Project Overview
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) needed a replacement case management system for state aid notifications after Brexit, integrated with the CMA platform and a public search site. Transparity delivered Azure application development services via an MVP, then a full build using Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Functions and an ASP.NET MVC layer, with SharePoint Online (SPFx) as the portal.
A separate Azure-hosted site syncs published data for transparency and reporting. The approach enabled rapid delivery of complex, large forms and workflow across departments—illustrating our App Innovation, SharePoint consulting services and Azure consulting services.
The Challenge
European Union member countries must notify the European Commission under certain circumstances during the normal course of government. One of the IT systems provided by the EU to do this would become unavailable to the UK once Brexit was complete. The replacement system would need to support a process involving multiple government departments, integrate with the CMA case management system and provide a public-facing view of all authorised grants.
The outline requirements indicated a complex case management system supported by a public-facing website. The case management system would need to handle large, complex forms, document attachments and workflow across UK government.
The Solution
The approach followed an agile methodology that initially developed proofs of concept to identify an appropriate technology, followed by development of a minimum viable product (MVP). Once the MVP was validated, full system development commenced, backed up by GDS reviews.
The MVP quickly established an appropriate platform for the solution, formed from an Azure document database (Cosmos DB), Azure Functions and SharePoint Online to act as a portal. The solution presents users with a form built using SharePoint Framework Extensions with Web Parts. The technology layer is the ASP.NET MVC web application framework.
Users are typically competition lawyers, and their skills are supported by appropriate interfaces for the creator, recipient, case site, examination decision authority and granting authority. The workflow must support details such as supplementary questions and case routing.
A further advantage of using this technology stack was to allow state aid processing to integrate seamlessly with the CMA case management system, also built on the same technology.
The public-facing functionality is provided by a separate website hosted on Azure that is synchronised with the published data. This provides a public transparency search function, which supports Freedom of Information requests through to notifying award results, together with reporting of the activity of the granting authority.
The Outcome
As planned, the British Government is now able to continue operating the state aid process as part of a Brexit deal (should this be required). The real story, though, is just how well and how quickly the technology approach delivered results.
Early in the project, it was thought a low-code application platform should be used to build the forms. These, however, turned out to be too slow and restrictive, especially given a complex form with context-sensitive fields. The bespoke approach allowed rapid creation of very large forms using scripts processing an Excel specification of the form.
Key benefits included:
- A case management solution built on the client’s existing Microsoft technology.
- A familiar and intuitive user interface.
- A flexible and robust solution.
- Seamless integration with the CMA core case management system.
- Value for money.
