Simple App yields significant savings for Lillestrøm Municipality

A cost-effective and intuitive application enables Lillestrøm Municipality to save several workdays each month in managing part-time employees in the Active Leisure-service. The app operates as a cloud service in Oracle Cloud and is developed using Oracle's low code tool APEX.

Active Leisure in Lillestrøm Municipality facilitates cultural and leisure experiences for children, youth, and adults who require assistance due to their challenges in order to have an active and meaningful leisure time. The offering includes services like leisure contacts, support contacts, user-driven personal assistance (BPA), practical assistance and training, home nursing, ergo- and physiotherapy, cancer coordination, individual planning, and much more.  Active Leisure has seven employees working on various services, in addition to nearly 250 part-time employees and support contacts working with Active Leisure service users.

Lillestrøm Municipality used to spend a lot of time administering and coordinating the Active Leisure service. Additionally, calculating wages for all part-time employees was challenging. Often, time sheets arrived late, and the verification process was time-consuming.

• Intuitive and easy to use.
• Secure and safe login.
• Make administration more efficient.
• Integration with the municipality's payroll system.

Developed in Oracle Cloud and Low Code

Lillestrøm Municipality contacted Cegal, which began developing the Active Leisure application based on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Application Express (APEX), Oracle's low code platform.

- We chose Cegal because they could tailor a comprehensive solution for us, one that also protected sensitive information. Our need was a digital tool for administrative staff, part-time employees, support contacts, service recipients, and relatives, says Ole-Martin Egge Hveem, team leader in Active Leisure at Lillestrøm Municipality.

To create the best possible application, Cegal assembled a project team with experts in OCI, Oracle databases, APEX, and user interfaces (UI). Along the way, end-users in Active Leisure contributed to testing and provided feedback on functionality and user-friendliness.

- With the Active Leisure app, we have a digital platform where we have consolidated everything in one place. Our part-time employees enter their hours themselves. Users, user's relatives, and employees can communicate with each other through the app, and it's easy for administration to approve time sheets and send them for payroll processing. 

The application makes us more efficient. We save a lot of time and gain a good overview of the work done

Ole-Martin Egge Hveem - team lead Active Leisure -  Lillestrøm Municipality

He adds that the tool has been extremely helpful in consolidating "Active Leisure" tasks in the same system. The system communicates well with other IT systems used by the municipality.

Customized for Active Leisure

"Together with Cegal, we have developed an app tailored for time registration of part-time work in the municipality. Managers can easily approve and submit hours for payroll. The hours are transferred directly from the app to the payroll system with minimal processing at the payroll office," says Egge Hveem.

The app replaces time-consuming, manual processes of paper time sheet approvals, resulting in faster payment for part-time employees and fewer errors.

Ole-Martin Egge Hveem

- The app saves the administration approximately ten hours per month, almost two workdays, which is very valuable. It's also easy to download summaries to spreadsheets, shared calendars for group activities, messaging features, and easy email communication with many recipients at once, says Egge Hveem in Lillestrøm Municipality.

The app's features emphasize the importance of security and ensuring the identity of users.

- Since security was essential, we integrated the ID-port, a common login solution for online services in Norway, into the app. With REST APIs, personal information is fetched from other business systems, and payroll information is transferred to the payroll system, says Johnny Bjørnstad, Manager Business Service at Cegal.
 

Low-code fra Oracle

Bjørnstad explains that they chose to use Oracle APEX as the low code development tool. This has made it quick and cost-effective to develop the Active Leisure app. For Lillestrøm Municipality, this means they quickly recoup the costs of IT development in terms of saved work hours and increased productivity.

- With APEX, you can develop web applications and apps using wizards that allow you to connect ready-made functions and elements. This makes it up to 30 times faster to create apps than with traditional development, and it requires 20 times less coding, continues Bjørnstad at Cegal.

APEX makes it up to 30 times faster to create apps than with traditional development, and it requires 20 times less coding

Johnny Bjørnstad, Manager Business Services - Cegal

In the APEX framework, it's easy to use services like push notifications, Geo location, and communication.