Pilot Procedures
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4.1 Cross border pilot testing approach
4.1.1 General approach
To establish and confirm the cross border connection between Data Owners and Data Evaluators, two tracks were defined in the Pilot Planning deliverable, which were each divided into several milestones. The milestone sequences were designed to introduce complexity in cross-border communication in a step-by-stap fashion, allowing involved Member States to focus on one challenge at a time and keep the complexity manageable. To summarize, the tracks and milestones that were used are:
| Milestone | eIDAS track | OOP TS track |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | eIDAS for natural persons up and running | "Hello Europe" in lab (using a playground with DE/DO Mocks) |
| 2 | eIDAS for legal persons up and running | "Hello Europe" between two connected Member States |
| 3 | powers validation implemented | full scale cross-border communication between all Member States |
| 4 | ready to start pilot |
These tracks were meant for all Member States to use synchronously. This however, turned out to be unrealistic because all Member States seems to have their own challenges, leading to different speeds of development. The general approach, where tracks and milestones were defined, remained useful, however for each combination of Data Owner and Data Evaluator a separate timeline turned out necessary.
4.1.2 Connectathons
Member states performed unit-tests themselves before attempting cross-border testing. Specific meetings, named connectathons, were held to test and confirm connection (at Milestone-level) between all Data Owners, Data Transferrers, Data Requestors and Data Evaluators. In these meetings, structured testing (see D4.6 Pilot Planning for testcases) was applied to confirm connections for both the eIDAS track and the OOP TS track, making sure that cross-border communication and error handling works as expected. In case of errors and issues, the technical experts attending the meeting used the time available to investigate and solve issues like configuration-errors. In case experts could not solve the issue right away, they defined actions to perform between two connectathons, e.g. configuration of firewalls and local DNS-components. For issue-solving, experts shared screens and collectively studied log-files in involved Member States.
Knowledge developed in the earlier connectathons was shared with other DBA partners and DE4A pilots, in order to smoothen future connectathons and establish remaining connections sooner. Also, test cases and presentations to structure these connectathons were re-used for future meetings, securing a constant quality of the established connection between components.
Up until the moment of reporting, the OOP TS connection between a total of 5 Data Owner / Data Evaluator combinations were confirmed and in total 8 connectathons for the OOP TS track were organized. For the eIDAS track, three connectathons (and several bilateral technical investigations) were organized between Austria, Romania and The Netherlands, leading to one confirmed connection between Romania and The Netherlands, and connections between Austria and both Romania and The Netherlands with issues remaining to be resolved. Chapter 2 of this document provides more detail of the connection status of each DBA partner.
4.2 End users engagement progress and dissemination/impact activities
4.2.1 End user involvement
The pilot planning deliverable, section 4.4 described the user involvement activities. To summarize, the following user groups are targeted for participation in/evaluation of the pilot:
- employees of the data evaluator in al DBA Member States
- employees of the data owner in all Member States
- representatives of companies in all Member States, where 3 subgroups were identified:
- real representatives of real companies, aiming to actually do business in another Member State (also called invited companies)
- real representatives of (invited) real companies, aiming to contribute for learning purposes (also called companies of professional/private networks)
- fictitious representatives of fictitious companies, to be used for piloting simulated/fictitious DE/DO combinations (also called fictitious companies)
The table below displays the participation of each of these groups in specific pilot DE/DO combinations. The table remains unchanged compared to the planned involvement.
| Data Provider Member State | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romania | Sweden | The Netherlands | Austria | |||
| Real data | Fictitious data | Real data | Real data | |||
| Data Consumer Member State | RO | Simulated eProcedure | Fictitious companies | Dutch companies of professional network | Austrian companies of professional network | |
| SE | Simulated eProcedure | Romanian companies of professional network | Dutch companies of professional network | Austrian companies of professional network | ||
| NL | real eProcedure | Invited Romanian Companies | Invited Austrian Companies | |||
| AT | real eProcedure | Invited Romanian Companies | Invited Dutch Companies | |||
4.2.2 Engagement activities
The table below shows the activities that were identified to recruit participants, as well as the status of each activity.
| Activity id | Activity | Status | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| DBA-UI-1 |
Prepare invitation for user categories |
Completed | Member States aiming to work with real representatives have sent out invitations to companies or placed invitations on websites in order to attract attention. |
| DBA-UI-2 |
Invite users (all types) |
Completed | Also, companies were sometimes actively approached in cases DBA partners had access to companies in their professional networks, or private networks. Where applicable employees maintaining databases and working in processes of the DE and DO, were approached to invite them to participate in the pilot. This resulted in several representatives for each user group, although not for all.
Recruiting companies seems especially difficult for DE/DO combinations where real data and real eProcedures will be used. Representatives seem concerned that pilot participation will lead to administrative and legal consequences that they are not prepared to carry, when they just want to participate to help learning (and not aim to actually do business abroad). Finding companies that, at the the moment of piloting, are actually planning to do business abroad seems difficult too. This is a timing-challenge of the pilot. |
| DBA-UI-3 |
Set up user management (lists and control sheets) |
Completed | Registration of participants and their involvement in specific DE/DO combinations is available. |
| DBA-UI-4 |
Organize eIDs and mandates for real users |
In progress | This activity is meant for representatives joining the pilot. As pilots have not run yet, this activity is still in progress and eIDs for representatives are being prepared when the start of a pilot for a DE/DO combination approaches. |
| DBA-UI-5 |
Set up microsite (templates) |
Completed | A microsite, providing information about the DBA pilot, an animation explaining the DBA process and offering forms to apply for participation is available at the DE4A website (https://www.de4a.eu/doingbusinessabroadpilot) |
| DBA-UI-6 |
Implement microsites |
Completed | A microsite, providing information about the DBA pilot, an animation explaining the DBA process and offering forms to apply for participation is available at the DE4A website (https://www.de4a.eu/doingbusinessabroadpilot) |
| DBA-UI-7 |
Finalize questionnaire forms |
Completed | Questionnaires as designed in the D4.6 pilot planning deliverable have been refined and implemented into online forms in the DE4A DBA website (A microsite, providing information about the DBA pilot, an animation explaining the DBA process and offering forms to apply for participation is available at the DE4A website (https://www.de4a.eu/doingbusinessabroadpilot) |
| DBA-UI-8 |
Set up and share newsletters |
Completed | Newsletters are available on the DE4A website (https://www.de4a.eu/news). |
| DBA-UI-9 |
Design walkthroughs of filled in questionnaires |
Partially completed | Walkthroughs for eProcedures are available for several portals (like Mijn.RVO.nl). Also, instructions for pilot participants, addressing both the pilot and questionnaires, are available in general. Additional work is required, especially for eProcedure portals that have not been finished at the moment of creating this report. |
| DBA-UI-10 |
Design fictitious company cases with users |
Not completed | This activity applies to Data Owners that will work with fictitious data sources (mostly due to legal restrictions). For DBA, this applies to the Swedish Data Owner in particular. This data source is not ready yet (at the moment of creating this document), so therefore this user involvement activity has not been completed yet. |
User involvement was initiated 10 weeks in advance of the planned start of all pilot combinations. Depending of the actually expected starting date of each specific Data Owner/Data Evaluator combination, the intensity of the activities mentioned in the table above were set. This means that for those 5 DE/DO combinations mentioned in Chapter 2 of this document, more activities have been completed (and activities have been executed mote actively) than for the other combinations. The knowledge gained in DE/DO combinations is shared with other DBA DO/DE-combinations as well as with other DE4A pilots, in order to smoothen future activities to recruit participants.
In addition to the planned activities to recruit users, preparations for an international event were made (in collaboration with other work packages in the DE4A program). Preparations were set up as a joined venture between DE4A and the EuroChambers organization, but had to be cancelled due to changes in priorities. The preparations made were useful for future events that DE4A aims to organize.
4.3 Planned improvement following received feedback
Before addressing possible improvements it must be noted that the paragraphs in this section are based on planning and preparation experiences only. As stated earlier in Chapter 2, actual piloting is yet to be done. Still, feedback is available from the 'customization and integration phase' of the pilot, allowing for some reflection and reporting on possible improvements. It is to be expected that additional feedback form the pilot runs will lead to the identification of more improvements on Many aspects of the pilot procedures, as well as technical and functional properties of the OOP TS and SDG implementation.
4.3.1 Functional and technical improvement
Functional scope of the first pilot iteration:
- eIDAS for full powers validation
- intermediation pattern
Functional scope of the second pilot iteration:
- eIDAS for fine grained powers validation
- subscription & notification pattern
- lookup pattern
It is likely that the running phase may lead to some optimisations for the intermediation pattern. Although the intermediation pattern will be used in the second pilot iteration (as starting point for subscribing to updates), it is not expected that these optimisations will be implemented in the second iteration. Looking at the goal of the pilot, the objective is to learn as much as possible. To maximise "learning" the second pilot iteration will direct efforts towards experimenting with the new functionalities defined within scope of the second iteration. eIDAS full powers will be replaces by fine grained powers validation, allowing companies to differentiate in the procedures company representatives may apply for. Furthermore, the subscription and notification pattern allow data evaluators to receive information on business events that might impact the procedure. Finally, the lookup pattern allows the evaluator's back office to request updates or additional information on the company required to assess the impact on the procedure or prevent fraud. Resources are scarce it seems to make more sense to direct the effort to implement this additional functionality and learn new things, which can be considered for future European implementation of the OOP TS.
This way, the pilot intends to input as much as possible to the future development of the SDG in stead of technically fine-tuning the DE4A common components. Technical optimizations will however be summarized in the final report and could be addressed before European implementation of the OOP TS.
4.3.2 Pilot procedures improvement
Activities and effort spent on recruiting users to become involved in the pilot have learned that these activities are very timing-sensitive.
On the one hand, it seems hard to involve users and therefore, all effort should start long before the actual start of running a pilot. On the other hand, the pilot seems to be relevant for users (especially companies) for a short moment in time: the moment that they see a business opportunity. The users will not necessarily wait for the pilot to start, in order to initiate doing business across border.
Several considerations for the remaining period of executing the pilot procedures are:
- The procedures for recruiting users should still become a continuous process, in order to offer as many companies as possible the opportunity to participate and if they can, schedule their cross-border business initiation in line with the running period of the pilot. This will still not be possible for business activities having a limited window of opportunity, but might result in several additional users that can participate in the pilot.
- Additional promotion to involve users might be necessary. Data Owners and Data Evaluators seem often equipped to execute their core task (register business or providing services) but are not necessarily the best organization to broadcast the opportunity to join the pilot. DE4A has expertise available that might have to be used more extensively and team up with the DE and DO of the DBA partners.
- As stated in section 2, possibly the metrics for evaluating the new interaction patterns will be extended and detailed during the 'customization and integration' phase for the second iteration. This will lead to changes in the questionnaires as well.