The challenge

A National Police Agency needed a partner who could collaborate closely with their in-house teams, using a hybrid Agile approach to deliver a brand new Financial Investigation Support System.  

Why the need for change?

Well, the existing system was starting to show its age. It couldn’t keep up.

Requirements were growing more and more complex, and with the outdated system, this led to a lot of time consuming retro keying to move data between different silos. The user experience (UX) was also a real problem on the legacy system  and needed a major overhaul - a real need for a step change was in order.

The successful organisation was to handle everything from discovery and data migration to development, operations, support and maintenance. But that wasn’t all. This new system needed a tailored technical approach that fit the bill and worked for the client, with a successful delivery and consistent quality assurance every step of the way. 

The right provider for this project not only needed to have a track record with Agile methods, but also strong expertise in using open-source solutions, especially Drupal. On top of that they’d need to integrate smoothly with the clients team, collaborating closely and working side by side throughout the project.

But, was the National Police Agency looking for just a typical development company? Of course not! This project was about partnership and on top of everything there was a big unknown in the mix: data migration from the legacy system. The application had been in use for 11 years and no known technical documentation existed to help with the process. A real challenge.

The solution

Affinity won this work thanks to our deep understanding of the requirements, our delivery approach and our competitive pricing. 

As leading experts in the use of Drupal with a demonstrable track record, we were excited to be awarded the development and support contract for the new platform. 

Right from the start, user experience (UX) and Migration was at the forefront of the requirements and the top priorities. The legacy system had evolved during its long life and it was clear that the original specification didn’t map all the requirements. 

How we tackled this challenge:

• Collaborative working: We worked closely with the client to map data and plan the migration. By mapping user personas, we ensured that we understood the requirements of each user group. 

• Process Improvements: Rather than simply reinventing the same application, we provided advice and recommendations on how simple changes to business and user processes could reduce ongoing costs and streamline operations. 

• Data Migration: We're no strangers to data migration and integrations, but to be handed a 20gb database backup with no technical information was a first for us! But, our team navigated the migration effectively, following best practices throughout the development stages.

• Agile Development: Making use of best practice we launched the service as a public beta after completing  alpha and private beta cycles. Continuous updates as part of the continued development cycle enabled the sprint team to quickly adapt to changing requirements. 

Working both on site and remotely, the Affinity team were able to assist the National Police Agency in every aspect of delivering this project throughout its life cycle.  

Whilst our development team worked on the application foundation, our business analysts and technical architects collaborated with the  National Police Agency to plan and align open source modules with their business requirements. 

Sprint planning could then begin. 

Our Sprint Planning Process:  

• Review: We collaborated with the business team to decide which user requirements would be included in any one sprint. This allowed for on-going prioritisation of requirements. 

• Development and testing: Development and testing occurred during the beginning and the  end of each sprint, resulting in our  delivery team providing a demonstration to business team members and a vertically integrated version being presented to key business users.

Our approach combined experience, compatibility and innovation and made Affinity the clear choice to deliver this high-profile contract. The end solution empowered the National Police Agency with self-service accounts and team management for their 11,000+ users, significantly reducing account management overhead. The training and course management system offers complex workflows, online training courses, event management, invoicing, organisation and sub organisation management, digital asset management and more - all within a sleek, modern, responsive application.