Pilot Procedures

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4.1 Cross border pilot testing 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:

Tracks and milestones as defined in D4.6 Pilot Planning

	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.

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 Transferers, 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 available time to investigate and solve issues like configuration-errors etcetera, or defined actions to perform between meetings, for issue regarding 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 across 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

			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

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 alle Member States, where 3 subgroups were identified
  • real representatives of real companies, aiming to actually do business in another Member State
  • real representatives of (invited) real companies, aiming to contribute for learning purposes
  • fake representatives of fake companies, to be used for piloting simulated/fictitious DE/DO combinations

The table below displays the participation of each of these groups in specifica pilot DE/DO combinations , and remains unchanged compared to the planned involvement

Table 75: User involvement activities

Activity id	Activity	Owner
DBA-UI-1	Prepare invitation for user categories	DE
DBA-UI-2	Invite users (all types)	DE
DBA-UI-3	Set up user management (lists and control sheets)	DE
DBA-UI-4	Organize eIDs and mandates for real users	DE
DBA-UI-5	Set up microsite (templates)	Pilot Lead / DE
DBA-UI-6	Implement microsites	DBA MS
DBA-UI-7	Finalize questionnaire forms	Pilot Lead / DE
DBA-UI-8	Set up and share newsletters	Pilot Lead / DE
DBA-UI-9	Design walkthroughs of filled in questionnaires	Pilot Lead / DE
DBA-UI-10	Design fictitious company cases with users	DE

Description of the way end users were recruited and involved. Use D4.6 section 4.1 (User Involvement) as a basis.

• Matrix of which DE/DO combination will work with which kind of users (focus groups).
• Rough planning for user involvement (start recruiting 2,5 months prior to start of pilot)
• Recruit startups (AT) and self-employed experts from the professional network of DBA partners
• set up microsite, that provides an animation (explanatory/promotional video) and information on the pilot, as well as how to get involved.
• Intention of EuroChambers meeting?

4.3 Planned improvement following received feedback

DBA will describe 1st iteration functionality  that could be improved  but  these functional improvements will not be implemented in the 2nd iteration (because the 2nd iteration focusus on new, different functionality). The functional improvements are recorded for future use, outside of the pilot. Other improvements (on procedures regarding user involvement for example) can be mentioned as well, and can be implemented in the 2nd iteration.

Next Chapter: 5. Conclusions