DTA trials govt-wide notifications platform

The Digital Transformation Agency has started offering federal, state and local government agencies the opportunity to trial its new government-wide notifications platform.

The platform, dubbed Notify.gov.au, moved into private beta this week after more than 12 months of development by the agency.

It is the second major whole-of-government platform from the agency to reach private beta, following the development of the myGovID digital identity platform last year. 

Both form a central tenet of the government’s digital strategy by ensuring platforms are reusable across government to allow a unified and seamless user experience.

Notify.gov.au will provide agencies with “an easy, low cost way” to send reminders and messages to users anywhere in the world.

It is particularly aimed at those agencies that may not have access to the government’s digital services platform myGov or don’t have existing infrastructure.

As such, the platform has been developed as an open source solution that can integrate with existing web applications or back office systems using an API.

“People make millions of calls and enquiries each year to government agencies to find out about the progress of their applications, payments and obligations, the DTA said in a blog post.

“Through our user research, we found that people want to receive immediate updates on non-sensitive information through text message and/or email with small snippets of useful information.”

The DTA is currently offering agencies the ability to trial the platform at no cost until 30 June 2019.

“During private beta, participating government agencies will be given a password to access the platform in a closed environment,” the agency said.

“From here, they can set up a password-protected user account to send unlimited emails and up to 25,000 free text messages.”