Kuntien Tiera

The goal is a complete overhaul of the SVPS system

Tiera’s SVPS system is a system designed to manage service vouchers and purchasing services. The cooperation with Pinja began as an SVPS system maintenance and development partnership. Pinja is responsible for the software development for the SVPS system, cloud environment management, administrator support for Tiera and Tiera’s customers, and, more recently, the development of SVPS reports using BI reporting solutions.

Tiera’s wish was to find a reliable, knowledgeable and transparent partner for the development and maintenance of the SVPS system. There were strict criteria in the bidding, and the final selection was based, in particular, on Pinja employees’ genuine interest in cooperation and how quality, expertise and price met in Pinja’s service offering. Pinja’s experience with similar systems and an extensive multi-skilled team convinced Tiera and the SVPS system’s steering group.

One of the main goals of the cooperation was a complete overhaul of the SVPS system – the architecture needed an overhaul, reporting needed improvement, and expertise in data security was needed to guide the direction of the development. Pinja’s experts prepared a roadmap for Tiera, which has guided the cooperation from the get-go. According to Jani Grönberg, Tiera’s product owner, Pinja’s ability to provide new perspectives and solution options is especially valued. To this day, everything from the transfer of the system to further development has gone smoothly and exactly as agreed.

An agile and transparent operating model creates a solid foundation for cooperation

According to Grönberg, the cooperation with Pinja has brought the desired agility and transparency to the operations. “Our previous development model was quite heavy, especially when customers wanted to monitor certain things very closely. Thanks to Pinja, there is clearly more confidence in the product owner. Pinja has outlined our direction efficiently and transparently, which in turn has made reporting to our stakeholders easier”, Grönberg describes.

The individual development projects are also more agile now, which has resulted in positive feedback from municipalities. “Previously, it could take up to a year before a desired feature could be implemented in the development queue. Together with Pinja, we have held joint workshops and demo events, where customers get to share their wishes and needs. The workshops have enabled more efficient decision-making on the properties that need development”, says Grönberg.

From the service users’ point of view, Pinja’s Support Service has also proved to be very efficient. According to Grönberg, praise has come especially from the fast response time and expert service.

A scalable, honest and knowledgeable partnership

Pinja’s flexibly scalable team of experts and extensive expertise have been crucial to its success. “Pinja has always found the right people. They have a wide range of experts from whom it has always been possible to select the right experts for the need. Their expertise is apparent in everything they do”, Grönberg praises. The most recent work has been the improvement of the accessibility of the service, when a user interface designer from Pinja was assigned to the team to solve accessibility challenges.

In addition, together we have succeeded in improving the reliability of the service by minimizing the need for maintenance outages, and a large part of the system can already be updated completely without interruption. The next leap in development has begun with the transition in reporting from traditional Excel reporting to BI tools. “The BI solution is still in its infancy, but the first trials led to positive results. I believe that the new reporting solution helps our customer considerably and provides valuable information”, Grönberg concludes.

The cooperation has been a positive experience on both sides. “Communications with Tiera’s people works really well. The work is done in a positive spirit and the cooperation has been very pleasing to our entire team”, says Lasse Mäkinen, Sales Manager at Pinja’s Digital Business Unit, who works as Tiera’s customer manager. Learning new things has also been valuable to Grönberg – with the cooperation, positive changes can be seen in the company’s operating models, systems expertise and reporting. Open communication, well-functioning processes, close collaboration with experts and comprehensive, up-to-date documentation go a long way.