Strategy

Forestry Digital Services

The Forestry Digital Services (FDS) program (formerly known as the Forestry Suite of Applications) includes 40+ software applications that are integral to forestry in B.C.

A review found the applications to be out-of-date and difficult to use. In 2021, the Forestry Digital Services Program was announced. It’s a five-year capital investment in new digital products and services to support forestry.

The FDS has four teams:

  1. Alliance created the old forest deferral verification form and is modernizing the Forests Client Management System.
  2. Evergreen is modernizing the Seed Planning and Registry and the Cone and Seed Program.
  3. Heartwood created Forest Access Management and the Forest Operations Map, and is developing the Forest Operations Plan.
  4. Silva is modernizing the Reporting Silviculture Updates and Land Status Tracking System.

We’re headquartered in Victoria but we have members working across the province. We collaborate online with application users throughout B.C. Team members also go into the field to learn how users interact with the Province of BC’s forestry applications in their places of work.

How we work

Our team is modernizing the FDS by taking a human centred design approach, led by service design. This involves:

  • Observing the applications in operation
  • Talking with staff about the applications
  • Understanding the context, connections, process, and people using and delivering the services
  • Recognizing the behaviors, needs, and motivations of key groups
  • Identifying what’s working well and what isn’t
  • Mapping affinities
  • Making recommendations about what to develop
  • Using agile software development methodologies
  • Applying UX/UI best practices to the development and testing of user interfaces
  • Testing and iterating solutions before launching them, and
  • Committing to continuous improvement to ensure the new applications always meet users’ needs

Engaging with us

We aim to modernize all 40+ applications in FDS and create some new ones. Since they can’t be done all at once, we’ll reach out to you when your program’s application is next in the queue.