5 ways to work more people-centred with smart integration

Better information services for citizens, and effective, efficient operations. Two things we hear from municipalities time and again when we ask about their priorities. Sum them up, and you land on working in a more people-centred way. 

Good integration gets you a long way there. How exactly? We’ve lined up 5 scenarios in which smart integration helps you work in a more people-centred way. 

Get your data at the source 

Data at the source. One of the pillars of the Common Ground programme, and a top priority for municipalities. We recently asked 30 municipalities about their priorities, and data at the source came out on top, with a 4.1 out of 5. 

For the past 20 years, as municipal IT landscapes were built up, copying data was the only option. Every system had its own silo with its own data. The result: high data-storage costs and a greater risk of errors from outdated data. 

Under the Common Ground programme, these silos are being broken down and rebuilt as separate layers. Data stays where it belongs: personal data in the Basisregistratie Personen (Personal Records Database, BRP), and a permit application in the permit system. 

Many municipal applications rely on data from the Basisregistratie Personen. That data can be stored inside the application, but with the Haal Centraal Connector you can pull it straight from the BRP via Haal Centraal (the national standard for retrieving data at the source through APIs). The Haal Centraal Connector even transforms that data for you, for instance when a StUF (Standard Exchange Format) application can’t handle the Haal Centraal REST API. That way you work without copies, without delays, and without the risk of outdated data. 

Eliminate manual processes 

Alongside data at the source, eliminating manual processes is a key focus for municipalities too. Chances are that in your municipality there are still civil servants who export a report from one system every Monday morning. They then share it on SharePoint or send it by email, and another civil servant imports the data into the other system. 

None of this happens out of maliciousness. It’s mostly because ‘that’s how it’s always been done’ and people have no idea it can work any other way. 

As with data copies, you run the risk of errors here too, with the added GDPR risks when the data contains personal information. And of course, doing the work twice costs money. At a time when municipalities struggle to find staff and budgets keep shrinking, it’s something you can no longer afford. 

Here too, smartly integrating systems makes that unnecessary. Which is easier said than done, though. This is by far more an organisational and behavioural problem than an IT problem. For several reasons: 

• Spotting this kind of redundant work is hard, because it often happens out of sight of the IT department. 
• Staff often don’t know that options exist to automate a process. 
• And even when they do, there can still be resistance. Taking away tasks people have done for years isn’t always welcomed. 

So, the first step here isn’t looking at how to connect systems, but where the manual work sits and how to automate it without resistance. 

Be flexible, autonomous and independent 

At WeAreFrank! we always say that connecting is about disconnecting. By linking applications and systems through an integration platform, you avoid having to rewire dozens of point-to-point connections whenever you replace a system. 

In effect, you isolate every application in your landscape, so you can plug it in or unplug it with ease. That gives you freedom in the applications you choose, because you’re no longer tied to whatever the built-in APIs happen to offer. 

Integration also helps you operate autonomously and independently. It makes replacing any application in your landscape that much easier. So with the current debate around American technology, you’re not locked into apps. Even if you use one and the red button gets pushed, unplugging that app and connecting a new one is not a mammoth task. 

That dependency doesn’t only apply to vendors and off-the-shelf applications; it applies just as much to custom-built code. 

Take the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân. The link between their Kodision web forms and their Corsa DMS (document management system) ran on a piece of .NET code once written by a single developer. If something went wrong, only that developer could work out what was going on. A black box, with the municipality dependent on one person. That code has since been replaced by a Frank!Framework connection, where the functional application manager can see for themselves what’s happening and resend messages on their own. 

Connect today’s apps to tomorrow’s 

Common Ground is about far more than data at the source. Modernising information services is high on the Common Ground agenda too. That means migrating away from SOAP/StUF towards modern, REST-based applications. 

But it won’t happen in one big bang. That would be great, but it would end in chaos. The reality is that ‘old’ applications will keep running alongside ‘new’ ones. Applications that don’t speak each other’s language, yet they still must exchange information and messages so municipalities can do their work. 

If you want to bridge what you have in-house today and what the future looks like, an integration framework is the right product for the job. For the move from Zaak- en documentservices (Case and Document Services, ZDS) to Zaakgericht werken (case-oriented working, ZGW), for example, we developed the Zaakbrug. It translates ZDS output into something ZGW applications can work with and does the same in the other direction. 

At the municipality of The Hague this runs in production: Centric Leefomgeving on the one side, OpenZaak on the other, with the Zaakbrug in between as the connector. 

That way you can modernise your application landscape on your own terms and at your own pace. And without your staff feeling any of it, because all they see is applications exchanging data without a hitch. 

Prepare for the arrival of AI 

AI, AI, AI. If you believe the big software vendors and analyst firms, nothing else matters. Municipalities see it a little differently. At a 2.7 out of 5, preparing for the arrival of AI isn’t a high priority yet. No surprise, because given the volume of personal data municipalities manage, AI is still a risk for now. However, the question isn’t whether AI will play a role, but when. 

Right now, AI projects in most organisations get stuck on a lack of access to data. A good integration framework unlocks that data for AI. And it does so securely. Combined with the policies and permissions you enforce through the framework, you prevent AI from accessing information it shouldn’t see. Or worse, accidentally passing sensitive information to an unauthorised employee, citizen or business owner. 

Smart integration: what’s next? 

Five examples of how smart integration helps you work in a more people-centred way. But what’s next? The most important question to ask yourself is: “What’s the real priority? Where’s the biggest gain? Is there any low-hanging fruit?” With the answers, you can pick a use case to get started. 

The great thing about working with integration is that you don’t have to do it all at once. You can start by connecting a handful of systems, so they retrieve data at the source. Or by automating a few processes your colleagues still do manually. 

Do you need help with smart integration, or want to know how your municipality can work in a more people-centred way with an integration framework? Get in touch and we’ll be glad to talk you through the options.