Secure remote working solutions for government agencies
The fifth in our Keep your business moving securely series, this blog post features secure remote working solutions from Microsoft, designed to empower Canadian government agencies facing unprecedented challenges.
2020 has proved to be an unusually difficult year for everyone, including Canadian civil servants and the agencies for whom they work. Governments (municipal, provincial, and federal) suddenly face dispersed, and often reduced workforces inundated with inquiries, requests, and demands for information and services.
Pushed to their limits, governments across Canada need to double-down on their efforts to digitally transform their practices and culture.
Fortunately, Microsoft has several secure cloud-based solutions to help respond to the current challenges as well as to allow Canadian agencies to modernize their operations in powerful ways. Agencies can create more transparency, improve their security and resiliency, and deliver a better experience for both constituents and civil servants.
Security, privacy, and residency
Agencies can protect the stakeholder data they collect and manage in the Microsoft Canadian Cloud. Since the company invests and maintains datacenters in multiple provinces, agencies can ensure the data they generate and collect stays in Canada throughout its life.
A powerful precedent
These qualities have compelled numerous government agencies, like Invest in Canada, to leverage the Microsoft cloud. This new government agency wanted a modern infrastructure from the ground up. They needed a highly secure environment that would support collaboration across the government and with outside entities.
Go beyond response efforts! Put a modern government workplace infrastructure with enterprise grade security in place.
Microsoft 365
Invest in Canada found what they needed in Microsoft 365 Enterprise, the integrated cloud platform delivering leading productivity apps—like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—along with intelligent cloud services and world-class security.
The Invest in Canada team got the system up and running quickly with minimal technical and personnel overhead, providing 99.9 percent uptime and an ideal foundation for collaboration between potential investors and local authorities across Canada.
Dynamics 365
Designed to replace legacy CRM and ERP systems, Dynamics 365 gives you a suite of secure, cloud-based management applications powered by data and intelligence. Ministries, municipalities, districts, and similar groups can use it to unify data and technology to manage even the most complex cases and requirements.
Need to ensure compliance? Get Canadian compliance resources, including reports on Office 365 and Dynamics 365, in French and English.
Response management
Microsoft Power Platform, the platform to streamline app development, features a Crisis Communications Power Platform Template governments can use to manage the influx of queries, enable information sharing, and handle communications related to evolving conditions.
Using this template, employees can report their work status and make requests, as well as gain up-to-date information from both their agency and reputable external sources, such as World Health Organization or a local authority.
With organizations working in this high-pressure environment, the speed in which you turn extraordinary volumes of data into actionable insights is vital. Microsoft’s customer and citizen engagement solutions apply AI-driven insights that identify and automate emerging and time-consuming issues and monitor the impact of the strategies you deploy on your operations in real time.
Chatbots
Chatbots are ideal for stakeholders with lots of questions that require quick response. Using Power Virtual Agents governments can quickly create and maintain an intelligent Crisis Management Chatbot to help address predictable questions.
Solutions such as Customer Service Insights, Power Virtual Agents, and Portals can be deployed within hours with little or no coding required.
Process automation
From simple tasks to complex enterprise-wide processes, Power Automate enables everyone through low-code tools to build secure, intelligent, automated workflows to effectively manage highly repetitive, manual tasks supporting employees to focus on critical challenges and opportunities during times of crisis.
Cognitive services
Even the largest government agencies can rely on Azure for availability and scale. You can bring all your organization’s data sources together to drive actionable insights, including predicting demand. Through AI, Machine Learning, and Cognitive Services, Microsoft Azure has capabilities to support organizations.
Azure resiliency
With Azure Resiliency for Crisis Management, you can rely on high availability, disaster recovery, and backup to protect mission critical applications and data. Azure has ISO-22301 Certification, the first international standard to demonstrate the ability to prevent, mitigate, respond, and recover from disruptive incidents.
Get started!
Get resources and ideas to help you advance your digital transformation today. Visit the Microsoft Canada Government page to learn more about how governments can innovate to meet their mission and serve citizens better. Start your assessment now.
For the whole Invest in Canada story, visit: ”New Canadian government agency delivers modern workplace environment with Microsoft 365 Enterprise”
Keep your business moving securely series
- How to work remotely, for everyone who needs to stay productive from home
- Eight remote working essentials to stay productive
- Your security checklist to help protect your employees working from home
- Empowering Canadian healthcare teams with new remote working tools
- Secure remote working solutions for government agencies
- Secure remote working for human resources teams
