Advancing Near Real-Time Emergency Insights Through a Modern Data Platform
About the Client
E-Comm is the primary emergency communications provider for British Columbia and the first point of contact for 9-1-1 callers in the province. E-Comm provides dispatch services for police and fire departments and operates the largest multi‐jurisdictional, tri‐service wide‐area radio network in the province. Operating in a mission-critical environment, E-Comm supports emergency responders and public safety agencies with technology and services that require speed, accuracy, and reliability.
To meet its mandate, E-Comm relies on timely, trustworthy data to support operational decision-making, service level management, and coordination with partner organizations such as police, fire and ambulance services.
Project Managed by:
- MSP Corp West
- British Columbia
The Challenge
In emergency communications, seconds matter. E-Comm’s leadership recognized that improving service levels, response times, and operational decision-making required a stronger data and analytics foundation.
The organization had begun building ICECAPS, E-Comm’s enterprise analytics platform, designed to support emergency operations. However, as usage expanded, E-Comm needed to modernize and scale the platform to ensure it could reliably support operationally timely insights, integrate additional data sources, and meet the security and reliability expectations of public safety systems.
Key challenges included:
- Ensuring data accuracy, reliability, and secure access across multiple districts
- Supporting faster, data-driven staffing and operational decisions
- Expanding analytics beyond operations to corporate services such as finance
- Enabling trusted data sharing with partner agencies
- Modernizing the platform while managing risk in a highly sensitive environment
Any disruption or loss of data integrity could directly impact service levels — and, ultimately, public safety.
The Solution
MSP Corp partnered with E-Comm 9-1-1 to build ICECAPS, a modern data and analytics platform, using Microsoft’s data and analytics ecosystem.
The engagement focused on migrating a recently deployed initial analytics MVP into Microsoft Fabric, while strengthening the underlying Azure-based platform and integrating additional data sources. MSP Corp delivered the project using a structured, phased approach that emphasized reliability, security, and validation at every stage.
The solution included:
- Designing the target Microsoft Fabric architecture
- Establishing a secure, production-ready Azure foundation
- Migrating ICECAPS data into Microsoft Fabric
- Enabling secure, role-based access to dashboards and data for partner organizations, including dashboards and raw data for police and fire services, and secure raw data sharing for health services.
- Completing Power BI reporting and dashboards
- Validating data accuracy, disaster recovery, and production readiness
The platform now provides E-Comm with a centralized, modern data foundation that supports near real-time and historical analysis, while maintaining the security and governance required for emergency communications.
Results
