Learnings

Outcomes

The project has positively demonstrated the following:
• The full list of data requirements (from must-have to nice-to-have) that DNOs would require to enable a smooth service upgrade and proactive network planning;
• The type of external parties that are typically in possession of such information;
• Potential barriers to sharing key data identified from the engagement, including:
o Lack of experience in drafting bespoke data sharing agreements;
o Need for further investigation on how to share data externally while remaining compliant with GDPR;
o Sharing of data from DNOs to DSCs would act as necessary incentive for signing up to a DSA.
• Signing of Data Sharing Agreements with a range of DSCs;
• Creation of a database that receives data from DSCs and pushes the required data to DNOs;
• Trialling data transfer over a period of time which allowed over 27,000 data events to be shared via both SFTP and API; and
• A successful system ready to be scaled to perform a service in business as usual.

Lessons Learnt

During the ongoing engagement with the DSCs, it was established that data sharing between different parties is still immature from both a legal and a sharing process point of view. Prior to committing to share data with the project group, most engaged companies have had to internally investigate various elements of data sharing, such as legal processes, compliance with GDPR and IT-related feasibility of a continuous data sharing process during and after the project completion. Only a few companies engaged in the project already have such practises in place that allow data sharing on an ad-hoc basis. This will likely continue to hinder scaling the concept to incorporate many DSCs.

In addition, in order to scale the system, it would be important to establish automated and consistent processes for the DSCs to follow in providing data, as in some cases the more manual process resulted in delayed and intermittent data transmission.

Whilst the DSAs were signed by some DSCs, it is clear that a means of providing data back to DSCs to support their customers’ experience will be key to securing involvement moving forward – therefore the DSAs will need to be revisited and redesigned for any roll out or scaling up of the Skyline concept. Data protection issues over MPANs mean that there will need to be effort placed on implementing appropriate GDPR compliant methods before attempting to progress further, however as noted, DNOs and ENA are working to find methods to overcome this as part of the Digitalisation of Connections initiative which could resolve this challenge.

Data transfer still presents a number of challenges, and so investigations will be required into exactly what caused the issues with the API to UKPN (approximately 15% of data events which the database attempted to send to UKPN resulted in an error, with approximately 95% of those having a “Bad Request” status).