City of Helsinki

Modern public administration saves millions with centralised solutions

A city-wide application development and production environment (Platta) and the centralised maintenance and management of applications (Solution Office) help the City of Helsinki to ensure the quality and reliability of digital services while achieving significant savings.

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OBJECTIVE

High-quality application maintenance as part of the world’s most functional city

Helsinki aims to be the most functional city in the world. This will require the full use of digitalisation: citizens’ everyday life will become smoother when digital services, artificial intelligence and open data can be used in the best possible way. This is also reflected in the maintenance of open source applications.

“We wanted to get rid of the situation where each city division had its own ways of maintaining its applications and its own data centres. It was inefficient from the point of view of resourcing, required a large bundle of contracts and tied us to the environments of the subcontractors,” says Jari Eriksson, Service Manager for the City of Helsinki, describing the starting point.

The aim was to build a model based on open source and Azure’s public cloud in cooperation with Gofore to enable Helsinki’s application portfolio to be maintained centrally. The aim was to improve the predictability, scalability and security of application maintenance resourcing.

“Helsinki has invested tens of millions of euros in the development of its open source applications. It is important that the applications will remain usable for a long time through high-quality maintenance,” Eriksson says.

SOLUTION

Continuous development in Azure’s public cloud using modern solutions

It was possible to build a centralised model called the Solution Office, because applications are developed and run in production in a shared Platta environment. From the very beginning, the cooperation between Helsinki and Gofore has been based on a strong partnership model in which both parties work with commitment for the benefit of taxpayers living in Helsinki.

“Of course, it is important to us that we get good developers from Gofore. However, this is not enough as such: the operations must be constantly developed. In my opinion, it is self-evident that the benefits of artificial intelligence, for example, must be smoothly deployed in public administration,” Eriksson says.

Artificial intelligence has been gradually integrated more closely into the processes of the Solution Office. By using proven practices, it is possible to automate various investigations, improve test coverage and harmonise documentation, for example.

The Solution Office’s 14-person Gofore team maintains the city’s 15 applications and 9 application libraries. The team operates according to the Lean principles, and its everyday work is built on daily and weekly meetings as well as team days held at the city’s premises.

“Since we have a large application portfolio to manage, we can harmonise solutions related to applications in terms of logging, testing and data security, for example. When there are no maintenance tasks or bug fixes at hand, our team carries out small application development tasks. This way, the resources are always in use,” says Anu-Hannele Massinen, Scrum Master at Gofore.

Helsinki has invested tens of millions of euros in the development of its open source applications. It is important that the applications will remain usable for a long time through high-quality maintenance

Jari Eriksson, Service Manager for the City of Helsinki

RESULT

Savings in millions and smoother digital services

The Solution Office’s application maintenance model frees up the City of Helsinki’s own resources for other digital development. The quality of application maintenance can be ensured with a centralised approach, which is visible to city residents as reliable digital services.

“The Solution Office will bring savings of millions to Helsinki. One centralised procurement has replaced several dozen contracts, and one team of fewer than 20 people handles the work that would have required about three times as many developers with the previous operating model,” Eriksson says.

Helsinki is a pioneering city in the use of the Solution Office model. Its benefits have also been widely recognised in the city organisation, and the model has already been duplicated for the maintenance and development of the Helsinki website (hel.fi).

“I believe that the role of the Solution Office will only be strengthened. Its main task will continue to be to keep applications reliable, consistent and secure. However, perhaps we will be able to carry out even more development work through the Solution Office in the future and produce new features for the services,” Eriksson says.

The City of Helsinki’s divisions: Education, Urban Environment, Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services, and Culture and Leisure.

The Solution Office will bring savings of millions to Helsinki. One centralised procurement has replaced several dozen contracts.

Jari Eriksson, Service Manager for the City of Helsinki

Project highlights

Objective

Helsinki wanted to get rid of fragmented application maintenance where separate developers are acquired for each application, together with separate development and production environments. The goal was to build a centralised model that ensures high-quality maintenance of applications, brings cost savings and supports the city’s vision of being the most functional city in the world.

Solution

The Solution Office, built by Helsinki and Gofore, operates in Helsinki’s Platta environment. The centralised application portfolio model allows for more efficient maintenance and security of applications, as well as the harmonisation of practices. The development resources of the Gofore team with fewer than 20 members are in use all the time, and artificial intelligence is increasingly used to automate various investigations, improve test coverage, and harmonise documentation, for example.

Result

The Solutions Office brings savings of millions to Helsinki and frees up resources in the different divisions from maintaining services to developing them. Reliably functioning digital services make the everyday life of city residents smoother. The model has already been duplicated within the city, and its role will probably only be strengthened.