by
Imed Bouchrika, Phd
Government employees constantly deal with changing regulations and outdated systems, often leading to slow operations, frustrated constituents, and most of all, costly redundancies. Multiple data coming in from different sources also result in raw, unstructured information sitting untouched in isolated systems, making it harder for employees to access accurate documents needed to make data-driven decisions.
Implementing a government software solution ultimately enriches institutions with better and faster services. It unifies siloed systems and improves collaboration across departments, enabling government sectors to provide citizens with seamless experiences. It also allows government agencies to gain insights into details that were previously unavailable.
In this article, we compiled 20 of the best government software available in the marketplace. Each of these systems offers essential features and functionalities to help government employees streamline their day-to-day tasks.
Like most organizations, government institutions are aiming to do more with less by turning to digital solutions to accomplish their goals. In recent years, a number of institutions are implementing or upgrading government software to enhance the connection between agencies and their constituents. With their capabilities to improve an organization’s operations, most government software in the market have worked effectively for city governments, the federal government, and basically all types of governments in between.
However, a report by CivicPulse indicated that the prioritization of specialized government software products declined in 2021. The report shows that in 2020, 32% of department heads in government agencies say that the adoption of new software technology is a high priority. On the other hand, the 2021 survey reveals that only 21% of department heads today view new software adoption as a high priority.
Source: Civic Pulse (2021)
To keep up with the changing times and increasing citizen demands, governments are pushed to explore innovative solutions that can streamline processes and increase work efficiency among government employees. Today, a host of new technologies are transforming the way organizations share data and perform administrative tasks across multiple departments. Here are some of the latest data about technology in the government sector that you should keep in mind.
When COVID-19 blitzed government sectors, many of them had to migrate their operations to the cloud and rely on teleworking and implement remote training guidelines. The breakneck speed of the shift presented myriad technological challenges and opportunities to nearly all kinds of government institutions. Below, you’ll find some of the most relevant statistics showing how COVID-19 advanced digital services and data projects among government organizations.
Source: Miller (2022)
Today, national organizations use government-specific software solutions for almost every aspect of their administrative duties, from accounting, budgeting, reporting, and new-hire procedures to facilitating communication within the organization. Users can easily find public administration tools and political campaign software with just a quick search on the internet. Thanks to a wide range of government software available today, government sectors possess the technologies that facilitate better services and improve connections with their constituents.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, government sectors from different parts of the globe turned to the best government software solutions to overcome the difficult challenges of remote governance, such as creating a sustainable work-from-home policy for government employees. Below is a compilation of some key statistics showing the increasing adoption of software services in government sectors:
One of the most essential functions needed in a government software is performance management. For this reason, a growing number of government organizations are implementing performance management software solutions to help them achieve their goals. Most government sectors use this type of software to meet key performance metrics, review their targets, and track progress toward specific goals or projects. Here are some of the best examples of a performance management software specifically built for government bodies.
Adaptive Insights is a government software that helps institutions maximize their resources and technology. It enables government agencies to streamline their operations, eliminate arbitrage confusion, and increase and manage revenue streams. It gives you a complete view of the entire organization, allowing government employees to simplify complex workflows and access real-time analytics.
CGI offers an ERP system that helps government agencies meet their unique needs. It allows government employees to perform core federal financial system functions, such as performance budgeting, funds management, general ledger management, payment management, cost management, and external reporting. It also streamlines administrative tasks, from payroll to human resource management.
Oracle is a widely known ERP solution that modernizes IT infrastructure and applications. For government institutions, the platform serves as a powerful tool to seamlessly manage administrative tasks. With its fully-integrated cloud application, Oracle enables government agencies to experience better security and performance. Plus, it offers some of the best public financial management systems with its advanced features for finance tracking.
Workday is an adaptive planning software that helps government institutions streamline administrative and financial-related tasks. It has a wide range of budgeting and forecasting tools, allowing organizations to significantly reduce time spent on budgeting and operational processes. In addition, the solution is equipped with human capital management tools to help institutions improve productivity and employee performance.
Perhaps the most common type of software deployed by government organizations are ERP solutions. After all, ERP software products can provide a more pragmatic way for the government sector and its IT infrastructure to deliver business insights and efficiencies to stakeholders. Below are some of the most commonly used ERP solutions by government organizations:
Infor offers a complete suite of applications for public entities and all levels of government, including federal, municipal, public safety, educational sector, and more. It is designed to meet the complex industry demands of government agencies and optimize key financial and administrative processes. The solution is also equipped with cost accounting and grant management tools to help public sectors identify and manage grant project teams.
SAP cloud solution is loaded with tools that help regional, state, and local government organizations improve service efficiency and effectiveness for better citizen outcomes. By leveraging AI, personal data, and proactive automation, the platform allows institutions to deliver better services to their constituents. It also utilizes a project intelligence network to improve collaboration within an organization.
Communication is the lifeblood of any organization, and so it is in a government institution. Without the right tool to facilitate effective communication, government sectors run the risk of negatively impacting collaboration between government employees and citizens. Therefore, organizations need an efficient communication platform to address communication challenges and improve workflows. Below is an example of a communication solution for government sectors:
Granicus is a cloud communications platform purposely built to connect people and government with a seamless user experience. It unifies online services, websites, and digital communication platforms used by organizations to serve constituents more efficiently. Also serving as a public records management software, it provides a state-of-the-art content management system to make it easier for government institutions to create and publish content, customize experiences, and optimize sites for every device.
Government institutions handle massive volumes of data on a daily basis. To make use of all these data and condense vast and disparate information into valuable insights, government sectors need reporting and analytics tools. Here are some great examples of software solutions that help address emerging trends and challenges in business analytics :
Part of Oracle’s suite of applications, Hyperion is a financial management solution ideal for organizations that need to consolidate and report financial results and comply with global regulatory requirements. It enables government agencies to easily facilitate in-depth analysis of key performance and operational metrics. In addition, the solution is equipped with intelligent process automation, which allows organizations to streamline process monitoring and other workflow capabilities.
BRASS, or Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems, is a software solution that unifies any organization’s complex ecosystem of libraries, protocols, models, and devices. It optimizes the applications used by government institutions and ensures that they can seamlessly continue to operate correctly and usefully despite system changes or upgrades. It also supports the design and implementation of long-lived, complicated software systems that are adaptive to changes and transformations.
SherpaGov is a budgeting software and consulting services designed specifically for the public sector. It offers a wide range of budget formulation and management capabilities, enabling government agencies to perform budget development, personnel forecasting, and capital programming. It also helps institutions create allotments, spending plans, and annual budget development.
Anaplan is a cloud-based enterprise platform built for business planning and streamlining operational tasks. It enables government sectors to quickly organize and analyze disparate sets of enterprise data from different departments, including human resources, finance, sales and others. Built with an Excel-style functionality, Anaplan allows institutions to simplify workflows and make data-driven decisions.
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is a project planning solution used by government departments to build and change plans based on specific operational requirements. It is a highly scalable solution that supports increased data volumes, planning models, and number of users without impacting performance. The platform also helps organizations drill down into data, generate valuable insights, and identify trends to make smarter business decisions.
Socrata is a reporting tool purposely built for governments, non-profits, and NGOs that need to programmatically access a wealth of open data resources. It allows organizations to easily publish and manage data and keep their information accurate and constantly up-to-date. Moreover, it enables government institutions to leverage data in the design, management, and execution of programs.
Tableau is a data analysis software that helps government institutions create that single source of truth, facilitate performance, and gain actionable insights for smarter and data-driven decisions. It is loaded with numerous data management tools that allow organizations to discover and understand massive volumes of data. It brings together intelligent data flows and governance and security features to enrich any organization’s data and asset management tasks.
Hosted by Tableau
On-premise
Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS provides government organizations with a modern and reliable data analytics platform built for speed, scale, and security. It comes with a wide range of data analytics and visualization tools, enabling governments and agencies to optimize their digital infrastructure and extract crucial data insights. With its purpose-built analytics engine, the solution helps governments augment data and drive world-class visualization and discovery.
Birst is a data analytics solution acquired by Infor, an ERP solutions provider for enterprises and government organizations. It serves as an industry-grade analytics platform that delivers relevant and meaningful insights for different types of government institutions. It provides a modern data architecture, allowing organizations to experience a flexible and business-centric approach to managing data.
Palantir is another analytics platform built to address the toughest data challenges of government organizations. It offers a plethora of data management and analytics features that empower organizations to efficiently integrate their data, operations, and decisions. By seamlessly connecting with government systems, it helps organizations to fully leverage data assets with discretion.
SAS Analytics is another reporting and analytics tool that supports the resource management and program investment decisions of government organizations. It allows state, provincial, and local governments to develop tailored solutions and provide exceptional public services in a more efficient and cost-effective way. It also provides numerous data visualization tools to make complex concepts more appealing and easier to understand.
Compliance software products allow government institutions to face continually evolving compliance requirements. This type of software helps government bodies ensure that the growing inventory of policies, data, and procedures are audit-ready and can easily be evoked on demand. Below is an example of a compliance management solution ideal for all levels of governments.
Constellation GovCloud leverages a stack of technologies and services to help government organizations meet the demands of constituents. It offers a security incident management and vulnerability monitoring solution, allowing institutions to securely and compliantly accomplish administrative duties. Furthermore, it comes with plenty of pre-configured alerting, monitoring, logging, and reporting service tools to help organizations track performances and key metrics.
Government institutions all have varying needs. In some cases, it’s hard to find a software product for the specific requirements of a government body, so organizations turn to tailored solutions that can be customized depending on their specialized workflows and processes. Here is an example of an all-around government software that caters to the specialized needs of government bodies.
Tyler Technologies offers a wide range of software solutions designed specifically for the unique needs of local, state, and federal government organizations. It helps the public sector deliver better and faster assistance to citizens through its emergency management software, and provides greater transparency and accessibility to digital services. Furthermore, Tyler Technologies enables organizations to connect siloed data, systems, and processes to address citizens’ needs more efficiently.
Key Features
Pricing
Evidently, there is no one-size-fits-all government software. In fact, there are several types of solutions, from financial software to procurement software, depending on the specific requirements of an organization and the public demands that need to be met. In choosing the best government software, the best thing to do is to consider the particular needs of your institution.
The applications included in this list all have unique features and capabilities, so choose carefully the one that can meet all the requirements and demands of your organization. Consider if the platform has all the essential features that you need, such as performance tracking, budget management, and reporting and analytics. You may also want to consider a tailored solution that can be configured and customized according to your needs.
In case you’re also interested in learning more about public administration, check out our article on public administration degree guide.
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by Imed Bouchrika, Phd
by Imed Bouchrika, Phd
