St1 chooses HiQ’s Frends as the next steppingstone in their long-term partnership with HiQ. Frends will be the company’s new solution for API management and mobile back-end integrations. "To move even further into our partnership with St1 is a great thing. It proves that we can offer our clients a variation of services, tapping into more areas than just one. This enables us to become an even deeper partner and I’m very happy to see us growing in our partnership with St1," says Sven Ivar Mørch, CEO of HiQ.

HiQ has played an important part in St1’s work with digitalization projects by designing and developing business critical features to the mobile applications creating completely new businesses to the St1 and Shell brands. These projects have included the development of features such as mobile fueling & car washes, digital subscription-based coffee agreement and the St1 Mastercard account. Now the company selects HiQ for another, new area by selecting Frends as their new solution for API management and mobile back-end integrations. 

“It’s a true honor for HiQ and Frends to work with St1 and for an even deeper partnership. Our aim is to simplify and improve, to be able to do this for an already existing client at HiQ is the core of what we want to do, tap into more segments for each client,” says Jukka Rautio, Head of Frends at HiQ.

As St1 has developed a growing number of digital solutions, the company found themselves in a situation where the existing API architecture was not meeting the business requirements. St1 was looking for a solution that could help them reduce the IT burden and the total cost of ownership (TCO) as well as reduce delivery cycles of API’s and integrations and choose Frends for this as the old solution had grown complex and was costly to maintain.

With Frends, St1 moved the API-first architecture approach and created a secure ecosystem for all applications. Some of the implementations included: 

1. API management. Enables a full life-cycle management of API’s: designing, publishing, monitoring and managing. 
2. API gateway. Adds the additional layer of security to the microservices and back-end functions as a load balancer to handle requests in the most efficient manner.
    

“With Frends we can take care of all our API management requirements. We selected Frends as our long-term API management solution and so far, it has proven flexible, reliable and cost-efficient,” says Linda Pihl, Head of Digital at St1 Nordic.

With the new simplified API solution St1 was able to reduce the volume of unwanted traffic and increase reliability. The platform had over 1 000 000 process executions within the first month in use and currently handles over 3 million API calls per month. The partnership between St1 and HiQ also covers the support and maintenance operations for all the mobile apps and Frends integration solution.

For more technical information, please visit:
https://frends.com/customers/st1 

About St1:
www.st1.se 

Eskilstuna municipality chooses HiQ to develop the new eskilstuna.se with the purpose of transforming it into a website based on users’ needs. The website should make it easy for users to find the information they need to get answers to their questions or to carry out errands online. HiQ developed a new design for the website, a completely new search function and in parallel, built in AI to increase the precision. "This is a nice project for us at HiQ and a very good collaboration with Eskilstuna municipality with the work on the new eskilstuna.se. Being able to help simplify things for them and their citizens, to create a more accessible Eskilstuna, has been very rewarding especially since they are so happy with their new website," says Sven Ivar Mørch, CEO of HiQ.

As society develops tougher requirements are put on a municipality and its accessibility. Citizens today expect to be able to carry out errands at any time of the day and to get answers to questions without having to sit in a telephone queue. The demands on a municipality and its website are therefore substantial in terms of the digital services offered, if it becomes too cumbersome, users will still pick up the phone and call the municipality for help.

Eskilstuna municipality chooses HiQ with the aim of transforming eskilstuna.se into a website based on users’ need for municipal services and through this make it easier for users to find the information they need to get answers to their questions or carry out errands online. It is mainly about developing frequently asked questions to reduce the number of calls, increase the use of the digital service as well as the trust in the municipality and to be able to provide visitors with even better service. The vision is also to reduce the administrative work for both administrators and editors as the content does not require as much manual work as before. The purpose is also to strengthen Eskilstuna municipality’s brand platform “Good Sustainable Meetings” and thereby increase residents’ trust. The website must also comply with the rules and laws that exist regarding the accessibility and adapt the graphic profile to the new digital platform.

“I have had the privilege of working alongside the world’s best colleagues to develop, in my opinion, Sweden’s best municipal website. Many thanks to the best team and to HiQ,” says Martina Manneh, Municipal Strategy Communication & Digitization at Eskilstuna municipality.

“I am so incredibly proud to have been involved in developing the municipality’s new website together with our fantastic consultants at HiQ,” says Mikael Mörnhed, Developer/Webb Editor at Eskilstuna municipality.

HiQ developed a completely new design for the website, which is built in SiteVision, with a strong user focus. Through interviews and tests, it became clear that an entirely new navigation needed to be developed as well as creating a more elaborate search function. The new search function highlights E-services and recommended landing pages created with the website’s label system. The number of pages on the website also needed to be reduced to a more manageable amount. In parallel, AI was built in to increase the website’s precision. The new navigation offers a faster path, to simpler and better information. The website has also been reviewed on the basis of the new law on accessibility to digital public services. 

“Together with my wonderful colleagues and the professional gang at HiQ, I have been involved in launching Eskilstuna municipality’s new website. We are so satisfied and happy with our new SiteVision web, spiced with exciting AI solutions from rec.ai,” says Henrik Bondeson, Web Editor at Eskilstuna municipality.

More about Eskilstuna municipality:
www.eskilstuna.se

HiQ’s integration platform Frends, in collaboration with Karlskrona Municipality (Sweden), and together with the platforms ArcGIS and Abou, has successfully launched a solution that makes it easier to rent somewhere to moor a boat. The project is part of the European Commission’s 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC), which supports 136 cities in the use of advanced technology for intelligent, green and socially responsible recovery. "It’s really exciting to see our smart Frends platform being used to simplify and improve the lives of people living in Blekinge. And it’s even more exciting to get noticed on the global arena. I’m looking forward to be following this project," says Sven Ivar Mørch, CEO of HiQ.

All over the world, if a city is by the sea, like Karlskrona, boat owners are always very keen to find the ideal, city center location to moor their boat. Karlskrona Municipality offers about 1,900 recreational berths at 29 different jetty and harbor facilities. Most of these are in central Karlskrona, but it is also possible to rent a berth on the outskirts of the city. Making all the information about every berth easily available is now one of the key ways of making the city more accessible and enhancing the overall experience.

“This is a very successful project with Karlskrona Municipality and helps put Frends further on the map in the Swedish market. We are grateful to Karlskrona for working so well with us and we are proud that the project is part of the ICC,” says Jukka Rautio, Head of Frends, HiQ.

The project integrates data from a variety of sources to bring together the latest information on everything you need to know about municipal moorings. This includes availability, mooring size, boat instructions for mooring, geolocation, a booking system and an integrated payment system. The Frends platform is an effective and simple tool for the public sector to improve and promote data sharing between different systems. The flexibility of the APIs and low-code integrations within the platform makes it easier and more cost-effective to create new digital services.

“We are constantly working to improve our service delivery to our residents. I believe that it is essential to have a process-based approach to develop sustainable solutions that simplify the lives of our residents and visitors, and the Frends platform strengthens our ability in this area,” says Carl-Martin Lanér, Municipal Director at Karlskrona Municipality.

Combining Frends with ArcGIS and Abou has resulted in the development of a map-based interface which makes it easier for the user to handle the main issues surrounding harbor management, and this in turn contributes positively to the following sustainability goals: SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. The project, which is a solution for E-Government & Digital Public Service called Karlskrona Berths & Moorings, is part of the European Commission’s 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC). 

The ICC is an initiative that supports 136 cities in using advanced technology for intelligent, green and socially responsible recovery. The cities that are part of the ICC act as engines of recovery for their local economy, creating new jobs and strengthening citizens’ participation and well-being. The different cities have access to strategic advice from international experts in areas such as the green economy, local green business, the digitization of public administration, digital and green transition in tourism and much more. The ICC is part of a broader support system within the European Union that recognizes the importance of meeting the promises of the European Green Deal, the digital strategy and other EU policies. 

For more information, please visit:

https://www.karlskrona.se

https://www.intelligentcitieschallenge.eu

https://marketplace.intelligentcitieschallenge.eu/en/solutions/find-berths-moorings

At a time when source checking and independent facts are more important than ever, Factlab offers a smart fact-checking service making it easier and more secure to rely on accurate information. As they continue to develop the service, Factlab have now partnered up with HiQ to make it even more accessible and user-friendly – as a mobile service. "We continuously strive to improve our product using technology and design, and we are really delighted to be cooperating with Factlab. It is an important service, and we are extremely proud to be a part of its development," says Sven Ivar Mørch, CEO of HiQ.

The service is based on an OMNI method which allows it to compare millions of facts and give the user a clear and credible base to use. The database currently consists of 82 million source-cited facts and it is continuously updated. Through sharing functions, interactive graphs, and the ability to follow developments and statistics over time, it is an effective tool for a variety of professions. The service is primarily aimed at communication professionals, journalists, teachers and students, but it is available to anyone seeking independent facts. 

“Right now, we are seeing an enormous need for this type of service among these groups. The service is currently web-based, but we want to be where the user is – which is on their mobile devices. It should be fast and easy to access the information regardless of platform, which is why we are now also developing a mobile version together with HiQ,” says Tora Löf, Strategist at Factlab.

She says the reason for choosing HiQ is the wide range of services that HiQ can offer. The fact that they can work with us from day one throughout the development journey from design to finished product. In recent months, their collaboration has focused on research, the customer journey, and visual design to produce a prototype that is now being tested.

More capital will be raised to launch an initial version in Sweden before then rolling it out globally.