NSW to introduce whole-of-govt data tool

The NSW government will shortly give both public servants and citizens the ability to discern patterns and trends from service delivery information using a single data tool.

The Department of Finance, Services and Innovation has released a request for tender for a whole-of-government data visualisation and dashboard tool to support its Trends NSW initiative.

The Trends NSW program is a key element of the state's three-step digital transformation strategy, and aims to "put more information in the hands of citizens", tender documents state.

Finance Minister Victor Dominello has previously described it as a 'one-stop' for real-time service delivery information, like wait times for emergency departments within hospitals. 

The single data visualisation tool will replace the multiple visualisation technologies that are currently used to develop charts and dashboards across the NSW government.

The solution will consist of a single common data visualisation product/service that allows agencies to "securely create charts, graphs, diagrams and dashboards using the datasets accessible via API, database and flat files".

Agencies will be able to share this information with authorised users across government as well as making information available to citizens.

It will also enable citizens to create the same visualisations using open publically available datasets accessible via API from the dMarketplace, and save these to a public catalogue that can be discovered by other users.

The solution will need to support between 5000 and 10,000 public servants and up to 100,000 anonymous public users.

The department is open to Trends NSW being delivered using "either a commercial-off-the-shelf product, custom development using open source technologies or a combination of the two".

It is planning to award a contract in September that will run for up to three years.