Documenting a Government Use Case Properly

The department sent a spreadsheet with forty-two use cases. Row twelve said AI for citizen happiness. Row twenty-nine said GPT for all files. Row forty said like the demo the minister saw. There was no lawful basis, no data class, no officer, and no definition of done. The SI was asked to quote by Friday.

A government use case is a file, not a brainstorm sticker. It has to survive a transfer, an RTI, a CAG sample, and a vendor exit. That is a higher bar than a product-management template imported from a consumer app.

This is the template we ask buyers and SIs to fill before Prcept AI will size metal or write a statement of work. You may copy the headings. You may not skip the sentences.

Four pages, not forty rows

One workflow, one paper. If you need forty workflows, you need forty papers and a register that points at them. A spreadsheet of slogans is not a backlog. It is a risk register with the risks left blank.

Keep the paper short enough that a new joint secretary will read it. Annex the circulars. Do not hide the human gate on page fourteen.

Headings that must appear

1. Name and identifier. A dull name: SCH-DRAFT-NOTE-v1, not Project Udaan. The identifier is what the register, the logs and the speaking order will share.
2. Service and citizen. Which public service, which class of person, which geography. If there is no citizen, say whether there is an employee or a vendor instead.
3. Purpose in one sentence. What decision or draft this workflow exists to support. If you cannot say it without leverage, you do not have a purpose.
4. Lawful basis. DPDP basis or legitimate use, plus any sector statute. If Aadhaar is involved, the UIDAI permission. If none, stop.
5. Data classes. Inputs, retrieval corpus, outputs, traces. What must never enter the prompt. What must never leave the perimeter.
6. Charter clock. The published timeline this service already owes, or an explicit statement that none exists.
7. Human gate. Post, delegation instrument, accept, reject or modify in the system of record. What the agent is forbidden to send.
8. Non-goals. The list of tempting extensions you are refusing in this version.
9. Success. How you will know it worked in ninety days — reconstructable packets, queue age, not a demo score.
10. Exit. How the department keeps the corpus, the prompts, the traces and the model adapter if the vendor dies.

Sentences you can paste and then make true

Purpose: This workflow drafts a first note for the competent officer on applications of class X; it does not decide.

Fiduciary: The department is the data fiduciary. The vendor and the SI are processors for the listed classes.

Perimeter: Embeddings, traces and prompts stay on department-controlled infrastructure. No training on these cases.

Gate: Only officers holding delegation Y may accept. The agent cannot send SMS, email or portal status without that accept.

Aadhaar: This workflow does not collect, log or embed Aadhaar numbers. Identity, if required, stays on the existing AUA path.

Charter: The citizen is still owed the timeline in charter row Z. Agent latency is an internal control.

What to annex, not bury

• The circular or scheme guidelines the agent may retrieve, with hashes or version dates.
• The data-flow in one drawing: who sends what to whom, including logs.
• The refusal list — OT, payments, Aadhaar, auto-reject.
• The restore and packet-export test you will run in acceptance.
• Names of the DPO, the technical owner, and the business owner. Three names. Not a cell.

Objections you will hear — and what to do with them

These are the lines that stall the file. Answer them in the room, then put the answer in the note.

Agile means we discover the use case later

You may discover prompts. You may not discover a lawful basis after you have copied the register. Write the sentences first. Change them with a version, not with a hallway conversation.

The minister wants a single page

Give the minister a single page of the ten sentences. Keep the four pages on the file. Ministers change. Files remain.

We already have a vendor questionnaire

A questionnaire answers how they sell. This paper answers what you are allowed to do. Both can exist. Only one authorises production data.

Documentation will slow the pilot

A pilot without this paper is already slow; you just have not met the auditor yet.

Four weeks to a register that means something

1. Week 1: kill the slogan spreadsheet. Create one identifier per candidate workflow. Assign a business owner or park the row.
2. Week 2: fill the ten headings for the two workflows you might actually land. Leave blanks visible. Blanks are the work.
3. Week 3: walk the paper with DPO, procurement and the officer who will click accept. If they will not put their name on the gate, the workflow is not ready.
4. Week 4: put the finished papers in the departmental register. Make the register a condition of SDC hosting. Refuse undocumented production.

How this shows up in the file

Subject: Standard headings for documenting an agent workflow before production data.

No agent workflow shall receive production personal data or SDC hosting until a note exists that states: identifier, service, purpose, lawful basis, data classes, charter clock, human gate, non-goals, ninety-day success, and exit. The department remains the fiduciary.

Spreadsheets of slogans are not use cases. This template is an internal aid. It is not legal advice.

Version the paper when the purpose moves

A use-case paper is not a tattoo. If the officer later wants the agent to send SMS, that is a new version with a new gate sentence. If a new circular enters the corpus, record the hash. If the vendor changes the prompt tool, record the version. The identifier can stay; the version cannot be silent.

SIs should refuse to take a production folder until the paper exists. That is not obstruction. That is how you avoid being the only name left on a WhatsApp approval. Prcept AI will not size GPUs against a slogan row.

Put the register where the SDC operator can see it. Hosting without a row is how shadow agents appear under desks. A desk GPU with no paper is still a production system if it sees applications.

This article is informational field guidance for Indian public institutions, not legal, procurement, security-accreditation, engineering or board advice. Confirm against the live Gazette, GFR, GeM term, CVC instruction, CERT-In direction, UIDAI regulation, DPE guideline, DPDP text, departmental charter, plant safety manual and your counsel before you file it.

How to sequence this in a state, not a slide

“Documenting a Government Use Case Properly” is a department problem. A P4 System Integrator should name the legacy system, the officer who owns the file, and the citizen charter clock before buying “use case documentation template”.

If the use case cannot fit on four pages with a lawful-basis sentence and a named officer, it is not a use case. It is a wish. Do not invent league tables of states. Read tenders and policies. Election Model Code of Conduct can freeze a rollout. NIC is a partner, not a villain. SDC readiness is GPU, power, ops and egress — not a logo.

• Audit the legacy store first.
• Keep mutation and money as officer actions.
• Map SLAs to the citizen charter.
• Budget change requests after go-live.

Close this loop before the next CAB

Put “Documenting a Government Use Case Properly” on the next change-advisory or bid-opening agenda as a single line item with an owner. If it cannot earn a line item, it will not earn a control. The owner should be a P4 System Integrator, not “the vendor.”

Revisit the item when the model, the GeM term, the region, or the SI changes. “use case documentation template” is not a one-time workshop. It is a watch item. Date the last check. Unsigned watch items are souvenirs.

What must be true before you file this

If “Documenting a Government Use Case Properly” is only a heading, it will not survive a file inspection. A P4 System Integrator should be able to attach one artefact that proves “use case documentation template”: a log export, a clause, a scored row, a dated notice, or a refusal rule.

Write three dated sentences: what was decided, who owns it, and when it will be re-checked. Unsigned sentences are souvenirs. Dated sentences are controls.

• Name the owner of “use case documentation template” inside the institution.
• Attach one artefact a stranger can open next year.
• Revisit when the model, the notice, or the SI changes.
• Do not treat a vendor slide as evidence.