Pilot Procedures
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[Work in progress]
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:
| 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
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
| 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 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 | |
| DBA-UI-5 |
Set up microsite (templates) |
Completed | |
| DBA-UI-6 |
Implement microsites |
Completed | |
| DBA-UI-7 |
Finalize questionnaire forms |
Completed | |
| DBA-UI-8 |
Set up and share newsletters |
Completed | |
| DBA-UI-9 |
Design walkthroughs of filled in questionnaires |
Partially completed | |
| DBA-UI-10 |
Design fictitious company cases with users |
Not completed |
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.