In order to encourage channel shift early and to de-risk deployment-to-live, we released an early version of the service at the end of October. This allowed a small group of named agents to use the new CRM and interface to send out emails and SMSs via Gov.Notify. This was a really useful opportunity to test and hone our processes at low risk and to a small audience. This approach also had the parallel benefit of gaining real feedback from agents on their experience of the site and embedding early adopters within the service to spread the benefits to their colleagues.
The release was demonstrated to the Head of Service, Service Manager and an agent in advance of this first roll-out.
We have trained the Agents and Team Leaders with the initial release of Gov Notify functionality. This was done with a walkthrough and hands-on trial session, where users could try a few journeys for themselves with guidance. They were also left with print and PDF guidance documents which follow step-by-step on how to navigate the interface.
We plan to have an online version of our guidance so that files don't get lost. This will make it easy to find for users so that they don't have to wait for an expert to show them.
We are almost finished the MVP and will deploy-to-live after we have fully tested the service and trained the agents. As there is a live service already in operation at the NCC, we have a number of criteria to consider in rolling out this new service to avoid disruption. Our aim is to introduce as many agents as practical to the new service so that we can:
To achieve this, our roll-out plan is: