requests, categorized, by state, by school, as well as presentation on a map.
  • Central management of requests, and scheduling of workshops.
  • Better planning at the Service level: To monitor the progress of requests there is a special control panel, which presents information on all requests, categorized, by state, by school, as well as presented on a map.
  • Transparency