20 years of IRIS, the citizen request management system
The IRIS system (short for Incidents, Complaints and Suggestions) has handled over five million communications during its 20 years of operation. It has become a key tool for the Ajuntament, helping to forecast, plan and provide quick and efficient responses.
The IRIS system is one of the first municipal services to use artificial intelligence, which they’ve incorporated to improve how incidents and requests are categorised, making it easier to manage and resolve them effectively. To put that into perspective, there are over 1,855 categories spread across 34 different areas.
Entries fall into the following main categories:
- Incident: a report of damage or irregularity affecting some aspect of the city or municipal service at a specific time and location.
- Complaint: an expression of general dissatisfaction.
- Suggestion: a proposal to improve some aspect of the city or its services.
- Service request: a request for a service provided by the Ajuntament.
- Web enquiry: a request for information submitted through the online support site, the procedures portal or any of the various municipal websites connected to the IRIS system.
By the end of last year, IRIS had 50 system coordinators, 369 service managers and 544 operators, with a total of 7,320 users having access to the system.
A widely used and highly valued service
On average, IRIS cases are now resolved in around seven days. Last year alone, 136,273 people submitted a case through the system, a clear sign of how well known the tool is among the public. Over the past 20 years, a total of 869,038 people have used the system at least once.
Telephone surveys of users show that citizens rate their satisfaction with problem resolution at an average of 8 out of 10. IRIS also holds several ISO certifications and is built on open-source code, making it available to public bodies and private companies that wish to adopt it.
Citizens rate their satisfaction with problem resolution at an average of 8 out of 10, according to telephone surveys of users. IRIS also holds several ISO certifications and is built on open-source code, making it available to public bodies and private companies that wish to use it.
The Barcelona a la butxaca mobile app, launched in 2021, now makes up 29% of all entries into the system. The phone is still the most popular method, accounting for 30.5% of requests, with website submissions close behind at 30.1%.
