INTRODUCTION
Governments around the world need to provide their citizens with affordable, efficient and transparent public services, inclusive growth opportunities, comprehensive national security and defense systems, and effective disaster management. The misunderstood requirements, long and complex development cycles and need for an army of high skilled developers are the major contributors for failures.
Various research agencies put out figures showing that over 60% of her software offers users less than 50% of the benefits she does. These issues are efficiently addressed with Axpert™, a digital software platform with native cloud capabilities.
Axpert™ is a software platform that enables you to build applications for billing, order management, manufacturing, customer relationship management, supply chain management, master data management, financial accounting, project management, and more. You can choose to develop several business processes in Axpert™ and interact with your existing software applications.
ABOUT ONLINE SINGLE WINDOW PLATFORM
The main objective of the Online Single Window Portal (OSWP) is to provide a Common Application Form (CAF) to the investor.
Investors sign up into the portal and are verified using an OTP which is sent to their email and mobile. Every investor is uniquely identified through their email address and a password. All user information is encrypted and stored in the database.
Each application form is required to get approval of services provided by departments in turn created as forms within the portal.
The forms are created on a meta-data driven model. The data descriptors, validation rules and computation rules about every element in the form and the form layout are stored as part of meta-data within the database in an encrypted format.
Investors and businesses may need multiple approvals from multiple departments for starting or operating a business. Subsequent processing for approvals will happen within applications in that department.
Functionalities In OSWP
- Single dynamic composite application form (CAF) for multiple services allowing an investor or a business to fill up one form for multiple clearances and approvals,
- Single Online Payment for multiple services through an integrated payment gateway with all modes of payment viz., debit card/ credit card/ net banking enabled,
- Breaking the Composite Application Forms electronically into individual forms and sending the forms to the backend systems of various Departments electronically along with the corresponding proof of payment,
- Online tracking of status of applications while they are being processed by various Departments,
- Online communication of approval,
- Downloading of approvals/ NoCs/ permits/ clearances etc. online.
THE CHALLENGE
The state governments in India need a portal named Online Single Window Portal (OSWP) for improving the Ease of Doing Business in the State. This is an important for states to bring investment into states to fuel economic growth and create opportunities.
Investors and businesses need multiple approvals from multiple departments for starting or operating a business.
CHALLENGES - BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION
Several departments already working on different types of online systems built on different databases like Oracle, MySql, MSsql and Postgre. There are several departments working on different stand-alone applications with different technologies like Java, dotnet, PHP, C-programming and C++ by different vendors like Tata Consultancy Services, HP, SAP, Oracle, NIC and Telmac.
These all applications need to be integrated with Online Single Window Platform along with Payment Gateways.
Investors who decide to setup a business unit in West Bengal needed to get many approvals from different departments. This was a difficult task for citizens as they had to physically go to different departments, fill up the relevant application forms, pay the fees and apply for approvals.
The citizens were held in continuous interaction with more than one Government officers who operate at independent silos of each department for an approval. In many cases, an approval from a one department was dependant on another department obtained approval which may again depend on another. This required in depth knowledge of the all the government procedures to start a business unit.
It was so complex that all needed approvals cannot be obtained from the government without the help of middlemen. This increased the cost & time of getting approvals and also subjected investors to untold hardships. There is no way to verify the authenticity of middlemen who were inevitable in getting approvals which significantly brought down the trust of investors on the government.
Seamless Integration Requirement
These all applications need to be integrated with Online Single Window Platform along with Payment Gateways.
Intense follow-ups
Manual Process
Expensive Cost and Time
VIABLE SOLUTION - AXPERT
Axpert is a Digital Software Platform on which apps can be developed in 50% of the time, effort and skill required to build an app using traditional programming languages. Apps are developed on Axpert by only defining the data structures, work flow and business rules on the fly using a simple and intuitive Axpert IDE. No Coding is required in business layer and presentation layer.
Axpert architecture is complete SOA based and works on a Microsoft Dot net framework on node and windows server. There is no need to write web services or REST services to create apps. Axpert also comes with a data router and exchange apps that enables seamless and secure data exchange with other apps at the database level.
Axpert comes with features for on the fly form, report and work flow definition and rendering. There is no need to code any of these. The data of forms are stored in standard RDBMS (Oracle, MYSQL, MS SQL).
VIABLE SOLUTION - AXPERT
This application manages data exchange between two servers. This will enable implementation of distributed data architecture (store and forward smart client). This is achieved by submitting the structures to the synchronizer that need to be synchronized between servers. The synchronizer will automatically detect the new/modified data in the structures and send to the other servers it is intended for. The server identifications of the different server to which the data needs to flow can be made part of the structure in data elements.
This application manages data exchange between different applications. It supports a CSV file format and a fixed length ASCII file format. Data from an application can copy a file onto a staging server. ADX will read from the staging server and push data into Axpert.
ADX also reads data from the Axpert application and stores into the staging server as a CSV or an ASCII file for the external application to consume. Error handling is efficiently managed by ADX. The security standards that are followed for any distributed RDBMS based applications can be applied on Axpert applications to ensure maximum security of data. A robust access control layer that comes along with Axpert to ensure maximum safety of data.
That gives,
- Complete control to the app administrator to restrict access of data for relevant user groups.
- Axpert is now used by 25000+ users across 10 countries. The users include Government, Defence and large corporations too. There are 100+ mission critical apps are running on Axpert. Its lean architecture makes it robust and reliable.
Users
Countries
Apps
Products
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AXPERT DATA SYNCHRONIZER (ADR)
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AXPERT DATA EXCHANGE (ADX)
This application manages data exchange between two servers. This will enable implementation of distributed data architecture (store and forward smart client). This is achieved by submitting the structures to the synchronizer that need to be synchronized between servers. The synchronizer will automatically detect the new/modified data in the structures and send to the other servers it is intended for. The server identifications of the different server to which the data needs to flow can be made part of the structure in data elements.
This application manages data exchange between different applications. It supports a CSV file format and a fixed length ASCII file format. Data from an application can copy a file onto a staging server. ADX will read from the staging server and push data into Axpert.
ADX also reads data from the Axpert application and stores into the staging server as a CSV or an ASCII file for the external application to consume. Error handling is efficiently managed by ADX. The security standards that are followed for any distributed RDBMS based applications can be applied on Axpert applications to ensure maximum security of data. A robust access control layer that comes along with Axpert to ensure maximum safety of data.
That gives,
- Complete control to the app administrator to restrict access of data for relevant user groups.
- Axpert is now used by 25000+ users across 10 countries. The users include Government, Defence and large corporations too. There are 100+ mission critical apps are running on Axpert. Its lean architecture makes it robust and reliable.
PAYMENT GATEWAYS INTEGRATION
- Specialized APIs were used from the Bill Desk Payment gateway and it was integrated with the OSWP so that the end user can pay by any mode using any bank account effectively and efficiently.
- The end user will pay one-time application charges which is the sum of the different types of fees collected by various departments of government of West-Bengal through payment gateway.
- After receiving the one-time charges from the end user, the paid amount for each of the department will be forwarded to their bank accounts respectively.
INNOVATIVE ASPECTS OF THE SOLUTIONS
OSWP involves creating of new apps and integrating with different types of apps that run on different platforms or technologies. There are 130+ services that need to be integrated into a single platform. Nearly 60+ services were already available to citizens online through an application that is developed by different vendors. Each application was developed on different technologies (like IBM stack, Oracle apps, SAP, LAMP stack, dot net stack etc).
Many of these apps did not have the capability to publish API to be consumed by the OSWP. Even if some apps had such a capability it was a time intense task to publish those APIs. Integration with these apps has been achieved in the data layer.
ABOUT SECURITY MODEL, AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION
Axpert includes a powerful and flexible role-based security model to protect your data according to your application security requirements. There is always a trade-off between security and usability. When a system has no security, then it is open to malicious or unmelodious unauthorized access. When a system is too tightly secured, it might become difficult to use successfully. Before implementing your application security model, it is important to understand the core concepts and features in the Axpert security model.
- Authentication and access control
- Authorization
- Administration
BENEFITS TO CITIZENS
- The time required to get approvals has been reduced from months to a few weeks.
- Effectively avoided the need for middle men.
- Investors need not interact physically with multiple departments.
- Payments could be made online as a single payment for all the approvals across departments.
- Online status updates kept the investors informed about the progress.
- Increased transparency and ease of doing business.