CASSY – Citizen Assistance and Support System

Innovative eGovernment of the next generation

Socially -Intelligent services

Effective solutions for Communes, Cities and Districts

Increased customer satisfaction via user-centeredness and personalised self-service.

Better, faster and more efficient service offers and service delivery.

eGovernment Solutions

CASSY is a web self-service tool for publicauthorities to deliver all the services theyoffer to citizens and external organisations,anytime, anywhere, in an intuitive and ef-fective manner. CASSY allows the authorities to conduct apersonal, humanized conversation with theuser. Instead of requiring bureaucratic jar-gon and a knowledge of the opaque inter-nal structure of public authorities, CASSYenables citizens and companies to conducttheir business in a simple natural languagerelated to the task at hand. The services offered by CASSY are organ-ised around life-circumstance themes likemarriage, children, relocation, job (coveringtopics like employment, education, taxesetc.), formation of a company (coveringtopics like incorporation, funding, patentsetc.), market entry and internationalisation(covering topics like legal position, locationfactors, taxes etc.). Based on the latest open technology stan-dards, CASSY can be easily integrated withlegacy systems and secures your invest-ment when new systems or applicationsare added. For example CASSY can beseamlessly integrated with your Content orDocument Management System or withyour existing Customer Relations Manage-ment solution.

CASSY is a true eCare product that lets users of a website achieve their goals quickly and by themselves.Interacting with CASSY is both enjoyable and efficient.This induces the user to stay longer on the site and toexplore its features as well as to return more often. To the public authority CASSY means saving resources,enhancing productivity, cutting costs, an improved knowl-edge about the users and therefore a better serviceproposition. CASSY is self-learning and dynamicallyadapts itself to the changing user demands and behav-iour. Via its socially-intelligent and intuitive interfacesCASSY allows you to offer your users a better experienceon your site. Even more, CASSY turns out to be a truerepresentative of your agency, that delivers qualified con-sulting services around the clock.

CASSY is eGovernment of the next generation

Comfortable, anytime, from anywhere

Human touch and personalised

Fast, Effective and self-learning

Knowledge building

Cost reduction

CASSY – Citizen Assistance and Support System

CASSY

Improved Service First of all CASSY is a reliable consultant that offers users rele-vant information and solutions according to their individual cir-cumstances. That is not all. On behalf of the user and takinginto account security standards such as those associated withelectronic signatures, CASSY even manages to perform com-plex transactions that include regional and national public ser-vices, as well as those from the private sector. CASSY is thekey for the delegated Supply Chain Management of networkedagency services. For example in case of a relocation CASSY will inform the citi-zens about all the necessary steps via a natural language dia-log, tailored to their specific circumstances. Like a professionalconsultant, CASSY will provide the solution in the shortest time.With the authorisation of the citizen (e.g. via a chip-card and anelectronic signature) CASSY can perform the relocation regis-tration not just with public authorities but it can also take overthe registration with the telecommunication company, theelectricity and water suppliers, the garbage collection service,and the newspaper boy. This represents a convenient, time-saving service for the citizen. „ Data should move, not the citizens “, so Otto Schily,Federal Minister of the Interior, at the opening ceremonyof the CeBIT 2002 in Hannover.

CASSY(1) is not just an eGovernment virtual - employee thatreacts quickly and competently to questions and requests forservice but it can, if requested, also pro-actively deliver rele-vant information to the user, in a timely fashion and over a va-riety of communication channels. CASSY can even performtasks autonomously on behalf of the user, always choosing thesolution that best suits his user.

Service

(1) Parts of CASSY were integrated and evaluated in a real on-lineeGovernment project supported in the Fifth Framework programme bythe European Commission in the IST initiative and included in the clus-ter of projects EUTIST-AMI (www.eutist-ami.org) regarding Agents andMiddleware Technologies applied in real industrial environments.

Focussing on the citizen „The needs of the citizens are unknown to most city halls“, so Wilhem Alms, CEO of the consulting company Mummert und Partner. The key to an efficient and effective eGovernment solu-tion is a citizen-focused service model that treats eachcitizen individually, tailoring the communication and ser-vice offer according to their individual needs and expecta-tions. With each interaction CASSY learns more details about acitizen or a company. Using anonymous or personalisedcommunication sessions, CASSY is in the position to con-tinuously and consistently record and evaluate problems,needs, requirements, opinions, preferences and patternsof behaviour of its users. This is used to develop a moreprecise understanding of the user and to identify contentgaps in order to improve the interaction dialog and to op-timise the service offers dynamically. This approachguarantees that users will reach their goals faster andhave a better experience, and that agencies will reachtheir economic and political goals more efficiently.

Personalised Self-Service CASSY puts the users in a position tosolve their problems on their own, fastand easily. Interactions with CASSYspan from an initial search for relevantfactual information using natural lan-guage queries, over interactive Ques-tion & Answer support according to aselected theme or topic, to the com-plete tailored solution (procedural in-formation) to a particular problem. The deep knowledge of the users en-ables the authority to build a personal-ised service offer that satisfies the indi-vidual users and invites them to use themedium more often. The user is moti-vated to intensify communication withthe public authority which, in turn, al-lows the authority to permanently im-prove the information and satisfactionof its customers and also educate themconcerning policy and regulatorychanges. CASSY observes how the users dealwith the offered information, forms, andprocesses and also collects explicitfeedback information. It processesthese data to locate bottlenecks. Thisapproach allows the administration toimprove their service offers. CASSY can give your users more con-trol over the transactions of administra-tive acts and thus improve the trans-parency of your authority. As a matterof course CASSY automatically informsthe user when a problem or request issolved. Using CASSY, customers canget timely information via personalisedemails or newsletters according to theirneeds and interests. „Online-services in governmentagencies will soon be the rule andnot the exception,“ promises OttoSchily, Federal Minister of the Inte-rior during the presentation of theeGovernment initiative ‚BundOnline2005’ in December 2001 in Berlin.

Service

Our strategy - via a user-centered ap-proach and personalised self-service,CASSY delivers increased customersatisfaction, a higher degree of auto-mation and better decision support forgovernmental agents through accessto consistent user records. Thus bet-ter, faster and more efficient serviceoffers and service delivery.

The technology uses a flexible, scalable and highly availableinfrastructure that allows for easy integration of existing andfuture systems, applications and data sources. Openness andprotection of investment is guaranteed by standard confor-mance (J2EE, SOAP, XML, …). This includes support for vari-ous interfaces like, Web, Wap, and SMS to the user and Web-Services, JDBC, and Java Connectors for the integration withother services, applications and legacy systems. CASSY iscompliant with SAGA (Standards and Architectures foreGovernment Applications) – the standards conformance recommendation of the German eGovernment initiative “BundOnline 2005” (www.bund.de/BundOnline-2005/SAGA).CASSY is based on Agentscape’s basic platform CyMON(Create your Match and Organising Netware), a development-and runtime-environment for socially-intelligent agent applica-tions.

The architecture comprises three tiers with the followingcomponents: Web-, WebServices-Interfaces, Natural Lan-guage Understanding (NLU) Engine, Personalisation Engine,Interaction Engine, Learning Engine, Knowledge Base, Exter-nal Services, Persistency Service, Connectors for the integra-tion with legacy systems – see figure.

The administration is supported by graphical tools. Theseinclude life-cycle management (simple installation with anassistant, automatic upgrades), management tools for theconfiguration and monitoring, and authoring tools for the crea-tion and maintenance of content and interaction scenarios. Multiplatform: AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, UnixWare, Win-dows, etc. System requirements: Java compatible platform; installableon a single server, linearly scalable to higher load, fault toler-ance via redundancy; also integration in already installed J2EEconformant servers like BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere orOracle. Professional services – Agentscape AG supports you in theintroduction of the eGovernment solution in your environmentcovering consultancy and strategic planning, the design, theimplementation and testing, as well as the rollout and trainingof your staff. Projects are carried out according to the “state ofthe art” methodology Rational Unified Process (RUP) using theUnified Modelling Language (UML) and tools of the RationalSuite to assure the timely delivery and quality of the productwithin budget and the overall success of the project.

Technology

Partner: CASSY is compatible with thecontent management systems of leadingmanufacturers, like active-City and RE-GIOCity by Net-Com AG in order to offerthe authorities the best eGovernment sys-tem. The integration of CASSY with one ofthese content management systems re-sults in the optimal technical infrastructurefor offering an improved citizen portal in-tegrating the leading customer manage-ment solution and the eGovernment ex-pertise of cities and regions.

Software

Each interaction scenario is part of the hierarchical struc-tured scenario tree (the taxonomy). It can be selected andchanged. After the import from the content managementsystem the content of your website can immediately beembedded in the interaction-scenarios.

The agent can give answer to the users questions but alsoraise questions and collect data in order to direct the userto the right place on your website.

The Application As an extension to your content man-agement system, CASSY offers anInteraction Scenario ManagementTool. You can use it to create andapply changes to the existing dialogsand interaction sequences of yourCASSY- agent. The tool provides the following fea-tures: �� Extensibility of the scenarios �� Import of content from the con-

tent management system, so thatthe consulting functionality isautomatically adjusted to thecontent of your website

�� Predefined library of dialogs, so

that you can start your interactivewebsite right out-of-the-box.

�� Integrated testing tool, so that the

changes and extensions can bechecked immediately

�� Intuitive, easy to use graphical

user interface, even for inexperi-enced users

The Administration The administration is as comfortableas in your Windows environment. �� Automatic installation with the

installation assistant �� Configuration and monitoring of

the servers via an integrated webinterface

Step 1: Scenario Structure (Taxonomy)

Step 2: Scenario Editing

Scenario Due to Cassy the citizencan use free text tosubmit a request and …

... the agent will directthe user to the rele-vant information, by ...

... raising questions tocollect additional datafrom the user ...

... and finally executingthe transaction or pro-viding and filling thenecessary forms andexplaining the steps tobe further taken.

The forms pool contains all important forms requiredfor the changing life-circumstances.

Hello! My name is Cassy. I amglad to meet you on behalf of theCity of Melle.

“The City of Melle has selectedCASSY as one of the first cities inGermany not just because of thegood usability and the short pro-ject duration. CASSY convincesmainly by the facility to interactwith the agent and the resultingexcellent service. The usage ofthe system is simple, saves timeand money and is fun for theuser. Using CASSY it is possibleto give the citizen the same indi-vidual consulting and service overthe Internet as at the counter inthe public authority premises.Thus CASSY provides a new di-mension in the development ofservices and service tools.” Uwe Strakeljahn Director IT and Internet Services City of Melle Germany

Bülowstraße 66 D-10783 Berlin Germany

Tel: +49-(30) - 59 00 478 –0 Fax: +49-(30) - 59 00 478 –99 email: info@agentscape.de Web: http://www.agentscape.de

Agentscape AG

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eGovernment Solutions

� 2002 Agentscape AG. All rights reserved. CyMON and Cyb are trademarks of Agentscape AG. All other names are trade-marks of their respective owners.

Agentscape AG is a provider of basic technology for dy-namic personalisation and social-oriented intelligent busi-ness Agents and systems, applications and services basedon this technology. The company’s vision is a Multi-Agent system where per-sonal agents (Cybs) and provider agents (CyMON) commu-nicate, negotiate and execute transactions in an autono-mous manner, on behalf of and in the interests of their own-ers.

Agentscape sees its core competence in the

�� proprietary real-time natural language technology -

morpho-syntactic and semantic disambiguation as

well as in the semantic annotation of unstructured in-

formation by means of proprietary categoriza-

tion/indexing technology, and

�� domain of Knowledge Management Agents based

on neural and semantic network technology and ad-

vanced AI matching algorithms, as well as in ontol-

ogy-based SemanticWeb