Version 2.6
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Oversee your platform
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First steps on the platform
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Find some inspiration
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This guide aims to provide you with an overview of the Efalia Engage participation platform from a technical perspective. You will find a brief description of our architecture and the methods we use to ensure a high-quality service. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, contact us at [email protected].
The platform will be provided to the client in the form of a SaaS rental model, including secure hosting, maintenance, technical and operational support, corrective and evolving updates.
The SaaS model offered by Efalia Engage provides:
The platform is accessible to users for free and from any location, via a Web portal, designed in Responsive Web Design, allowing access through a wide variety of devices (computer, tablet, smartphone).
The responsive web portal works on all commonly used browsers (including Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox).
Different types of cookies are used to ensure optimal functioning of the platform while complying with the guidelines and recommendations of the CNIL on the matter.
The user has the option to accept or reject functional cookies.
Efalia Engage platform benefits from continuous work by the development and design teams who are inspired by the best practices and accessibility standards available on the web, particularly the accessibility recommendations of WCAG 2.1 (referred to in the RGAA published by DINUM), allowing the creation of a platform that is perceptible, usable, and understandable for all users.
Following these rules makes content accessible to a wider variety of people with disabilities, including blind and visually impaired people, people with color blindness (color vision deficiency), deaf and hard-of-hearing people, people with learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, motor disabilities, speech impairments, photosensitivity, and people with a combination of these functional limitations. Following these rules also makes web content often easier to use for general users.
The platform is designed according to the best design practices, using recognized technologies and libraries that are used and improved by hundreds of millions of users. It offers a clear, simple, intuitive, and accessible user interface for both administrators and non-expert users.
Efalia Engage regularly organizes citizen panels, which allow it to iteratively track the needs and expectations of citizens from a wide variety of ages and socio-professional categories. You will find an example of a citizen panel organized in Cergy on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/YwZ2JDzS_ao. These panels are regularly reproduced and directly influence our design/technical roadmap and serve as an internal improvement tool.
The platform is intuitive, user-friendly, and accessible:
Various mechanisms help guide and simplify user participation such as:
The platform interfaces are available in French, Dutch, English, Spanish, and Arabic.
Efalia Engage automatically detects the user’s browser language to offer the tool in their language upon first login.
The user can change the interface language at any time via their profile.
A feature for automatic translation of content generated by users (such as the description of a consultation or a proposal) is also available to facilitate communication between people speaking different languages.
The platform benefits from excellent visibility in terms of natural SEO, as the code has been optimized for this purpose. It is therefore very easily accessible for new users searching for it via a search engine.
By default, access to participatory content on the platform does not require authentication, allowing users to freely review proposals, projects, consultations, and articles.
However, Efalia Engage also allows for the creation of private spaces, enabling restricted access to all proposed content. Users must be invited and authenticated to access these spaces.
When the user wants to interact with content, participate in a consultation, make a proposal, write a comment, vote, or access a private space, they must authenticate.
To do so, they have several options (depending on the platform’s configuration choices):
At any time, the connected user can access their contributions and personal data via their user profile. They can modify and complete this data as they wish.
The user must provide the following data upon registration:
For privacy and convenience, only the first name and the first letter of the last name are visible to other users on the platform.
These data can be retrieved through Facebook, Google, or CSAM if a third-party authentication service (SSO, Single Sign-On) is used.
An “opt-in” option allows the user to agree or not to share their contact details: first name, last name, and email, with the platform administrators for non-commercial purposes such as sending a newsletter.
A set of data (optional by default but can be made mandatory at the administrator’s request) may be collected from the user during registration or later (during a consultation, for example) for statistical or identity verification purposes, such as:
