In order toimprove the reporting and communication of its statistics to the various business units, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), through the Strategy and Architecture Mission of its Information Systems Directorate (DSI), has decided to implement a data visualization tool: DigDash Enterprise.
A look back at the solution’s deployment, featuring an interview with Sandrine Lorenzi, “BI” (Business Intelligence) Project Manager in the Strategy and Architecture Division of the IT Department at the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Mapping visa applications, France’s appeal to international students, and IT department budget management
“We have deployed DigDash Enterprise to visualize visa statistics. We need to track the number of visas requested, granted, and denied in order to analyze them. Thanks to the graphical reports, we can view the geographic distribution and trends over the years. Until now, everything was managed using spreadsheets. We still use spreadsheets extensively, but we’ve also implemented maps and charts. This provides business unitswith concrete data to support their decision-making.”
We also use DigDash to compile a list of international students in France and map their distribution. This allows us to assess the appeal of campuses, degree programs, and institutions… and it helps us measure France’s appeal abroad.
Finally, we use this tool within the IT department for our budgeting. This allows us to track expenses, current and upcoming projects, and the remaining budget… It helps us manage our budget more effectively.
“In total, we have more than fifty DigDash users across our various projects.”
Key selection criteria: French software provider, web technology, usability, cloud and on-premises deployment, responsiveness, and UGAP compliance
“Until now, we had an expensive ‘business intelligence’ tool that was no longer up to date. In addition, the Interministerial Directorate for Information and Communication Systems (DINSIC) encourages ministries to adopt open-source tools. To ensure we have software tailored to our business needs, we therefore decided to begin the process of selecting a new “BI” solution.”
A data visualization tool “Made in France”
We selected the community edition of Pentaho, an open-source business intelligence solution. This community edition did not offer advanced features for interactive and intuitive data visualization. To address this need, after searching in vain for an open-source tool, we ultimately chose
We chose DigDash because it’s a French software provider and it met our needs. DigDash’s real strength is that it allows us to create dynamic tables and is very easy to use. This means that different business units can easily access it and create their own reports. The solution is accessible anywhere as long as we have access to our intranet. Our users can access it even while traveling, whether in France or abroad.
A community-based team
Another important factor for us is the size of the company. DigDash is an SME, which allows us to get to know our point of contact well and maintain a close relationship with our partner. In addition, the solution is listed by the UGAP public procurement agency, which was a key factor in our decision.”
An opportunity to review the processes and work methods of the various professions
“The rollout of DigDash was very quick and very simple. We were able to install it ourselves in no time. Changing tools requires organizational changes. Business units must therefore adopt new ways of working, and support is necessary. To that end, we’re organizing training sessions to introduce the tool and its features. So far, our employees have responded very positively.”
Overall, users find the tool easier to use than what we had before. It also allows us to replace Excel and get a better overview of all the metrics. Every time we hold a training session on the solution, we receive very positive feedback from our employees.
“Ideally, we’d like to expand the tool to other business units, but that takes time.”