With about 12,000 workers worldwide, together with places of work in Bonn and Berlin and roughly 230 missions, the attain of the German Federal Foreign Office is huge, connecting with residents overseas, together with different governments and worldwide organizations.
However within the fashionable age, the company realized that its system of digitally managing citizen requests was outdated.
The strain was on to undertake a contemporary, versatile, and scalable system to route inquiries to the right supply and supply the required solutions. However how?
AI clears the way in which
For years, requests had been processed in a approach that was extremely particular person, relying on the division and mission, normally by way of electronic mail. Not solely was this time-consuming and troublesome, however info tended to grow to be muddled or misplaced alongside the way in which, with inquiries typically dispatched to the fallacious place.
A greater-designed construction was wanted to standardize solutions, foster effectivity and collaboration, and proactively resolve issues on a worldwide scale.
That might imply creating a platform utilizing synthetic intelligence (AI) to realize insights into the previous, current, and future – and enhance the lives of the residents utilizing it.
Quid est facil?
Along with sustaining political contacts worldwide, the German Federal Overseas Workplace promotes dialogue, specializing in such areas as growth, expertise, sustainability, tradition, enterprise, and science.
Given the increasing scale of questions directed on the company, the brand new resolution would decentralize the prior communication strategies, changing them with a central system. To keep away from confusion, the platform needed to be intuitive to make use of so each residents and authorities workers might shortly familiarize themselves with the up to date model of corresponding.
The answer would go by the title “FACIL,” primarily based on the Latin time period for “simply finished.”
“For us, FACIL means environment friendly communication, happy prospects, and a achieve in personnel sources for different duties,” noticed David Genzel, counsel normal of the German Embassy in Sarajevo.
Consistent with the instances, this is able to be the company’s first cloud-native growth, an method to constructing, deploying, and managing functions in a cloud computing atmosphere, guaranteeing scale, sturdiness, and elasticity.
Since 1999, SAP had been offering assist throughout the workplace’s operations, and the choice was made to companion with the corporate to create the cloud-based innovation.
Designed to handle excessive demand, FACIL would have the ability to present a constant buyer expertise throughout a number of channels.
FACIL’s basis could be primarily based on SAP’s Enterprise Know-how Platform (BTP), a collection that helped the company personalize functions and combine and join landscapes all through the uncertainty of the pandemic.
A small workforce of SAP consultants collaborating with the German Federal Overseas Workplace would create the preliminary structure.
All events agreed that AI would improve processing effectivity whereas minimizing the danger of changing to a brand new system.
Requests might immediately be assigned to the right processor primarily based on matter, offering residents with fast, correct solutions.
Talking with one voice
Though FACIL first went dwell in April 2021, the platform was enhanced by quarterly releases till December 2023. By that point, it was dealing with 40,000 new inquiries a month.
Having processed greater than 1.8 million messages by way of cellphone, fax, and electronic mail – amongst different sources – the answer had been utilized by greater than 450,000 residents.
In complete, about 83% of requests are categorized by means of using AI after which mechanically answered.
In different circumstances, FACIL’s AI mannequin can resolve a problem by calculating the strategies used to answer comparable questions.
Because the resolution was launched, 77% of all inquiries have been closed and answered the identical day. Actually, due to AI, 50% of citizen requests not require human interplay in any respect.
With out the normal structure and storage that was beforehand important to function this sort of platform, the system may be up to date with no downtime.
SAP’s Malware Scanning System scans all recordsdata earlier than storing them.
For its creation of FACIL, the German Federal Overseas Workplace acquired first prize within the “Companies Supernova” class on the 2024 SAP Innovation Awards, a yearly occasion celebrating organizations utilizing SAP applied sciences to enhance communication, in addition to the standard of life. (You’ll be able to be taught extra about what the German Federal Overseas Workplace completed to earn this coveted award by studying their Innovation Awards pitch deck.)
“All employees are on the identical web page and talk…with one voice to provide prospects vital steering,” notedChristiane Kapashi, consular part head for the German embassy in Copenhagen.