In part 2/3 of this series, DFO shares how they’re charting new waters with GC Notify. Together, we’re bringing digital innovation to water (two elements that don’t traditionally mix), to unlock new possibilities!
CDS products have been making waves with the Chief Digital Officer Sector (CDOS) team at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). DFO is responsible for safeguarding Canada’s oceans and maintaining fish and ocean resources, including ensuring our ocean ecosystems are healthy and protected.
The CDOS team has been working with CDS product teams to find ways to streamline workflows, scale impact, and shape the future of digital initiatives. These collaboration efforts have generated helpful feedback for all teams, resulting in product and service improvements at DFO and CDS.
Wave hello to digital teams at DFO!
We chatted with members of the Chief Digital Officer Sector (CDOS) at DFO about their experiences using GC Notify.
CDOS is the IT Digital shop at DFO, consisting of 4 directorates:
- IT Operations.
- Strategic Planning.
- The Data, AI, and Information Management (IM) branch that runs the Enterprise Data Hub.
- Digital Innovation, which includes the User Experience (UX) branch that supports user-centered digital initiatives.
CDOS team members at DFO we interviewed: Antoine Bedward (Director of User Experience), Russell Moore (Analyst with the Digital Enterprise Hub), Paula Aoyagui (Manager for UX Strategy and Digital Accessibility), Lisanne Vickers (Team Lead for UX Design), and Adele Strub (UX Designer).
How DFO’s charting new waters with GC Notify
Sending service requests using GC Notify
| GC Notify: Send email and text messages to the public at each step in their government process. |  |
DFO uses the Enterprise Data Hub (EDH), which requires the cataloguing and storage of the organization’s data, and is one of the key platforms of DFO.
There are many types of requests users can make in the hub, including uploading data to the hub’s catalogue and openly publishing data for public access. DFO has over 700 published datasets in the GC’s Open Government Portal; openly sharing data can help raise awareness with the public and is useful for people working on protection and/or restoration initiatives.
Using GC Notify’s Application Programming Interface (API) integration, the hub automatically sends email updates and reminders to required users about actions to take, such as letting data reviewers know it’s ready for sign-off on publication.
Key impact of using GC Notify at DFO:
We’ve sent almost 10,000 emails since adopting GC Notify in 2023!
- Without the API sending updates, requests, confirmations, and reminder emails to users, we would’ve needed human intervention and coordination in our processes.
- It would’ve also required a lot of manual work on business logic. GC Notify made this a lot easier for us.
How the Enterprise Data Hub updates users via GC Notify.
Russell Moore:
The Enterprise Data Hub is an application public servants at DFO use for cataloguing and storing data throughout the department.
There are two user actions/requests in the data hub that GC Notify helps with:
- External to DFO: Request the publication of data in the hub out to the GC’s Open Government Portal and/or to the Federal Geospatial Platform (FGP).
When publishing is requested, GC Notify automatically sends an email to the people who are required to review that data and sign off on the publication. We’ve also coded the API integration to send a follow-up email if the data is not reviewed in a timely manner, making the approvals coordination hands-off.
- Internal to DFO: Request a service offering, such as uploading data to the hub’s catalogue. Users can also request to have a map created for their geospatial data, to upload with the data. When a service offering is requested, GC Notify automatically sends emails to the requester as a confirmation, as well as to the people who need to take action to complete the task.
Advice from DFO for using GC Notify
“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, use it!” – Russell Moore
Just go ahead and use GC Notify because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. It’s an accessible and secure tool that’s commonly used by dozens of departments, so why not just incorporate that in your applications? It can do a lot of work for you (freeing up capacity) and it just makes life a lot easier.
You may be interested in:
- Blog posts:
- Activity metrics dashboard for GC Notify: 287+ million notifications sent by over 900 government programs and services.
Think GC Notify can help with your service delivery?
Our support team frequently hosts demo and forum sessions for public servants to learn how the notification product can help with their service delivery. Participants get the opportunity to ask questions and hear from other teams about how they think the tool could help them (potentially inspiring ideas). Pick an upcoming date to attend a GC Notify demo!
DFO also uses the GC Feedback tool and the GC Task Success Survey in their web optimization work. Check them out to learn how they can help you measure and improve users’ experiences with Canada.ca web content.