What we're working on: Fall and winter 2024

Happy belated new year to everyone! I'm a little late posting and missed the fall update, but we've got several different projects in flight. For anyone new to these posts - this is a list of many of the public-facing digital services and websites we have partnered with other government teams on and we also talk about some of our own projects. 

Websites

Better to Know

The new website launched as planned this past summer and the team is already planning their next phase of work! This site is an online resource for Yukon youth on the topic of sexual health and it contains a combination of educational resources and support services.

Boards and committees

You can currently see all boards and committees with vacancies on Yukon.ca. The new service will allow people to get notifications, and apply online. This winter the team completed their Discovery/Alpha service maturity assessment and they are working on implementing requirements. They plan to launch this iteration of the service before the end of the fiscal year.

Quitpath

This website supports people to reduce or quit their use of commercial tobacco products. This past winter the team have been taking user research to the next level. They did the following activities and more.

• Had a workshop to review their content and develop a content strategy. They develop so many different materials and it was time to take stock and determine the best place for these materials - in a doctor's office or health centre, on the website, on one of their social media channels, etc.
• Audited their content to decide what information would stay on the new site and what information was redundant or out of date.
• Using findings from a card sort they previously conducted, they started to map out where the existing and new content would go on the website.
• They ran a tree test to help them see if the new way of organizing the content would work for their clients. 
• They used the new structure to identify content types and developed wireframes with the content to understand how everything would fit together. 

They are in the process of working with a designer to create prototypes and then expect to build the site next fiscal year. We'll provide another update once we see what they do next!

Tourism data dashboard

This dashboard will provide people with a snapshot of key tourism indicators. You’ll be able to look at trends, visitor estimates and other economic indicators. The team working on the dashboard have completed their last service maturity assessment and they are finalizing the content. They are aiming to launch the dashboard later on this spring.

Water Board

Yukon Water Board staff have been back at work on their new website. This winter they completed usability testing. They've taken what they learned and they’re making updates to improve the user experience. Once the content is finalized they’ll get the website translated before launching it this spring. 

Yukon.ca

The bulk of the Drupal 7 to 10 migration was completed this past summer and fall. This was a massive amount of work with contributions from across the government. 

The Yukon.ca product owner has also led a series of roadmapping sessions with website managers from across the government. This roadmap took the findings from the Yukon.ca assessment work and inputs from UX work and department business needs to map out the priorities and course of work on the site for the next few years. 

Once the roadmap is completed we’ll announce it on the blog and share it with the public.

Citizen engagement platform

Work is underway to complete a procurement for the citizen engagement platform. This is an opportunity to evaluate the performance of the present tool and ensure the platform meets a variety of business and user needs. 

These purpose of the citizen engagement platform is to allow department to communicate these opportunities to the public using modern tools and methods the public expect when they provide their input.

Transactional services and online forms

Apply for economic development funding

This portal will house multiple economic development funding programs. The team have started with the Community Development Fund and they're testing it out to make sure everything works before they add more digital services to the portal. 

This system will allow people to apply for funding and manage their applications online. We estimate this first service will be live some time this spring. 

Authorizations, Inspections, Monitoring and Enforcement (AIMES) system

AIMES is a new system where people will be able to apply for a variety of permits online. It will also allow staff to approve and issue the permits online. There is no planned launch date at the moment as the team are in the process of determining which services to include in the initial launch and testing everything. We'll update you once we know more. 

Court registry information system

This is a multi-year project to update how lawyers and others interact with the Yukon Courts. We’re creating online forms as part of this project and working with the team to integrate MyYukon to the service. 

Home owners grant application

This is an application for people to apply for a home-owners grant. The team are currently working on integrating the service with MyYukon and the plan is to launch near the end of February or early March.

Invite the premier

Another form that is part of the pilot project, this will allow organizations to request the premier’s attendance or participation at an event. The program are working on completing their Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) in preparation of the launch. They expect this will be toward the end of February.

Sewage disposal system permitting

Home owners and contractors can now apply for sewage disposal system permits online. The digital service soft-launched earlier this winter. You can visit their Yukon.ca page to contact the team to try it out.

Wildlife handling permit application

This is another forms project where we’re working with the program to create an online application so researchers can apply for a permit online. We are in the process of implementing client feedback and then will complete UX and QA reviews. The goal is to launch this before the end of the fiscal year.

Wildlife research permit application

This application is part of the forms pilot project. The idea is researchers can apply for a permit and the program staff can approve and issue the permit via the service. The program area are also testing this service on another platform to determine which will help them meet their business and user needs. We expect to have an update in the coming months.

Youth Investment Fund

The Youth Investment Fund provides financial support to short-term projects aimed at youth under 19 with fewer opportunities or who experience a form of discrimination. We’re in the process of building online forms so applicants can apply online. This project is nearing completion and we expect to launch it to the public later this month or early in March. 

Yukon Corporate Online Registration System (YCOR)

This registry system is how the government stores and tracks basic information about corporations and other bodies. This project is a pilot where we’ll build a new service for corporations to maintain their information in the system. 

Yukon Summer Career Placement

This is an online form to support the Yukon Summer Career Placement program. This is one of the programs for businesses to apply for a subsidy to hire a Yukon student or youth. The team expect to launch the form this fiscal year.

Open government

Work is ongoing to migrate from our current open government portal software to a new version powered by CKAN, a widely-used open data management system. At the moment, we’re working on building a CKAN theme that incorporates the government’s visual design and meets our Digital Service Standards. This also includes bringing in the metadata schemas used by our existing open government portal and the Access to Information Registry.

We’re really lucky to work with experienced vendors that specialize in CKAN and open-source software development, with the central ATIPP Office in the Corporate Information Management branch, and with data practitioners and teams across the Yukon government as this project comes together. The new CKAN implementation opens up a lot of doors for future data automation, API access, and re-use. We’re looking forward to it all coming together in the months ahead.

eServices for Citizens projects

Email newsletters and notifications

eServices has launched a new communication platform service using Envoke. This platform allows government teams to create, publish and send email newsletters and notifications. Users can opt in by subscribing and opt out by unsubscribing to a variety of newsletters and notifications. 

The team have completed a platform PIA and STRA and the platform meets Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). 

Read more about this platform and how the government plans to use it.

MyYukon

The MyYukon sign in service is widely used to access government digital services like: driving and transportation, campground reservations, student financial assistance, and energy rebates. 

MyYukon currently has 31,773 users. In January there were 4,347 monthly active users. 

Since the last update people using MyYukon can:

• access hunting and fishing licenses with their MyYukon; and
• opt in for multi-factor authentication (MFA) for an extra layer of security for logging in.

Online forms

The forms modernization project has gained momentum. In addition to Docuphase, we are using Adobe Experience Manager to build online forms (digital services) for the public to access government programs and services. 

Over the fall and winter the forms team have begin work on a handful of pilot forms. Staff have ben trained, we’ve applied the Yukon.ca Design System and built many of the government’s standards into the templates and updated the forms standards.

We expect to launch several forms over the next few months. Then we’ll take what we’ve learned and apply it to the next batch of forms to iterate and make more improvements.

Moving forward we'll add the forms to the list of transactional services in these updates so you can see which ones the government is working on.