Questions/Answers

Marriage official digital application is considered the first innovative application of its kind in the area which has contributed to exceed clients and partners expectation, the application (through specialized device) assists marriage officials to get parties personal information using the ID cards reader or online inquiry to retrieve authenticated information from the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship in the United Arab Emirates, or by extracting personal information from passports via OCR. Marriage officials collect all the required signatures electronically or by using the digital fingerprint, scan the official documents and then submit the request to RAK Courts to create a signed and accredited marriage contract and then deliver it to the client within 24 hours. The Marriage information is also shared later on with other government entities through special webservices to update the Marriage Databases (national wide). This application was designed to tackle the following main objectives: 1- Eliminate the paper work performed by the Marriage officials. 2- Expedite and enhance the process of marriage registration. 3- Assure quality of information. 4- Govern the marriage process and validate information. 5- Increase customer happiness. 6- Implement digital transformation.

This initiative foster innovation as one of a kind in UAE and the region to replace the paper work of Marriage officials with a top notch mobile device that is used to perform the original work in a simpler, more verified, governed, easy, organized, secured, personalized, digitized and integrated process taking into consideration the following: 1- Marriage contracts issuing process’ governance. 2- Dispensed paper-based procedures and provided contactless operations. 3- Process digitalization. 4- Organized data entry and data validation. 5- Electronic signature and digital fingerprint. 6- Online payment. 7- Electronic archiving. 8- Doorstep delivery of public government service.

SDGs: Goal 5: Gender Equality. Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities. Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals. The initiative provided an effective solution that fulfil all the requirements and needs of various segments of the emirate's society when it comes to the marriage registering service.it was also a main factor in achieving UAE and Ras Al Khaimah emirate vision to have “Paper-less Courts” and "Remote litigation", it also helped in achieving predefined long-term goals and values in many areas such as business continuity and economic. The unique initiative which can be benefit from anywhere along Ras Al Khaimah area, [which extends to an area of approximately 2000 km2] while the husband/wife and their relatives do not need to attend the headquarters of the courts. Hence, the time to complete the marriage contracts registration is shorten from 24 hours to 15 minutes only, as well as the costs of service completion is reduced including the costs of transfer to the headquarters of the Court Department and the costs of dealing with the printing offices and others. In addition, the number of visitors to the department is reduced (Approximately 1100 wedding contracts are registered each year in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah), which in turn is associated with a reduction in the expenses of using the facilities of the Department and reducing the carbon footprint around the headquarters of the Department, while at the same time promoting the concept of sustainability. Among the most prominent features of application for the marriage officials is that it works without the need to provide Internet service.

1- Reduced the cost for both institution and clients. 2- Reduced the carbon footprint around the department. 3- Eliminated paperwork and digitalized the process. 4- Reduced the service completion time. 5- Increased customer confidence. 6- Contributed to enhance the institutional reputation and leading position the department at the state, regional and global levels.

1- Remote marriage contracts submission. 2- Identity fraud prevention. 3- Enhanced data quality. 4- Fingerprint login to authenticate the identity. 5- Extracting parties information using EID reader or online inquiry services. 6- Eliminated the possibility of marriage of minors.

The initiative allows both the groom and the bride to add their conditions clearly on the contract as the application will not allow the marriage officials to proceed in signing without adding the conditions, regulations and rules and highlighting rights and responsibilities of both groom and bride equally.

1- Marriage officials: facilitated officials’ work and eliminated all the worries about ID fraud, identity theft and marriage of minors and it also allowed them to submit all the documents needed without visiting the department in addition to guiding them through the registration steps requirement through the service organization. 2- Community: Doorstep delivery of public government service without the need of visiting the department, without the need of hardcopies documents or paying extra fees for service centers. 3- Institution's employees: Reduced data entry and direct customers service and manual archiving.

1- Plan based on Court Strategy. 2- Identify initiatives to achieve objectives and priorities. 3- Approve operation plan and start implementation. 4- Identify requirements and perform BPR. 5- Plan customer experience vision and strategy. 6- Designed a solution to fulfill the needs. 7- Using Agile methodology for managing the development and implementation. 8- End-to-End testing for quality assurance. 9- UAT, pilot Go-Live and minor enhancements. 10- Users and clients training and public announcements in social media. 11- Monitor and gather enhancement requirements.

1- Marriage officials' computer illiteracy and smart devices usage: This was bypassed by providing carefully selected device to fulfil the needs, designing a user-friendly solution, allowing Online-Offline contracts preparation, providing intense training sessions and 24/7 on call support, WhatsApp groups and site visit support (if needed). 2- Internet availability: Some faraway places might not have internet available and offline contract preparing has been introduced to maintain operation and bypass the challenge.

1- Unique idea: Remote marriage contract submission. 2- Unique device and application: Digital fingerprint and ID reader, technical rules validations to ensure compliance, user friendliness, immediate online payment, document management and electronic archiving. 3- Simple workflow: Shortened contract submission process from 24 hours to 15 minutes. 4- Business continuity: Offline contracts preparation.

The initiative is an implementation of the digital strategy of RAK government which seeks to set RAK government as pioneer relevant to UAE overall digital success and achievements.

1- Smart card reader was designed in the device to ensure retrieving authenticated parties information. 2- Online inquiry services was implemented in the application to ensure retrieving authenticated parties information. 3- Digital fingerprint reader. 4- Passport reader. 5- D-signature plugins. 6- Webservices. 7- Integrations. 8- Online payment.

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The initiative can be transferred and implemented in other similar use cases or it can be adopted by all UAE similar entities and Courts.

1- Financial Resources (Vendor project development cost of approximate 5000 DHS per user) 2- Human Resources ( Software development team - Project Manager, Business Analyst, Developers, Quality Officers, technical supports and trainers) + Operational courts managers and Marriage officials who performed the UAT testing.

1- The total cost of the smart application (along with devices cost, backend implementation & integrations) was around 500,000 AED and the courts yearly saving after the implementation is estimated to be around 204,750 AED and thus the payback period is estimated to be around 28 months (in which the saving after this period can be utilized for any kind of extra improvements. 2- The initiative adoption ratio by Marriage officials increased surprisingly from 13.7% in 2019 to 79.2% in 2020 (Some of them are old and computer illiterates). 3- Cost reduction for Courts: 29% 4- Time reduction for marriage officials: 83.2% 5- Time reduction for Courts and clients: 88.0%

Oui

Externally by IdeasUK organization. 1- Passing the initial stage and being selected to be a finalist (total number of initiatives at that stage were 64) after submitting the application and providing all required entry information and documentations. • Initiative category. • Initiative details. • What problem or opportunity does the Initiative solve? • Actions Taken. • Details of change. • Initiative Outcome and Impact. 2- Judging session with IdeasUK official judges during the IdeasUK Annual Conference in Edinburgh, who they have a vast range of knowledge of business sectors and processes. Internally by Courts management and business owners and marriage officials. 1- Surveys. 2- Workshops. 3- Direct observation.

Externally: IdeasUK Judges reviewed all the information and documentations and had personal interview and official judging session with the initiative owner and representatives and discussed some indicators like how the initiative kept clients in mind at all times, how it addressed their concerns and needs, how it assists them to achieve their work and how it increased customer satisfaction and happiness. Internally: Committee prepared cost-benefit analysis plan before and after the implementation, it also reviewed the users notes and suggestions and client’s feedbacks, did the initiative fulfil the needs? what problems solved? what were the challenges for users?

Externally: won third runner in customer focus category. Internally: Committee requested new enhancements and requirements based on the feedbacks and live observations, and concerned team responded by having these enhancements done immediately after studying all the cases and notes from the users through CR document that has been used to enhance the features of the application.

The initiative is a partnership between RAK EGA and RAK Courts and utilize partnership and relationship with Marriage officials who are related to RAK community. It has focused to digitize the process of marriage registration which is being handled by marriage officials and automatically send this information to Courts to be reviewed by Courts' officials and then send to responsible judge to approve in order to issue marriage certificate. This process integrates both external process of marriage registration with Courts internal procedures to review and approve the process and officially register the civil transaction of marriage.

The implementation team used below techniques to engage all stakeholders and evaluate the initiative: - Head of Community public services department. - Marriage officials. - Community. - RAK Courts Top Management and judges. - RAK and EGA Digital development committee. - RAK Courts development office. - Employees of marriage contracts section. - EGA Management. - Project team. - Support team. Tools used: - Project Management. - Communication. - Direct interview. - Business process reengineering. - Business analysis and workflows - Collaborating with marriage officials in designing and implementing the initiative. - Periodic discussion sessions. - Events. - Real time feedback. - Workshops with all stakeholders. - Online surveys.

Lessons learned : 1- Digitization of process is achievable even for partners with limited technology capabilities. 2- Always provide and implement the governing rules by utilizing technology. 3- Manage and harvest your partnership. 4- Laws can be in favor of utilizing technology if interpreted properly. 5- Provide more integrations with government entities for validations. 6- Upgrade and enhance online payment. 7- Customers and partners will adopt and value your initiative if it planned taking their requirements into consideration.