Earlier this month, our LWB 360 Government Solutions teams came together as part of our annual hackathon to develop solutions that drive progress for governments, legislatures, and parliaments.
Dividing into five groups, participants focused on advancing solutions to empower governments through technology, streamline workflows, and reimagine legislative operations for the future. Our teams sought to drive efficiency, empower legislatures through data-driven decision-making and enhancing workflows.
Here is how each team tackled a key modernization challenge.
Team One: Seamless automation and synchronization of legislative data
Team One focused on integrating LWB 360 Codification with external entities, in this case, the Secretary of State websites. This project aimed to tackle the pain point of legislative staff possibly having to switch to their website and back to their tools in order to pull chapter numbers and statuses, effective dates, etc., from state websites.
Key features of this solution include automated data synchronization between Secretary of State websites and LWB 360. The team also proposed a manual ‘refresh’ button to fetch the latest data in case of delayed automated updates.
This solution not only minimizes manual effort and switching between tools, it ensures accuracy even in case of delays.
Team Two: Unified communication and task allocation within a familiar platform
Many legislative teams use Microsoft Teams to notify relevant parties of drafts or amendments that are moving through the workflow lifecycle. Team Two’s project leveraged Microsoft Teams for LWB 360 workflows with the introduction of a notification system.
The focus of the project was streamlining communication between drafting and proofing. Key features include notifications sent to Teams channels for workflow updates (e.g. ready for proofing) and including the ability to download the documents through Teams. Another key feature was an ‘assign to me’ button directly in Teams to promote efficiency with task allocation and all without changing platforms.
Team Three: Fully digitized document signing and management
Team Three identified eSignatures as a key problem area. States are not making full use of digital documents since there is no way to:
- Electronically sign documents
- Capture and store eSignatures
- Store high-quality signature images
Team Four: Leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to streamline the drafting process
Team Four took legislative drafting into the future by integrating LLMs like ChatGPT to assist in drafting legislation by streamlining the drafting and indexing process.
Key features of the proposed solution included an import assistant to generate statute suggestions based on the request subject or user-input keywords and an index assistant to automatically suggest hierarchical indexing categories for bills and the use of LLMs for contextual search and suggestions. The solution would suggest sections that the drafting attorney can pull in to the draft ensuring that they have full control over the finished draft.
Team Five: Real-time legislative insights with robust customization
Team Five developed a dynamic reporting tool that allows users to generate reports using the data in the LWB 360 Request system.
Core elements include:
- Power BI integration
- Customizable dashboards: AI-assisted tools tailored for specific data insights
- Real-time updates: Elastic Search technology for real-time reporting
- Viewable within the request system
This solution promises to empower staff with actionable intelligence.
Team Six: Seamless scheduling and coordination
Team Six’s project looked at the creation of a bidirectional integration between LWB 360 Committee and Outlook. The project focused on streamlining the scheduling and integration of committee meetings with Microsoft Outlook.
Key features of the proposed solution include two-way integration, whereby meetings scheduled in the LWB 360 Committee application can create Outlook calendar invites. Likewise, users can create meetings in Outlook that sync back to the committee management system. Users could also create meetings in the Committee application from external Outlook email requests.
Other features include pre-templated emails for meeting creation and centralized management for meeting attendees, times, and locations.
Driving progress for government through innovation
The LWB 360 annual hackathon highlights the creativity and technical expertise within our Government Solutions team. Each proposed solution not only addressed immediate challenges but laid the groundwork for the future. As governments worldwide embrace digital transformation, these solutions lay the groundwork for governments to evolve in alignment with modern technological advancenemts, prioritizing user experiences and constitutionality.
