Glossary

List of DIGIT platform-specific terms used in our docs

Acronyms

ULB: Urban Local Bodies (municipality)

DIGIT: Digital Infrastructure for Governance, Impact & Transformation

MoHUA: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India

NUDM: National Urban Digital Mission

DPG: Digital Public Good

Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar: Society, government, market

NUGP: National Urban Governance Platform

NIUA: National Institute of Urban Affairs

SaaS: Software as a Service

MeITY: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

ICD: Classification of Diseases

JAM: Jan Dhan, Aadhar, Mobile

PT: Property Tax

PGR: Public Grievances Redressal

PMIDC: Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company

DIVOC: Digital Infrastructure for Vaccination Open Credentials

SLA: Service Level Agreements

API: Application Programming Interface

ICT: Information, Communication and Technology

PFM: Public Finance Management

DoCA: Department of Consumer Affairs

TRAI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

Key Definitions

Software Stack: A software stack is a set of software subsystems or components needed to create a complete platform such that no additional software is needed to support applications. Applications are said to "run on" or "run on top of" the resulting platform. A complex software system is deconstructed into a stack using the principle of unbundling.

Examples: ELK (ElasticSearch-Logstash-Kibana), LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

Platform: A platform is a plug-and-play business model that allows multiple participants (producers and consumers) to connect to it, interact with each other and create and exchange value. The vital aspect of platforms is that they afford interactions between people and services/products or other people. Platforms leverage underlying software stacks to facilitate these interactions.

Examples: Sunbird (Education), DIGIT (Governance), Uber (Ride Platform), AirBnB (Accommodation Platform),

Platform Architecture: An abstract description of the entities of a (software) system and how they are related. Among the most stable elements in a platform architecture are the modular interfaces (APIs ) that mediate between the platform and its complements. These interfaces are even more stable than the platform's interior core; thus, control over the interfaces amounts to control over the platform and its evolution.

Examples: Android Platform Architecture

Service: A self-contained logical representation of a business activity with a specified outcome. Service may consist of other underlying services. Services can be components in a software stack.

Examples: Tax Calculation Service, Content Management Service

Application: Application software (app for short) is computer software designed to perform a group of coordinated functions, tasks, or activities for the benefit of the end user. Apps may be backed by an underlying platform.

Examples: Bhim payment app, Uber rider app

Programme: a set of planned activities with predefined goals and objectives

Examples: Diksha, Ayushman Bharat

Solution: method or process to deal with a problem/challenge. Software applications enable parts of solutions.

Examples: Solid waste management, Traffic Management

System: An organised entity made up of interrelated and interdependent parts.

Examples: City, Computer

Tenant: DIGIT is a hierarchical multi-tenant system. The state can be a tenant. Departments can be the next-level tenant. So Punjab can be a tenant denoted by pb. The education department can be denoted by pb.education.

Role: Role can be configured to provide a set of access to the user. The "Approver" Role allows users to approve or reject the application but does not allow the user to edit the application.

User: When a user is created in DIGIT, they are mapped to tenant and role. So they have access only to those data that belong to that Tenant and can perform only those activities as defined in the role.

Workflow: Workflow is defined as a set of states e.g. New, Submitted, Verified, Approved. At each stage, different roles can perform different actions e.g. Verifier can verify an application only when the application is in the "Submitted" state. Abstracting workflows allows DIGIT to configure different workflows for different tenants. For instance, if Jalandhar wants to configure additional roles and steps in the Birth Certificate process (as compared to Amritsar) then it will be possible to do so. Registries: A registry is data verified by a competent authority. Registries can be DPIs if the data is made available through APIs so that others can use the same enabling combinatorial innovations.