Zaakbrug: translating between ZDS and ZGW

Municipalities are gradually shaping their IT landscape according to the principles of Common Ground. One of these principles requires new task applications and case systems to use the APIs for Zaakgericht Werken (ZGW). But what if you rely on an application that does not support ZGW? In that situation, WeAreFrank! provides the solution.

The City of The Hague uses the case management system OpenZaak. A case system functions as the central hub inside the municipal organization where cases and documents come together. This setup makes it possible to handle many different processes in a case-oriented way. OpenZaak is built according to the VNG API standards for case management and is fully open source, completely in line with the Common Ground principles.

“The Hague wanted to connect Centric Leefomgeving as the first major application to OpenZaak and create a production-ready environment that would support around 1500 civil servants,” explains Daniel Langeveld, Account Manager Public Sector at WeAreFrank!. “There was one obstacle. Centric Leefomgeving uses ZDS, the standard for Zaak and Document Services, while OpenZaak uses ZGW, the new standard for case-oriented work. In other words, SOAP API versus REST API. A translation layer was needed to bridge the two worlds, a component that could carry all API traffic and connect the old with the new.”

Step by step

Integration specialist WeAreFrank! has developed the Frank!Framework, an open source integration framework with 100+ components that allow applications and business systems to be connected. “We added Zaakbrug as a translation component inside the framework and implemented it in OpenZaak. As a result, Centric Leefomgeving, which is based on the ZDS standard, can now communicate seamlessly with OpenZaak. This is a significant development for The Hague, because they had not yet found a way to transition to the ZGW standard. ZGW looks great on paper, but municipalities and vendors still need practical ways to work with it. With Zaakbrug, The Hague can move to ZGW step by step while keeping interoperability with the applications they rely on. Municipalities often cannot simply switch off or replace their existing applications. For The Hague, this is certainly true for Centric Leefomgeving. Centric also benefits, because they now have time to work on the evolution of their application toward the ZGW standard. In principle, Zaakbrug is a temporary solution. Once everything speaks ZGW, the bridge is no longer needed, although I should add that integration challenges will always exist.”

Plug & play

“For the implementation of Zaakbrug in The Hague, we needed about six months from the drawing board to production,” Langeveld says. “A large application such as Centric Leefomgeving requires an extensive testing phase. By now, the solution has become plug and play. Everything WeAreFrank! develops is open source. We do not work with licenses, and anyone who wants to can simply download our solutions from GitHub.” That does not mean WeAreFrank! walks away once the implementation is finished. “Certainly not,” Langeveld confirms. “We offer optional services and support for all our products under an agreed service level. Naturally, this includes continuous updates to maintain security.”

Complementary partnership

Langeveld is very positive about the collaboration with Centric during the project in The Hague. “The cooperation was open and reliable. Centric was always available for discussion. In the new Common Ground and open source landscape, it is essential that we communicate well, both on the technical level and from person to person. The era of large silo applications is coming to an end. Municipalities no longer buy all their applications from one or two vendors. They do not need to. Our goal is to make all applications capable of speaking to each other. This creates natural collaborations between municipalities and vendors, and also between vendors themselves. The traditional procurement processes, in which everything was specified down to the smallest detail upfront, are becoming less common. We now approach each other openly and get to work together. Each of us focuses on what we do best. Together we are complementary and aim for the best possible result.”

Centric Leefomgeving

Centric Leefomgeving is an all-in-one solution for licensing, mobile supervision, and enforcement. It allows municipalities to immediately meet the requirements of the Environmental Planning Act, which came into effect on January 1. With Centric Leefomgeving, the municipality connects to the Digital System for the Environmental Planning Act (DSO), which supports the implementation of the act and ensures consistent, accessible, and high-quality information.