📖 Structure

Table of Contents

➤ Introduction
➤ Problem Statement
➤ Our Solution
➤ Research
➤ Stack
➤ Demo (Architecture)
➤ Team

Marriage Registration Portal-Hackathon Submission

The process of Marriage Registration is both a tedious and long process entailing a lot of administrative tasks such as filling numerous forms, countless visits to various government offices to make registration payments and long registration queues. As a result, the client often has to do the aforementioned along with their prior obligations during government office hours.
Moreover, government officials are tasked with their own manual administrative work such as verification of applications, payment processing and updating the marriage registration notice board. In addition, this process has been prolonged further by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Henceforth, the need for a solution that provides a seamless process that enables stakeholders such as clients (those who are filling for registration) and Marriage Officers to carry out their respective obligations in a timely and cost-effective manner on one platform.

📝 Problem Statement

The researchers interviewed 10 married couples, 5 of which got married before the pandemic and 5 who have tied the knot during the pandemic.

Long queues: Both Covid and Pre-Covid couples experienced long submission queues making it so that they spend more time at the District Administrators offices when they could be completing other tasks for the day. Time pre and post Covid averaged at 4 hours and 8 hours respectfully.
Numerous office visits: Both individuals and their witnesses make approximately three (3) trips to various government office to complete the 3 different processes.
Decentralization of processes: Moving from one department to another to execute various tasks as those registering have to move from the registration window to a separate window for payment.
Covid Regulations: Limited number of clients are allowed in offices to reduce exposure and spread.

With regards to administrative officers, these are the issues they faced:

Longer verification process – averaging at about 2 days per applicant - due to a higher number of marriage registration applications.
Manual processes tend to increase turn-around time by approximately 55%, especially during peak registration seasons.
Due to manual processes, officer’s time is restricted to repetitive tasks rather than important executive tasks.

💻 Our Solution

Web link. Please refer to the [Link] (https://marriage-registration-1e7e8.web.app) and follow the instructions below

Getting Started As Administration

email: [email protected]
password: test123

Navigate to the preferred Tab (Dashboard, Intention to Marry, Marriage Notice)

Dashboard - This page shows the platform's aggregated performance metrics
Intention to Marry Application - User's applications can be reviewed, processed & published in real-time on this page.
Marriage Notice - This where all the notices of marriage are posted for 30 days.

Getting Started As User

email: [email protected]
password: test123

Select anyone of the 4 services;

Intention of Marriage
Floated Marriage
Property Instrument Registration
Change of Names

Start filling in the appropriate information
Pay the processing fees when prompted
Submit your request
Await application processing & publishing in the Government Gazette for 30 days

📋: Research Findings

Findings

How Others Have Solved the Problem In relation to South Africa, accessibility of Verification of Marriage Status forms has been made available online for filling and submission. In addition, the SMS platform is also being used to check the verification of marriage status along with phone-call enquiry. This reduces the public having to go to government offices to complete the different processes.

Our Solution

The API built within our solution, this will allow for online marriage registration through the availability of online forms, the upload of support documents, execution of online payment processing, remote management of objections and applications in real-time which will consequently ensure a faster and seamless experience for both the client and administrative officer. The solution features a modular architecture and thus can provide services on mobile applications, web applications, Facebook and WhatsApp chatbot and lastly IOT devices, making it more accessible and allowing for ease of use with both a web and mobile usage.

Lessons Learnt

During information and data collection processes, the researchers found that the interviewees seek more convenience and time are a top priority for them as they have daily tasks to be completed, such as going to work. In addition, with Covid, more now would like to limit their movement. This has led to the need for services to be accessed online and reduce the need for physical attendance. With the increase in digitization of other services such as banking and retail, the preference for accessing and completing tasks and services online has increased the appetite for online services by the public.

💻 Stack

The stack used to build this project:

Nodejs(endpoints)
Reactjs(frontend)
MongoDB (opensource database)
Postman(Testing & creating Developer Docummentation)

Please refer to the Link to access the code-base

📋: Demo

Portal Screens [Admin]

Please refer to the [Link] (https://marriage-registration-1e7e8.web.app) to access the web portal. The credentials are in the Our Solution section above.