Criterion 2. Measure the availability of your digital service

Criterion 2 – Measure the availability of your digital service

Deliver reliable and seamless digital experiences so users can access digital services when they need to.

Your responsibilities

To successfully meet this criterion, agencies need to:

identify the most appropriate measure to monitor availability
monitor the availability of the digital service based on expected user outcomes
act to improve user outcomes.

When to apply

Apply Criterion 2 in the Live environment and consider it during Discovery. Collate metrics and monitor your digital service with a holistic approach. Report your results to build government’s view of its digital services landscape.

The Digital Performance Standard sets the expectation that at a minimum agencies should measure uptime to monitor the availability of the digital service, in line with the industry-standard approach. Where your agency has a mature monitoring framework in place, a more user-centric, comprehensive monitoring approach should be implemented as best practice.

Applying Criterion 2 should focus on the end-user experience to promote continuous improvement of your digital service.

Questions for consideration

Can users access the digital service as intended?
How does your agency currently monitor digital service availability?
What story might the digital service availability metrics tell you?
What service improvements are necessary?

How to apply criterion 2

Fit for purpose: Understand if your monitoring methods for digital service availability (if they exist) are fit for purpose before considering new tools.
Prioritise user-centric metrics: Align metrics with user expectations and preferences to create seamless digital experiences. Reflect on diverse user journeys and consider different entry points, navigation paths and transaction types.
Measure from the end-user’s perspective: Make sure the digital services are available by monitoring them from an inside and outside perspective. Implement tools that monitor uptime to make sure the system remains online. To catch any issues that internal checks might miss, consider other tools that simulate real-world experiences from a user perspective. Comprehensive monitoring will allow agencies to understand and improve the experience of the end-user.
Maintain a reliable service: Make sure your digital service is available, stable and consistent for users no matter their location. Schedule downtime and maintenance when it will cause the least disruption for users and notify users well ahead of time that digital services will be impacted or unavailable.
Create response plans: Make sure clear communication channels are included in response plans. This will allow your agency to proactively address issues and act quickly to maintain availability of the service.

Guidance to measure the availability of your digital service

Service availability is how often your service is available and accessible. To monitor availability:
- Define what availability means for your service based on user expectations. For instance, this could mean a digital service that's always accessible, has functional links and works on mobile devices in areas with unreliable internet speeds. See also Define clear objectives.
- Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the availability of your service. At a minimum you should monitor uptime, however other KPIs might include error rate, load time, fully loaded time or percentage of valid links. See also: Choose relevant metrics.
- Choose tools and methods that enable you to collect, store and analyse the data related to your KPIs. These tools should be capable of providing real-time insights and generating comprehensive reports. See also: Choose monitoring tools and methods.
- Make sure the tools integrate seamlessly with your existing systems to facilitate smooth data flow and accessibility for your team.
Set benchmarks or targets to evaluate service availability performance:
- You might specify the minimum acceptable level of availability, the maximum tolerable level of planned and unplanned downtime, or the optimal range of load time for your service. See also Define clear objectives and Choose monitoring tools and methods.
- Establish a consistent schedule and procedure for tracking availability data and presenting the findings.
- Examine the findings to pinpoint gaps, trends, patterns, or anomalies that highlight the service's performance and its impact on user outcomes.
Act on the findings and implement improvements or changes to the service design, delivery, or maintenance as needed.
Actions may include:
- fixing bugs
- upgrading servers
- enhancing features
- communicating with users.
See also Develop processes for continuous improvement.

Digital Performance Standard