The Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (Inail) is a government entity that serves Italy’s workers, providing them with protections and advocacy at work. Inail wanted to simplify access to its services and support citizens remotely, so it worked with Microsoft and Microsoft Partner Network members Accenture and Avanade to build Sportello Digitale. Sportello Digitale is an intuitive online app built on Microsoft Power Apps, Dynamics 365, Teams, and Viva that helps citizens quickly and easily connect with Inail employees. Since the app’s launch, no citizen who has made an appointment online through Sportello Digitale has needed a second appointment to provide additional details on their case, and Inail has benefitted as well with reduced the costs, labor, and time spent resolving cases.
“Starting with an internal digitization process that began with the pandemic, Inail decided to introduce digital solutions for citizens as well, to facilitate processes and make our offerings more dynamic. Thanks to technology, today we are able to provide citizens with clear and qualified answers to solve their requests, offering users the guarantee of safe and reliable tools.”
Carlo Biasco, Head of Human Resources, Inail, with previous assignment from the Regional Directorate of Sicily at the time of the experimentation and project start-up
Supporting citizens
Since 1933, the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (Inail) has been serving the citizens of Italy. Inail is a public, non-profit organization with a mission to protect workers against injury and illness on the job and support them through recovery when accidents and injuries do occur. Nine thousand Inail employees are responsible for managing insurance for all of Italy’s workers, providing services like injury prevention, helping protect people with hazardous jobs, advocating for people injured at work, and organizing care for a worker’s physical and mental wellbeing.
Managing cases could be cumbersome for citizens and Inail employees as Italian government regulations use processes that depend on physical paperwork. Communication between an Inail employee and the citizens it serves could be disjointed, and Inail employees spent a lot of time tracking down all the relevant information. It was rare to have background details on a case before the first appointment, too.
When COVID-19 disrupted daily life around the world, Italy made big investments in its economy and infrastructure, which included support for Inail to increase its digital transformation efforts. Working with Microsoft, Microsoft Partner Network members Accenture and Avanade, and other technology vendors, Inail created a self-service app that citizens can use to easily schedule an appointment to meet with an Inail representative, either remotely or in-person. The app, called Sportello Digitale, is built with Microsoft Power Apps, Dynamics 365 and other Microsoft cloud technologies.
The conception of Sportello Digitale was conducted through co-design sessions with the staff of Inail's Direzione Centrale Organizzazione Digitale (DCOD) and from time to time improved through the receipt of feedback from the offices that participated in the experimentation phase, with a view to continuous improvement of the solution.
The service has seen a gradual extension, starting with an initial testing phase that involved some branches of DR Sicily, DR Lazio and DR Lombardy, and then being adopted by the 187 branches throughout the country. The implementation of Sportello Digitale was accompanied by the strategic definition of a change management plan, which saw the organization of training meetings involving the staff of Inail's territorial offices and the sharing of training material to support the adoption and use of the tool.
Modernizing a critical service
Diana Artuso, Director of the Catania Territorial Office at Inail, says, “Our citizens asked us for a high-quality, intuitive experience, tailored to their needs and accessible from mobile. Our platform not only provides a simplified process, but we’re helping Italy’s citizens have greater trust in public administration.” That trust is built when citizens have positive experiences due to greater accessibility, inclusivity, and flexibility.
Italian for “Digital Door,” Sportello Digitale is a custom app built with Power Apps, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Viva. Citizens log into Sportello Digitale and submit an appointment request with relevant details about their case. They can select to attend the appointment in-person or remotely via Microsoft Teams, using the device of their choice.
Viva pulls in the citizen data—information like contact details, appointment details, and the reason for the appointment—from Microsoft 365 and Teams. Dynamics 365 facilitates the collection, processing, and analysis of that data, and turns it into an overview of a citizen’s background and request. This helps Inail employees quickly access a citizen’s information and determine how to address the citizen’s request.
“The platform has brought clarity to the conversation between user and citizen, and it's intuitive and easy to use,” Artuso says.
Carlo Biasco, head of Human Resources in Inail, with previous assignment from the Regional Directorate of Sicily at the time of the experimentation and project start-up, adds, “We can respond more quickly and accurately, which helps our citizens know they can trust us to provide a clear, qualified response in a short period of time.”
Fostering public trust
Though the app only launched in July 2022, Artuso and Biasco know that Sportello Digitale is effective because citizens who book appointments through it do not need follow-up appointments, as they can provide the information about their case at once.
“Increasing response speed and knowing a citizen’s request before an appointment has helped us save in terms of cost, time, and resources, with the added benefit of greater clarity,” Artuso says.
Creating Sportello Digitale has helped Inail consider other ways to use digital tools to replace physical paperwork, support online appointments, and further automate internal processes. While much of Italy’s bureaucracy is still paper-based because of national regulations, Inail is helping to modernize how Italian public institutions serve their citizens.
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“The platform has brought clarity to the conversation between user and citizen, and it's intuitive and easy to use.”
Diana Artuso, Director of the Catania Territorial Office, Inail
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