Real Data for Government

Real Data for Government

SQL Power brings governments the world's ONLY fully-integrated, end-to-end government data collection and analytics platform

Technology has come a long way over the past 15 years, enabling governments to collect and mine machine readable data and delivering proactive real-time analytics on the collected data with little to no manual intervention. Gone are the days of collecting printouts and PDFs only to eyeball or transcribe them into excel in order to perform real analysis a month or two later.

At the forefront of innovation, and the move towards full automation of all government oversight functions, is Canada's SQL Power Group. SQL Power's multilingual data collection and analytics platform can be configured to automate any government service or oversight function to provide citizens with a single e-commerce and e-signature ready web portal for all their government interactions, including all returns, applications, requests and licensing - each tailored with its own unique workflow.

This level of automation not only makes it more convenient for citizens to interact with their government from the comfort of their own home or office - alleviating stress, line-ups, absenteeism and rush hour traffic congestion - but it also allows governments to be more efficient by replacing expensive administrative resources with software and expensive government buildings with your laptop and their servers.

In addition to the improved efficiencies, convenience and cost savings, this will also deliver to governments the incredibly rich and valuable asset of machine-readable data that can be analyzed in seconds across all its services, functions, ministries and branches.

Machine-Readable Data (Not PDFs)

Governments around the world are on a mission to find flexible and robust frame-works for data collection and analytics to meet their complex and evolving regulatory and oversight needs. These governments often face impediments with regard to data collection, validation, long processing times and data analysis due to unorganized and unstructured data.

SQL Power responded to this need by developing a multilingual, eSignature-ready data collection and analytics framework to provide governments with pre-validated, consistent, complete and accurate data and better government oversight. From designing complex online data collection forms and workflows, right through to proactive real-time analytics, SQL Power works closely with government organizations across the globe to manage every aspect of their information supply chain.

The company's platform, the SQL Power Suite, enables Governments to collect clean and consistent data (not PDFs) from individuals and businesses large and small. SQL Power Suite's end-to-end, rules-based architecture enables governments to easily define their data collection, workflow and business rules' needs (the taxonomy) and publish it to the rest of the system to enable real-time data collection and validation. The taxonomy reflects the latest set of business rules and is utilized throughout the system, from data collection and validation right through to real-time analysis of the submitted data.

Easy Access to Government Services

The SQL Power platform also offers a secure web portal for all the users' interaction with government, irrespective of the need or the service. By having a single secure government web portal account for each individual and business, governments can simplify and streamline services for their citizens, presenting them with an easy way to navigate, request and interact with various branches of government - from viewing and submitting tax returns and census forms, to monitoring the status of passport applications, license applications, job applications, work permit applications, building permits, driver's licenses, funding requests, to generation of certificates and licences, as well as a plethora of other government requests.

Each citizen and business can be provided with a unique secure login which allows them to maintain their profile, interact with government and to submit/monitor any required returns, applications or requests.

Once connected and based on their profile, geography and role, each user is presented with a customized list of returns, applications or requests that are of specific interest to them. Each user is able to choose one of the available forms and proceed to fill out the required information, application or request.

More Efficient Government

The SQL Power platform provides field by field validation for all online forms, letting the user know in real time if they have entered anything incorrect or inconsistent. Prior to submission, the entire form is once again validated to ensure that no erroneous, incomplete or inconsistent data is ever submitted. By pre-validating all online forms prior to submission, the system significantly reduces government overhead and processing delays associated with back-and-forth correspondence or rejections due to incomplete or inconsistent data.

Within seconds of a submission, these online returns, applications and requests are available to the corresponding government agency or branch to review, accept or reject. They are also directly loaded into the government's analytics platform to alert required parties, analysts or officials that a request or submission has been made and/or if a specific key metric on the submitted form fell below expectations or peer group average performance.

For the first time ever, governments can make their service goals, metrics and commitments public - reducing them from months to mere days or hours. For progressive and fully open jurisdictions, government performance can be easily assessed and publicly reported as frequently as desired.

Further efficiencies are realized through the system's dynamic architecture: new business rules and new data collection requirements are automatically cascaded throughout the system, web forms are automatically rendered based on the latest data collection and business rule needs without the need for any re-coding - thus reducing the dependency on scarce technical resources for ongoing system maintenance.

Greater Oversight of Taxpayers Dollars

Clean and consistent data goes a long way towards facilitating governments' desire for openness and for full transparency. Each data element has a strict definition and stringent rules governing its collection, validation and calculation, leaving no room for misinterpretation or misrepresentation.

Furthermore, because it is common data with common definitions, data can be rolled up across government divisions, jurisdictions and geographies - easily providing a full, comprehensive view of all government revenue streams and government spending.

SQL Power's Analytics platform (powered by MicroStrategy) allows for very sophisticated distribution of key data, metrics and alerts at a high level (via the web or mobile devices) with full drill-down capabilities to the most granular level.

Better Sharing of Data across Government Levels and Ministries

Collecting machine-readable data across all ministries and branches of government allows for easy sharing of information between ministries and related divisions. For example: job postings and job applicants' scores captured by one ministry can be easily shared with the ministry of immigration when processing work permits, allowing the ministry of immigration to determine if there are local residents qualified to perform the job prior to approving a foreign worker's work permit.

Standardized data format is essential for sharing data between government organizations and across jurisdictions - so that external systems can easily read, interpret and process the taxonomy and its associated data files. This allows federally collected data to be easily shared with state/provincial or municipal governments (and vice versa), providing local officials and local programs with invaluable insight into their community so that they can allocate resources where they are needed the most.

More Accessible Information & Easy access to Personal Information

The SQL Power Suite facilitates governments' mandate and desire for machine-readable data and data accessibility. Individuals and businesses can use the SQL Power Suite's web portal to request any and all information that the government has collected and is making readily available to its citizens.

Depending on the nature of the information being requested and the associated workflow, any fees associated with the request can be auto-collected online and the requests can be auto-approved through the platform's auto-actioning functionality - with the information auto-delivered to the requestor within minutes via the same secure web-portal.

The platform's feature-rich workflow engine allows governments to automatically process most requests, significantly reducing government administrators' workloads and allowing them to respond to the truly unique requests in a more timely manner. In the rare instances where information cannot be disclosed, the request would be rejected by a government official with an explanation within days.

Open and Fair Tax Authority

The SQL Power platform is ideal for automating every aspect of tax filing. From the simplest individual tax return to the most complex corporate forms, every tax return accepted by the tax department can be automated and scheduled for submission when it's due.

Each individual or business can simply login to the government web portal, view all outstanding (or soon to be due) tax returns, open that return, and proceed to enter the requested values - while the system instantly validates their entries and calculates any tax owing or tax refund. The system can also offer tax hints and advise the taxpayer of any tax benefits that they may be entitled to that they have not taken advantage of.

Filers would also have the option to upload or download current or previous returns to/from Excel. For simple returns, the Filer could just upload last period's return, make a few changes, then validate and submit their new tax return to the tax department. Filers are also able to monitor the progress of the tax return submission through the web portal, and can be notified online once their return has been processed and assessed.

The system would also allow tax officials to help elderly or lower income citizens prepare and submit their tax returns by simply uploading the taxpayer's previous year's return and asking them a few questions over the phone to determine if there were any material changes as they submit the tax return on their behalf.

Imagine this: a friendly tax department that provides you with the vehicle to file online, making it simple and painless to file your taxes - alerting you of any upcoming tax returns that are due or outstanding, providing you with hints for tax benefits that you might be entitled to, allowing you to file any tax return in minutes, keeping you informed on the progress of your returns every step of the way, and even transferring your refund directly into your bank account.

Better & More Accurate Census Data

The SQL Power Suite can be configured to prepare and schedule many different sets of census forms. By assigning citizens to groups based on their age, background or geographic region, the system can present each citizen with the appropriate census form to complete as frequently as required by the census board.

As individuals answer questions on the census form, conditional questions and sections can appear or disappear making the census data collection process more relevant, easy and painless for the average citizen.

All data collected on the census form would be loaded in the government's analytics database within seconds of a census form submission - eliminating the need for any further data processing or manual transcribing that may take weeks or months to complete.

Census data can also be easily shared with the private sector, other orders of government, not-for-profits, and researchers, in order to support better decision-making across the country.

Timely Data Driven Alerts & Decision Making

SQL Power's real-time analytics platform is the most powerful Business Intelligence (BI) platform on the market. It delivers a pre-built data mart solution that is data and business rule agnostic, providing governments with the following benefits:

Robust & Pre-Built Data Mart

The SQL Power Suite's pre-built data mart provides a maintenance-free analytics platform for governments. As governments' data collection needs change, they are auto-cascaded throughout the system - eliminating the need for any ETL (extract/transform/load) process changes or data structure changes.

MicroStrategy

The SQL Power analytics platform comes bundled with MicroStrategy, one of the best BI tools on the market - providing governments with a scalable and robust business intelligence platform that delivers standard reports, ROLAP cubes, data mining functionality, mobile dashboards and ad-hoc reporting for both web and mobile devices.

Dynamic Architecture

The SQL Power Suite's dynamic, rules-based architecture allows government staff to easily update their data collection needs in order to address the most recent and most urgent information needs, supplementing automated data sources with critical missing data - thus closing the loop on all information required for timely and accurate decision making.

Better Decision-Making

Better, more timely and cleaner data will result in better and more timely decision-making across all government. This allows governments to stop funding initiatives that are no longer effective and invest program dollars in those that are of better value.

Just in Time Analytics & Alerts

Within seconds of data submissions, information is loaded into the analytics platform, proactively assessing and firing alerts to interested parties, analysts and government officials.

So how can this dynamic platform help governments around the world make better decisions?

SQL Power's robust end-to-end data collection and analytics platform can be used to collect complex machine-readable data (not PDFs) from disparate and remote entities on a regular basis. This data is then automatically loaded into the SQL Power analytics platform within 30 seconds of a submission, then sophisticated BI processes kick in to proactively alert officials, analysts and other interested parties whenever a key ratio falls below expectations or whenever certain metrics have deteriorated from previous periods.