Guide to the requirements for an analytics solution for a public sector organization
This guide outlines the key requirements for an analytics solution for organizations in the public sector. It emphasizes transparency, compliance, efficiency, and accountability while aligning with the unique demands of public sector operations.
The following requirements are suitable for including in a tender document to procure an analytics solution.
Pre-login and post-login data analysis
Requirements for analyzing data before and after users log in, as well as ensuring smooth integration between the two phases.
1. Pre-login analysis – anonymous users
Anonymous data collection allows public sector organizations to balance data-driven decision-making with privacy protection.
They can also collect a full spectrum of data with a tracking setup that lets them gather personal data about visitors who consented to tracking and anonymized statistics about those who declined tracking. Alternatively, they can adopt opt-in only tracking to collect data from consenting users.
- User behavior tracking: Identify most visited pages and track bounce rates and session durations.
- User experience optimization: Detect obstacles preventing users from taking desired actions.
- Campaign effectiveness: Evaluate the impact of your campaigns and how well they meet their intended objectives.
- User flows & funnels: Get insight into how users navigate your site and track conversions.
- Anonymous data collection: Collect anonymous insights in alignment with GDPR through methods like IP anonymization and granular user consent.
Organizations that serve public interest can also remove the cookie banner if they apply anonymous data tracking.
2. Post-login analysis – authenticated users
Authentication enables accurate user identification and seamless integration across multiple government services. With access to data on authenticated users, organizations can better understand visitor behavior, preferences and needs to accurately tailor public sector services.
As this step concerns sensitive data, public sector organizations must ensure their analytics vendor employs appropriate safeguards to maintain data security and privacy. This includes following ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II standards, dedicated database hosting, data encryption, access controls, and more.
- Interaction monitoring: Track how users engage with your platforms and content, including clicks, page views, form submissions, document downloads, and more.
- Service improvement: Identify popular features and ways to enhance your services.
- Personalized experience: Tailor content and recommendations based on user behavior patterns.
3. Integration between pre- and post-login analysis
Combining anonymous and authenticated user analysis is essential for public sector organizations because it enables them to balance privacy protection with personalized service delivery. Through integrations between different systems and tools within an analytics platform, organizations ensure interoperability and unified access to all insights.
- Full user journey tracking: Ability to connect pre-login and post-login data for a complete user journey view after collecting valid user consent.
- Interoperability: Integrations with other platforms and tools to enhance digital services depending on the organization’s needs. For example, Power BI or Looker Studio for data visualization.
- In-house consent management platform (CMP): Simplified integration with a CMP through access to an in-house solution.
- In-house tag management system (TMS): Possibility to replace the current tag management system by adopting an analytics platform and TMS from a single provider.
- Customer data platform (CDP): Data activation, segmentation and unification to better understand visitors and create personalized experiences across channels.
Data analytics and reporting capabilities
Data analytics and reporting capabilities allow public sector organizations to identify trends, optimize operations, and address challenges by efficiently analyzing large datasets. Reporting capabilities enhance transparency and accountability by tracking agency activities and communicating outcomes to stakeholders. With access to accurate, real-time data and tools enabling customization and automation of reports, teams can further improve their productivity and cross-department collaboration.
- High performance data processing: Scalable infrastructure with no data sampling for large datasets.
- Raw data exports: Possibility to export data to BigQuery or other chosen data sources.
- Real-time dashboards: Full flexibility with customizable widgets and dashboards.
- Predefined & custom reports: User-friendly interface, including necessary data points and funnels.
- Goal tracking: Setting up and tracking custom events and goals.
- Alerts & scheduling: Automated reporting and alert setup for key metrics.
- Full data ownership: Ensuring compliance and data security with complete web & app tracking.
- Data retention & freshness: At least two years of data retention with data freshness under 60 minutes.
- Custom dimensions & properties: Support for at least 100 custom dimensions per property.
- Aggregation of properties: Ability to aggregate multiple properties for broader analysis and comparison.
Security and compliance
Organizations in the public sector must ensure data security and protection to align with regulations like GDPR and appropriately safeguard data to foster user trust. Their analytics solution must ensure data privacy through industry-adopted measures and compliance with security standards.
- Strict access control: Multi-level authentication and role-based permissions to protect sensitive data, preferably by applying SSO standards.
- Privacy protection: Features that support compliance with GDPR and other applicable regulatory frameworks, such as consent management.
- Secure hosting options: Store data on a private cloud in the EU or public cloud with fully encrypted data.
- Data encryption: Safeguarding all user data with industry-standard encryption.
- Audit & monitoring: Continuous security monitoring and audit logs to detect and prevent breaches.
- Security certifications: Compliance with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II standards.
Operational requirements
Organizations in the public sector must ensure their analytics vendor provides appropriate levels of supplementary services, such as onboarding, training, custom implementation and compliance assistance. This way, they can count on extensive support at any point of cooperation with the analytics vendor and guarantee the analytics service will work effectively and securely.
- Custom implementation: Tailored setup and integration based on organizational needs.
- Account management: Access to a dedicated account manager for ongoing assistance and troubleshooting.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA): Ensuring all critical issues, uptime and incidents are handled within the agreed time frame.
- Training & consultancy: Training and onboarding sessions for key stakeholders and employees, including access to online courses.
- Managed hosting services: Reliable and secure infrastructure management.
- Compliance assistance: Helping organizations meet regulatory requirements effectively.
- Uptime guarantee: Guaranteed uptime of 99.5%.
- Documentation: Availability of comprehensive online documentation and help resources for self-support needs.
Why should public sector organizations choose Piwik PRO as their analytics solution?
Regulatory compliance: GDPR-compliant hosting on a private or public cloud with Elastx in Sweden or Azure and alignment with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II standards.
Customizable & secure deployment: Implementation services adjusted to the organization’s needs.
Integration: Access to an in-house tag management system and consent management platform (Cookie Information).
Scalability: Flexible pricing based on the number of actions and ability to scale the solution.
Anonymous data insights: Options to collect anonymous data when the visitor declines consent or ignores the consent pop-up.
End-to-end user journey analysis: Analytics for all departments that helps enhance online service performance with complete insights into user behavior.
No data sharing with other parties: Full data control and no reliance on major ad platforms like Google or Meta.
Advanced analytics and reporting: Custom attribution models, real-time data processing, and automated reporting options to satisfy complex analytics needs.
Intuitive reports & dashboards: Quick and easy access to all the necessary data for all departments, including less technical teams.