This story was made in collaboration with Safe Software partner Consortech.
Breaking down silos to better serve residents
Aiming to streamline internal processes and improve service efficiency, a major city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) faced a challenge. Departments across the organization relied on a range of internal applications, each with unique data structures and managed by teams with varying levels of expertise. These processes made it increasingly difficult to route service requests and provide timely updates to residents.
To address this challenge, the City partnered with Safe Software partner Consortech to build a centralized, user-friendly service portal. The goal was to allow residents to submit service requests and receive real-time updates on their status in a user-friendly and accessible format. All this would be completed while ensuring internal teams could access and respond to requests without disruption.
Connecting applications and facilitating resident engagement
To avoid communication delays, an integration solution was needed within the City’s hybrid processes. In their current process, Salesforce was used to receive all service requests from residents, which were then dispatched to on-premise downstream applications, including Cityworks, Amanda, and JDE. These applications were used by different departments, each with their own formats and logic. For example, street addresses were stored differently across systems, introducing the potential for mismatches and duplicate entries.
Enabling seamless integration and communication
FME played a critical role in connecting these disparate systems. Acting as a bridge, FME Flow facilitated two-way communication between Salesforce and the city’s backend applications. Requests were automatically routed to the correct department, ensuring real-time status updates and reporting on individual work status. To ensure accuracy and consistency across platforms, FME’s ETL capabilities were used to modify unique data structures, such as street addresses.
The integration process was completed iteratively, with Consortech working closely with internal teams to gather technical requirements, test solutions, and refine workflows. Given that the system’s output would be publicly visible, thorough testing ensured it met the City’s high standards for accuracy and reliability.
Since launching the portal, the City has seen over 15,000 new cases in downstream systems, translating to around 1,250 new cases per month. Between 50,000 and 75,000 status updates are processed each year. These metrics reflect a highly engaged system and a significant improvement in service delivery.
With FME Flow facilitating communication between systems, the City has improved both its operational efficiency and the quality of service it provides to residents, ensuring timely, reliable communication at every step.
