Taking Responsibility for a Critical Public Platform

The Danish Parliament works continuously to improve how the public can follow the parliamentary work. Therefore, they needed a digital collaboration and sparring partner to create the best digital experience for the citizens. In July 2020, Kruso was chosen as the Danish Parliament's new digital supplier to take over, operate and further develop the Danish Parliament's comprehensive multisite portal solution. It is based on Sitecore 9.1 and primarily operates , and as well as several subsites and integrations to the Danish Parliament's internal systems. After a thorough and successful takeover process in the summer of 2020, we have taken over the responsibility for the solution, which we currently operate and further develop with a dedicated team.

Long-Term Solution Plan for Folketinget.dk

After completing the acquisition phase, we have begun to formulate a long-term roadmap. This includes serval projects such as a full upgrade to the latest Sitecore versions, new subsites, new functionalities and modules, smarter integrations to third-party systems, and general refactoring of obsolete code. Finally, we have initiated a strategically based UX and design process that works with continuous optimization of the user experience of the site and the individual services.

A New Overview Function of the Parliament Hall

In January 2021, work began on a new project for the Danish Parliament. The idea for the project arose from having a graphic designer maintain a "handmade" overview of the hall and the members in their seats. This solution was complicated and required all changes to be made manually. After changing the overview, it then had to be physically printed for use in the hall and published on the website.

Therefore, the Parliament wanted an automatically generated, interactive overview of the hall and the members, based on data from the Parliament's underlying systems, where you could see which members and ministers are sitting in which seat for each meeting date. In addition, you should be able to filter the display in relation to parties, committees, constituencies, mayorships, etc., as well as be directed to further information, including the biography of each person in the room.

The customer wanted a flexible solution, including the possibility of getting an overview from the perspective of the podium. Both versions of the overview had to be printable to be used by, for example, the Speaker of the Danish Parliament for meetings in the hall. In addition, they wanted a statistics display, where for each session, you can see the distribution of members by gender, age group, constituency, number of years in the Parliament and distribution of mandates. It should also be possible to see an overview of the hall on the pages of the legislative proposals. Here, users should be able to see who was present in the hall for each vote and whether they voted for or against it.

Development of the Overview

Kruso first reviewed the desired functionality and design for the solution with the customer and then designed an architecture for the solution in close collaboration with the customer, who supplies the data that forms the basis of the overview. In addition to the customer's desire for a neat overview that was easy for users to understand and simultaneously comply with web accessibility requirements, it was essential to validate that the information displayed on the hall overview was correct.

The solution is based on data extraction from the Parliament's systems and is implemented in . Thus, the user can see the location of the members of Parliament, the government, and the parties in the parliamentary hall for meetings, as well as explore the composition of the members of the Parliament for a given meeting date.

With the hall overview, the customer can generate an interactive overview for every meeting date, a statistics display, and a physical printout without requiring a manual redesign when changes arise. The new solution makes it easier for the Danish Parliament administratively and provides a far more exciting and informative experience for visitors to the site.

A Long Term Collaboration

Kruso is today - and for the next 4-8 years - the Danish Parliament's primary digital partner and supplier responsible for , , and support of the entire Parliament's Sitecore-based websites, including consulting, optimizations. The Parliament continuously has new projects in the pipeline. For the hall overview, there are plans to generate a version for the Youth Parliament and the Nordic Council, so the participants know where to sit in the hall.