If your organisation has not yet adopted the FSC, it must first apply for a user permit. Read the FSC implementation instructions.
Instructions for describing service information in the Guidance and counselling services
How can my organization ensure that its services are visible on the service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services?
- The service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services retrieves the service information from the Suomi.fi Finnish Service Catalogue (FSC).
- If your organisation has not yet adopted the FSC, it must first apply for a user permit.
- Identify what career and education guidance and counselling services your organisation provides.
- Check if your organisation has already described these services in the FSC.
- Create descriptions for any missing services and service channels.
- Go through the checklist to ensure that the service directory displays your services correctly.
These instructions apply to organisations that provide career and education guidance and counselling services. These instructions describe how to make services described in the Suomi.fi Finnish Service Catalogue (FSC) visible in the service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services.
Background on the service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services
Competency Path is a new digital service to support education and career planning, competence development and employment. Competency Path is aimed at
- individuals who are making career and study choices
- guidance practitioners
- training and education organisations
- working life actors
- experts from various administrative sectors.
Competency Path includes a service directory in which users can find career and education guidance services that are relevant to their needs. Users can filter the list of services based on their personal interests or place of residence, among others.
The service directory retrieves its service data from the FSC. The service directory will display services based on metadata assigned to them in the FSC. In addition, specialists may also select services to be displayed in the service directory. Similarly, it is also possible to exclude services from the service directory if they are not related to the topic.
Competency PathOpens in a new window.
Guidance and counselling servicesOpens in a new window.
Do the following
1. If your organisation is not yet in the FSC
If your organisation has implemented the FSC, but you do not have a user permit, contact your organisation’s FCS main user. If you do not know who your organisation’s FCS main user is, ask FSC support: ptv-tuki@dvv.fi
2. Identify your services
Identify what career and education guidance and counselling services your organisation provides.
The service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services includes career and education guidance and counselling services. These services include:
- guidance services for young people
- guidance counselling services
- career guidance services
- services for new entrepreneurs
- guidance services for immigrants
- jobseeker services.
3. Check if your organisation has already described these services in the FSC
If your organisation has already described its services in the FSC, check which career and education guidance and counselling services your organisation already has in the FSC. Find out if there are still related services or service channels that do not yet have descriptions.
Ways to check your organisation’s services and service channels:
- FSC’s content search function: When you make the search with the default settings, you will get all of your organisation’s draft or published contents. Further instructions:
How to log into the FSC?
How to use user interface search? - Suomi.fi Web ServiceOpens in a new window.: Use your organisation’s name in the search field. All services described in the FSC are available in the Suomi.fi Web Service. Click on your organisation’s name in the results. This opens to your organisation’s page, where you can see your published services and service channels by type.
- FSC reportsOpens in a new window.: On the Report Catalogue page, first select Suomi.fi Finnish Service Catalogue, then, for example, “Publish services of an organisation” or “Published service channels of an organisation” and finally, select your organisation in the menu. This opens a list of all your organisation’s published content.
- The service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling servicesOpens in a new window.: Select your organisation in “Filter by organization”. This displays your organisation’s services that are part of the service directory, based on current metadata and specifications.
If your services already have descriptions in the FSC, great! In addition, go through the five-step checklist below to ensure that the service directory displays your services correctly. Also make sure that the service descriptions follow the instructions. Improve the descriptions if necessary.
4. Create descriptions for any missing services and service channels
If your organisation has career and education counselling services that are still missing from the FSC, describe them according to the FSC instructions.
Don’t forget to also describe service channels and connect them to the services. Connected service channels allow users of the service directory to restrict the visibility of services based on their service method, such as, to only display services that are available on the telephone.
Need a refresher? Check out the latest basic FSC training (in Finnish)Opens in a new window., for example.
In addition, go through following checklist to ensure that the service catalogue displays your services correctly.
5. Checklist for describing services and service channels
To display a service correctly in the service directory of the Competency Path guidance and counselling services, consider the following:
1. Under Languages in which the client gets the service, make sure to select all such languages.
2. Under Area in which the service is available, make sure to select the correct area.
Often, the suitable area is often your municipality, employment area, or the wellbeing services county. Do not select the entire country as the service area if the service is not nationwide, as that dilutes the search results.
3. Under Service fee information, make sure that you have included the service fee, if any. This allows users of the service directory to filter services based on their cost.
4. Enter appropriate metadata for the service.
The most important metadata are the service class and the keywords.
If necessary, the service catalogue also uses the target group. Please note that the sub-target groups in Citizens are only intended for when the service is restricted to a specific target group: For example, select ‘young people’ if the service is intended only for young people.
For instructions on appropriate metadata, click Checking and selecting metadataOpens in a new window. on this page.
5. Check that the service has been connected to all the service channels through which customers can access the service, and that the channels are described. This allows users of the service catalogue to filter services based on how they access the service: online, telephone, or in-person.
6. Make sure that descriptions are available in all selected languages. For example, if the service is available in Swedish, you should also publish a Swedish translation of the description. Instructions: How to produce content in different languages?
Instructions for checking and selecting metadata
Updated: 2/2/2026