City Government Builds Mobile App in 12 Days to Speed Delivery of Emergency Aid Requests

For government agencies in need of digital solutions to better serve their citizens, Mendix is offering a complimentary 90 day license paired with discounted implementation services (US only) from our partner Kinetech.

Global governments are responsible for delivering services that keep people safe during times of crisis. The sudden increase in demand for government services in the wake of COVID-19 is leaving agencies overloaded and struggling to help as a result of historically underfunded IT budgets, manual processes, and aging, inflexible systems.

For the City of San Antonio, the 7th largest city in the United States, the public need for financial assistance spiked rapidly in early March. The Neighborhood & Housing Services Department went from receiving 57 applications each day for rental, mortgage, utility, and relocation assistance to over 2,000. Traditionally applications were submitted in person and caseworkers contacted each individual to validate their information – steps that became near impossible in the wake of a global pandemic.

Getting $14M in Aid to Citizens as Quickly as Possible

With $14 million to disperse and applicants waiting to receive aid, the City needed to quickly digitalize this system. City officials passed an emergency amendment to secure funds for a cloud-based replacement tool, but with a time-sensitive task at hand knew that the quickest time to market would be through a partner who already had the right tools, skillsets, and agile processes in place. As residents of the City themselves, that partner was Kinetech – a custom enterprise software provider and expert in low-code development using Mendix.

Reducing Time to Receiving Aid to 1 Week

In just 12 days the City used low-code development to build and launch a new cross-platform application which processed over 1,000 requests in its first day live. Now, residents have a centralized system to upload their documentation, making the validation process easier for employees and providing greater visibility for both parties at every turn. Requests that traditionally took one month to process now only take one week, getting residents the immediate help they need to pay for housing and other critical expenses.

Learn more about a complimentary 90 day license for public sector organizations

A quick path to digitalization

Low-code has helped public sector organizations create solutions to better serve citizens including:

Increasing speed of information through digital communication tools to reduce dependency on in-person or phone interactions
Meeting citizens wherever they are with multi-experience solutions with features such as offline access and chat functionality to provide users a modern, seamless mobile experience

About Kinetech

Kinetech, a platform Mendix partner, is a provider of custom enterprise software delivered through the cloud with a focus on improved organizational productivity. The company focuses on cloud, mobile, and integrated technologies, using low-code to solve real client problems.