Instructions for organisation description
In the Finnish Service Catalogue, each service and service channel belongs to a specific organisation. In the FSC, organisation is used as background information explaining which organisation is responsible for a service or a service channel or for providing a service.
Details of an organisation and details of a service location are two different things. All walk-in service locations are described as service channels in the service location category.
An organisation is created in the FSC as a draft after it has been granted an access licence for the FSC and any of the organisations FSC users logs into the FSC.
When your organisation starts using the FSC, you must first enter the required information and publish it. You can only publish other content of your organisation after you have published the details of the organisation.
You must publish the details of your organisation in all those languages in which you intend to produce descriptions of services or service channels. For example, if you describe service information in Swedish, English, North Sámi, Inari Sámi or Skolt Sámi, you must also publish the details of your organisation in these languages.
Click the Search button on the front page.
The search result displays the name of your own organisation. Click the name to open it.
Click Edit.
A page opens where you can enter information on your organisation. The information is mandatory unless the field is marked as optional.
To pause without saving information, click Pause at the top or bottom of the page. Your changes will not be saved.
Name
You can edit the name that you have already given to the organisation.
You can also give the organisation an alternative (unofficial) name. Tick the Alternative name box and enter a name. You can, for example, use the unofficial name of your organisation or a name that the customers commonly use.
If you want to display the alternative name as the name of your organisation instead of the official name, tick the box Use this name as the preferred name of the organisation.
Business ID
Enter your organisation’s business ID. If you cannot remember the business ID, you can find it in the Business Information System (BIS). Also check the practice followed by organisations: some organisations have a single, shared business ID whereas other organisations have separate business IDs for their sub-organisations. Make sure that you give the right business ID for each sub-organisation. Note the correct format of the ID: seven digits, a hyphen and a control character (for example 1234567-8).
Summary
Enter in the Summary field a customer-oriented summary of the description of your organisation. The summary can be displayed in a search result, as is done in the Suomi.fi Web Service. You cannot use a copy of your organisation’s name as the summary. It may be easier to write the summary after you have written the full description.
Description
In the Description field, you should describe your organisation in a clear and easy-to-understand language. Describe briefly the organisation and what it does from the perspective of the customer using its services. Do not advertise your organisation; just provide a neutral description of its core task.
Do not add addresses, phone numbers, or web addresses to the description.
You can divide the text into paragraphs and use bullets and subheadings.
The maximum length of the field is 2,500 characters but shorter texts are usually easier to read. If you produce a long text, add subheadings, use lists and make one final check to determine whether you could shorten the description.
Type of organisation and area data
Go to Organisation type menu to select the type of your organisation.
Public service providers can select any of the following as the type of their organisation:
- state
- region
- regional joint organization (such as a wellbeing services county)
- municipality.
Private service providers can select any of the following as the type of their organisation:
- organisations and communities
- companies.
Area data opens on the form in accordance with the selection you made under Organisation type. Select the geographical area where your organisation primarily provides services.
If you selected Municipality as the organisation type, also enter the name of the municipality.
If you selected Regional joint organisation as the organisation type, Limited area is offered as area data and you can select municipalities, a region, a business sub-region, a wellbeing services county or a combination of them.
If you selected State, Organisations and Communities or Companies as the organisation type, you can choose between the following options:
- All of Finland
- All of Finland except Åland
- Limited area (you can select a municipality, region, business sub-region, wellbeing services county or a combination of them).
The area selected for the organisation is displayed as pre-completed data in the services and service channels created for the organisation. However, you can change and specify the content area data.
Location
In Organisation details, you can give the location details of your organisation’s principal place of business. This information is not mandatory. If your organisation does not have a principal place of business, you can leave the field empty. You can enter the postal address under Contact information.
Enter street name, address number, postal code and post office. The FSC retrieves the address data from the Posti database and offers you a street name and a postal code. To select the street name or postal code offered by the FSC, move to it and click Enter. Alternatively, you can select a street name or a postal code by clicking it with the mouse.
After you have entered the address, the map pin moves to the correct location. You can move the map pin by hand to the main entrance, for example.
In the Additional address information field, you can enter information in text format specifying the address (for example Courthouse and police station).
Note that in the Suomi.fi Web Service, the organisation’s visiting address is not displayed in the map view in connection with the details of the organisation. For the time being, the map view is only offered to end users in connection with the service locations.
Contact information
Under Contact information, you can give general contact details of your organisation. Click Add new contact information.
First select the type of contact information you want to add. You can add as many types of contact information as you want by clicking Add new contact information.
Postal address: enter the organisation’s postal address in Finland as a street address or as a post office box address. In the Additional address information field, you can enter information in text format specifying the address. You can also give a foreign address in text format. To enter more than one postal address, click New postal address.
Phone number: Enter the phone number as described in How to describe phone service.
Email address: Enter your organisation’s email address for public use, for example the address of its registry office or customer service. You can also enter additional information for the email address to specify the unit of your organisation to which the message is directed. However, no additional information is required if the address is easy to understand.
E-invoicing address: Give your organisation’s e-invoicing details (e-invoicing address, intermediator code and any additional information, such as the name of the e-invoicing operator).
Website: Give the website a short, descriptive name that can be displayed to users. Enter the full web address and always start the address with http:// or https://.
Click Save as Draft when you are ready and click Publish. You can publish the information immediately or specify the publication date.
To edit the details of the main organisation or a sub-organisation, use the search function on the front page to find the organisation.
Click Edit filters and specify organisation as content type and your own main organisation or its sub-organisation as the organisation. Click Narrow search.
When the search results are displayed, click the correct organisation. If your organisation does not have any sub-organisations in the FSC, only one organisation is shown.
Click Edit.
Make the necessary changes and click Save as draft.
Click Publish. You can specify the publication date or publish the information immediately.
Organisations can create sub-organisations in the FSC. Only the organisation’s main user is authorised to create sub-organisations.
In the organisation’s hierarchy, a sub-organisation is an organisation created under the main organisation and no access licence is required to create it. The sub-organisation must be an administrative and operational part of the main organisation, or a company or an unincorporated enterprise wholly owned by the main organisation.
You can create a maximum of five sub-organisational levels under the main organisation. However, you should keep the organisational hierarchy as simple as possible.
Sub-organisations are usually created when
- the customer prefers a situation where a sub-organisation (and not the main organisation) is responsible for the service in question
- the organisation needs reporting data on individual sub-organisations from the FSC.
The details of the sub-organisation must be given in all those languages that are used to describe services and service channels in the sub-organisation in question.
When you are the organisation's main user and you want to add a sub-organisation, click Add and select Organisation from the menu.
First select the language in which you describe the sub-organisation. The language selection activates the fields for entering information. Name the sub-organisation in the languages in which you want to create the organisation. You can edit the name later. You can create all language versions as drafts immediately or add language versions later.
Click Add organisation.
When you are creating a new sub-organisation under your organisation, the main organisation is given as default in the drop-down menu and your user ID is linked to this main organisation. In the drop-down menu, you can select any of the existing sub-organisations of your organisation and create an additional sub-organisation under it.
After that, follow the instructions How to supplement and publish the details of my organisation.
You do not need to describe services or service channels again when an organisation is renamed or organisations are merged. There are easy solutions for different situations.
An organisation is renamed
If the name of your organisation changes, you can change the name in the FSC user interface. The new name is automatically updated as the name of the organisation providing the services and service channels.
An organisation is merged with another organisation
If your organisation is merged with another organisation, the FSC administrators of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency can transfer the services and service channels of your organisation to the other organisation. Contact ptv-tuki@dvv.fi to request this.
In that case, the IDs of the services and service channels will remain unchanged and no data will be lost.
Two organisation merge to form a completely new organisation
If two organisations merge to form an organisation under a new name, the easiest thing to do is to rename one of the organisations before the merger. After that, you can ask the FSC administrator of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency to transfer the services and service channels of the unnecessary organisation to the renamed organisation and archive the unnecessary organisation. Contact ptv-tuki@dvv.fi to request this.
Note that the FSC users of the organisation must update the name of the organisation in the free text fields in which they have written it. For example, if the name of the organisation has been entered in the Instructions field, the organisation’s FSC users must rename it.
In the FSC, an organisation can also copy services and service channels to other organisations. However, connections are not copied in this process. For this reason, copying is recommended when you want to use a service or a service channel as a basis for nearly identical content.
If an existing service or channel is transferred entirely to another organisation, it is possible to transfer the service and channel descriptions to another organisation. This means that the organisation taking over responsibility for the services does not have to describe the same services and channels again.
When services and/or channels of communication are about to be transferred to another organisation, please contact ptv-tuki@dvv.fi and ask for the content to be assigned to the new main responsible organisation. Only FSC system administrators are authorised to make the change.