Bring the interoperability of your digital public service to the next level with IMAPS

Dr. Raul Abril, IMAPS Project Officer, Interoperability Unit, Directorate General for Informatics, European Commission

Today, the interoperability maturity of digital public services provided by EU public administrations scores on average at “essential” level. This means that the services implement the key interoperability aspects in a basic way: they use one digital channel, partial pre-filling or make a service catalogue publicly available. 
To make their service “sustainable” or even “seamless”, public organisations have to align it with a set of good practices. For example, information on the criminal records service should be available in multiple languages, apart from the country’s official language(s), and provide full procedural transparency. 
IMAPS provides public service owners with the keys to interoperability good practices that allow them to upgrade their digital public service. 

What value can IMAPS bring to your organisation?
IMAPS is an online questionnaire enabling public service owners to evaluate the interoperability maturity of their digital public services regarding its behavioural aspects. Fully aligned with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), IMAPS gives insight into opportunities for improving the interoperability of a digital public service, in a national and cross-border context. 

After completing the survey, the public service owner receives, together with the assessment results, an interoperability score and a set of recommendations for making the digital service more interoperable. 

Not only can IMAPS be used to assess the interoperability of any public service provided digitally – from open data portals, to e-tax payment services or public procurement procedures. It also covers all levels of government (i.e. international, national, regional and local) and considers a digital public service from a front- and back-office perspective.  
The questionnaire can be accessed online via the EU Survey portal, is free of charge and can be easily completed (in approximately 30 minutes).

IMAPS has been used by EU institutions for assessing Trans-European Systems as well as by public administrations such as eJustice, INSPIRE or EURES. Up-to-date, more than 150 assessments have been carried out with IMAPS, showing a variety of services in different policy areas, such as e-invoicing service, social care online application or electronic health record access.
In 2018, for example, 19 EU countries applied IMAPS to check how well their public service is scoring in terms of interoperability. 51 public services were assessed, with six relating to cross-border services and one relating to non-EU countries. You can discover more highlights in our 2018 IMAPS report. 

How can IMAPS help your organisation in getting ready for the Single Digital Gateway?
The IMAPS solution can accelerate your organisation’s efforts in aligning your administrative procedures with the requirements of the Single Digital Gateway. The Single Digital Gateway, established by EU Regulation 2018/1724 in October 2018, is designed as a platform where citizens and businesses can find and access a list of public services offered online by public administrations all over the EU. To promote services to the Gateway, public administrations need to make sure that they meet a set of requirements. Furthermore, by December 2023, all EU countries have to ensure that a list of 21 important administrative procedures will be available fully online.

By allowing you to assess the digital maturity of your public services, IMAPS can help your organisation identify and select the most suitable and digitally mature public services, which can be promoted to the Single Digital Gateway while getting recommendations for improvement.

How can we support your organisation in your uptake of IMAPS?
If you are interested in deploying IMAPS at a larger scale within your organisation, we can organise local knowledge transfer sessions and guide you through the IMAPS assessment of your digital public services. Contact us by sending an e-mail to DIGIT-IMAPS@ec.europa.eu and we will help you explore the approach for this undertaking. We are looking forward to assisting you in bringing the interoperability of your digital public service to the next level!

Would you like to know more? 
For more information on IMAPS, we invite you to visit the IMAPS solution on the ISA² website and join our IMAPS community on JoinUp. The Single Interoperability Assessment Gateway (SIAG) shows you the link of IMAPS with the other interoperability assessment solutions developed under the ISA² programme.

Get started!
Curious to know at what maturity level does your digital public service score? You are only one click away: start the survey!

Share your story!
Have you successfully assessed your digital public service with IMAPS? Would you like to share your experience with other public service owners and/or provide suggestions for improving the IMAPS tool? We are looking for you! Contact us via e-mail DIGIT-IMAPS@ec.europa.eu.