Within STRILAB, the Life Guards Brigade's (IB 1) war incubator, two soldiers have built Soldatappen (The Soldier App), an app that removes much of the administrative burden that military service involves. It brings together activation, service schedules, travel expense claims and forms in one place, reduces the manual errors that lead to missed salary payments, and is already in use at the unit.
Soldatappen is one of the projects within STRILAB, which Nordic Defence Sector visited during a field exercise this spring. Behind it are Axel Gren, a part-time employed soldier (GSS/T) in the Life Guards Brigade who studies chemical engineering at Lund University (southern Sweden), and Ludvig Riesten, also a part-time employed soldier in the brigade, who studies Business Administration and Service Management at Copenhagen Business School (Denmark).
Axel Gren began developing the app as early as six months before STRILAB, after STRILAB founders Fabian Duke and Jakob Blomqvist asked whether he and a couple of others could build a prototype to address the problem. It was put into internal use across two platoons and then spread on its own.
"It wasn't meant to turn out that way, but it started spreading at company level. Suddenly the company commander was using it," says Axel Gren.
Ludvig Riesten joined via STRILAB's application process and came onto the project during the summer's five-week programme.
The problem: paperwork, Prio and missed salary payments
The administrative burden is greatest around the activation of part-time employed soldiers ahead of exercises. Today, explains Ludvig Riesten, the platoon commander sends out letters or emails to each soldier with the service schedule for the coming six months. The soldier fills it in and sends it back, after which the personnel officer compiles the pile of papers and PDFs into an Excel spreadsheet or enters it directly into the administrative system Prio to activate the soldiers. The company commander, in turn, compiles all the Excel spreadsheets.
"According to our company commander, he has previously spent three weeks a year of effective working time on this process ahead of various exercises," says Ludvig Riesten.
Prio also requires a so-called FMAP computer, an internal computer environment that cannot be taken home.
"It's a very dated and unintuitive system," says Axel Gren. "The majority of reserve officers don't have access to an FMAP computer, which makes it difficult to activate their platoon. You have to ask someone on site to do it for you."
The manual errors have the greatest consequences. A single mistyped digit in a personal identity number, employment number or position number is enough.
"Then that person doesn't get activated, and it results in an enormous amount of follow-up work. He didn't get paid, you have to activate him again," says Axel Gren.
Ludvig Riesten encountered the problem in practice at the mingle on demo day.
"A reserve officer first received far too little pay, and now this summer he was in for two weeks and received too much. It seems to be much easier to pay back a salary than to receive the one you're owed. He still hasn't received it, and that was three months ago."
Axel Gren adds:
"We didn't exaggerate this in our pitch. People have ended up owing money back because they were overpaid without knowing it. It's not their fault."
What Soldatappen does
Soldatappen does not replace Prio, but rather removes the manual work surrounding it and makes the system manageable, they explain. The point is to ensure the format of the data entered is correct.
"A very large part of what Soldatappen does is reduce manual, human errors," says Axel Gren.
According to them, the administration that previously took the company commander three weeks a year now takes around four hours.
In addition to activation, there are plans for further features requested by soldiers and officers in tests and interviews: travel expense claims, next-of-kin forms, accommodation before and after exercises, and reminders about training that needs renewal, such as security guard training and competency tests.
One feature they themselves highlight, and which is already in the app, is the "expertise exchange". Officers should be able to request a particular skill ahead of an exercise, and anyone who has it can sign up.
"In Sollefteå (northern Sweden), a platoon commander told us they were going to hold a hand grenade exercise for their conscripts. They had the grenades and the location, but no instructor," says Axel Gren. "There are an extremely large number of people in this country who have that competence. Now you can post a listing, 'seeking hand grenade throwing instructor', and it reaches the right people who have that skill."
How it was built
Neither of them had any significant programming background; Ludvig Riesten had almost none at all. The first prototype was built together with a skilled programmer, and at STRILAB they continued development with AI support.
"It's come far enough that you don't need to be a master programmer, as long as you can use AI in the right way," says Axel Gren. "But you still need to know what you're doing."
The app is built in an environment provided by the Swedish Armed Forces, and IT security was one of the points the jury raised on demo day.
Before the sprint, they had also validated the need through around ten targeted interviews with users at all levels, from HR managers and company commanders to quartermasters, platoon commanders and soldiers. The fact that they themselves are end users makes feedback fast, Axel Gren points out.
"We have direct contact with our company commander and our personnel officers. They're the ones using it, so it moves very quickly. There's no bureaucracy involved."
Spread and ownership
Soldatappen is already in use at the Life Guards Brigade. On demo day, they had officers from other units scan a QR code to become test platoons, and are now in dialogue with eight or nine of them. The next step is to fully establish the app at their own unit and then tailor it to the organisational structure of other units.
They see greater potential beyond part-time employed soldiers. Full-time soldiers and the Home Guard also spend time on administration, Axel Gren reasons.
"On average at least one hour a week, for everyone in the Armed Forces, over 52 weeks. That's an enormous time drain," he says.
Unlike several other STRILAB groups, they do not intend to start a company.
"We own the knowledge of how to create this, and see ourselves as the best placed to drive it forward," says Ludvig Riesten. "We have no need to own it ourselves. The Armed Forces can do that."
The focus is on the next six months, they say, followed by negotiations on how the work should be compensated and managed in the long term.