// Development
How to Develop Electronic Document Service like Ukrainian Diia/Diya?
// Development
Diia (Diia, or Diya) is Ukrainian mobile app and web portal launched on February 20, 2020, by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. The mobile app allows users to use digital documents on their smartphones instead of physical ones to identify themselves and share their valuables. Whereas the web portal provides access to more than 70 government services via the Internet. During 2 years of work the platform has become very popular among the citizens of Ukraine (every second Ukrainian used at least one e-service of the platform) and received worldwide recognition for being an innovative state product.
We will tell you below how this project works, why it has become so popular, and how to develop an electronic document management service (EDS) and the provision of public services on the type of Ukrainian Diya and how much does it cost.
Diya (acronym for "Derzhava i ya", from Ukrainian means "State and I") is Ukrainian electronic service of state authorities, which was launched by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine as part of the "State in Smartphone" project. It was originally only a mobile application, designed primarily to store in one place and electronically all necessary documents that could be used as ordinary physical (paper, plastic) documents. The first documents of this kind were: passport, driver's license and the vehicle registration certificate.
Today, " Diya" includes the following six areas of activity:
This can only be achieved by custom development because off-the-shelf solutions are always security risks, a template design, limitations on functionality and application bandwidth. Besides, such a complex software solution should be developed by a highly professional development team with experience in launching similar solutions such as Merehead. Only this team will be able to take into account all the nuances of developing such projects.
Project Diya is focused on providing state services and working with various documents, certificates and licenses, which are rendered to individuals and businesses by the state. When launching your analogue of Diya, you can choose the same direction, but only if you either represent the state or have enough influence to attract it to your business project. It is impossible to create an application without this, the "pictures" from which you will have the same legal rights as ordinary paper (physical) documents.
However, that's not the only option. You can choose another niche for your electronic document management service. And it can be either a corporate solution that will work within a single company or a neutral solution that everyone can join, for example in logistics, medicine, marketing, education or agriculture.
The key is that the niche has to meet a few criteria:
Availability on different platforms and devices. Your solution should work properly on all desktop and mobile devices, providing a smooth and seamless user experience. That being said, this rule applies not only to your platform running on Windows, Apple or Android, but also adapting screen sizes and files to the screen size and resolution of the device the user of your online service is currently using.
Simple smart search engine. If you have a lot of files in your system, users will need a handy tool to find the documents they are looking for by title, date, type, source and others. So you need to create a system where you can search documents using as many criteria as possible, including title, date, category, tag and author.
Manage versions of downloaded files. If your product is going to be aimed at the corporate or private sector, it should not just store the last downloaded file, but also be able to track the history of changes to a competing file. For example, it is important for collaborative work on a single document, accounting statements, legal documents, etc. In addition, this feature allows you to create backup copies of documents.
Collaboration of files, editing. This function allows multiple users to see and edit documents, as it is implemented, for example, in Google Docs. In addition to editing documents, this functionality should also include the ability to set up and customize different types of access to files and the ability to switch between them.
Integration with third-party software and services. Studies show that on average, small businesses use more than 100 different software products, while large enterprises use more than 280. Your electronic document management solution should integrate with the most popular software. This will improve the user experience of using your platform and help you to stand out from the competition. The specific list of integrations depends on the niche, target audience and country. Generally, these are banks, fiscal services, chat rooms, email, social networks, marketing tools, etc.
Security and privacy settings. Documents uploaded to your EDI system should be protected at all levels, from user authentication and resiliency to external threats and document access classes. Moreover, it's also important to be able to specify document privacy levels and configure document access for your employees, partners, customers, regular users and other roles.
Automatic file generation. You can also add the ability to generate documents to your service, for example, to create contracts, reports, tables and charts on pre-created templates. This will simplify many routine procedures and reduce the number of human errors. A very useful feature.
Optical Character Reader. Now consider adding an optical character reader (OCR) to your product. This will allow your users to read printed and handwritten text and upload it to your platform automatically. It's a very complicated feature, so it's better not to develop it from scratch, but to find a vendor for this kind of solution and integrate it into your online electronic document management system.
Document archiving. The next feature that your users may need is archiving irrelevant files and documents related to completed projects. It will be very useful if your customers' partnerships have lasted for decades. Furthermore, it may also be an industry requirement for some niches.
File Type Conversion. Integrating a document converter into your document management platform will improve user workflow efficiency, for example if they need to convert a Word text document or Excel spreadsheet to PDF. When implementing this functionality, don't forget to add batch conversion capability. In spite of the obvious usefulness of this option, many companies simply forget to add it for some reason.
Electronic signature. Another option, without this one, it is inconceivable to imagine an electronic document management system. It allows your users (companies, their employees) to sign documents legally. As in case with OCR, it is better not to create this function from scratch, but use appropriate API.
Offline access. Make sure your EDI platform allows users to view, edit and download files when it' s necessary. This will be useful when a stable Internet connection is not available or when your customers need a solution that maximizes energy savings.
Ukranian Diya is a governmental application and web-portal, which provides its services to users on a free-of-charge basis. It doesn't mean that everything on the site is free. There are paid services, for example, restoration or driving license exchange in Diya costs 219 UAH (about $6), but this is the cost of the service by default and its amount does not depend on whether you use Diya or not.
If you create your analogue of Diya, but in another country, you are probably going to use a similar business model. However, if you want to launch a commercial solution, then you will need to choose a monetization model:
Backend. To implement the hardware and software part of your electronic document management platform, the following technologies are used:
