Hungarian Official Journal

The business registers of the EU Member States are connected to a common European platform by BRIS (Business Registers Interconnection System), which each country joins through a National Service Desk (NSD). In Hungary, this is operated by Magyar Közlöny Lap- és Könyvkiadó Kft. (MKLK), the publisher of the Hungarian Official Journal. BlackBelt had previously worked with MKLK on a sub-task of the Company Gazette system and on setting up the BRIS processes, so in April 2018 we were also invited to bid for the development of the NSD – and of the three bids, ours was selected.

The central, Jira-based BRIS service desk could not handle MKLK's multi-level operating model, which also involves subcontractors, so tracking tickets required a great deal of manual administration. A system that had never existed before had to be built in line with EU requirements and on a tight deadline, while the requirements list also tied the client's hands – the flexibility had to come from the development team.

We started by mapping and redesigning the process; of the six-month project, one and a half to two months went into the specification. Instead of an agile or waterfall model, we worked in a hybrid model developed jointly with the client, with a team of 5–6 people at peak. The resulting Level 2 support and ticketing system runs on an MS .NET Core backend and an Angular frontend, connects to the surrounding systems via REST API, tracks SLA levels, handles Level 3 escalation, and is integrated with the EU Level 1 Service Desk.

MKLK received the system on time; it handles tickets to and from the EU service desk and MKLK's own subcontractors in one place. The Hungarian BRIS operations team was able to start work with a modern, user-friendly ticketing system, built on processes that BlackBelt also helped to establish.

“Due to the nature of the task, we could not really be flexible, so BlackBelt had to be persistent – and they truly were! We would choose them again, and we would do it all the same way again.” – Szabolcs Sebő, Head of IT Development, Magyar Közlöny Lap- és Könyvkiadó Kft.