Background

South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council partnered with Insight to enhance its data warehouse platform. Ahead of local elections in May 2023, the council wanted to use its upgraded data management infrastructure to deliver real-time election results for the first time. It turned to Insight for assistance in developing and implementing a cutting-edge solution.

Challenge

After investing in the enhancement of its data warehouse, the councils sought to demonstrate the value it could offer key audiences – through improved engagement and internal efficiencies.

It began exploring how it could be used to deliver a more captivating election result experience for those present in the counting room, by visually displaying results in real-time.

Additionally, instead of constituents having to rely on third party websites for information, it wanted to develop a way of displaying results on its website.

However, it recognised that it did not have the resource or experience to quickly develop an effective solution.

“The way results are presented during the elections count has not massively changed over the years. We wanted to create something which better engaged the audience both in the room and our residents in the local election results. Working with Insight has helped us to transform our election results, displaying the results in a way which enabled people to follow the results as they were announced. It looked amazing in the venue and we received many compliments about the real-time reporting, quality of the data and visual aspect of the dashboard.”

Sinead Carey, Strategy & Intelligence Manager, South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council

 

“This project helped demonstrate the potential of the Power Platform and we were impressed by the speed at which Insight was able to design, develop and deliver a working product.”

Shaun Crook, Transformation and Innovation Lead Office, South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council

 

Solution and Outcome

To deliver the vote counting dashboard, Insight leveraged Microsoft’s Power Apps no-code platform to rapidly develop and deploy a cutting-edge solution.

Insight’s Architect advised that the most effective way to develop the live dashboard would be to link Power Apps with Power BI through its enhanced Azure Data Warehouse – where election results were securely stored.

After completing development, Insight conducted a series of rigorous tests and simulations with the Councils to ensure the dashboard would perform as expected at the election count, both on the website and in the counting room.

As a result, 100% accurate, live, real-time election count results were delivered through a visual dashboard on a big screen in the counting room. For the first time, attendees could track results as counts were uploaded to the cloud, while near-real-time updates were available on the council’s website, with results refreshed every 10-15 minutes. Demonstrating the appeal of the tool, media outlets also used photos of the dashboard in their reports.

The solution eliminated the need for the council to collect and report election results through manual methods such as paper or Excel spreadsheets. Additionally, automated website updates reduced time requirements, and minimised the potential for human error.

Why Insight?

As the leading Solutions Integrator, with 34+ years of expertise and extensive partner relationships, Insight has a deep understanding of Microsoft’s cloud solutions including the suite of products within its Power Platform.

Over the last two years, Insight has demonstrated its expertise and developed a strong relationship with the council, helping it on its journey to the cloud and enhancing its data warehouse platform. This put Insight in an excellent position to meet the leadership team’s challenge to develop a cutting-edge, live dashboard that would transform the way local election results are reported, within an incredibly short timeframe.

 

 

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