Fewer counter visits and faster case handling with a citizen services platform

Challenge

The client is a municipal digitalization programme serving a city of roughly 210,000 residents with three official languages. Before the engagement every service ran on paper: residents queued at counters for permits, civil registry documents, and local fee payments, then returned or called to ask about progress. Clerks re-keyed each form into a legacy records system, and the administration had no reliable picture of where cases stalled. The programme office set three requirements: end-to-end online services, equal access in all three languages, and verified accessibility compliance.

Solution

A Vendenis team of seven — three full-stack engineers, a backend engineer, a product designer, an accessibility specialist, and a delivery lead — shipped the first release in 14 weeks. We digitized the twelve most-requested services as guided application flows with document upload, added status tracking with email and SMS notifications at every case transition, and connected payments to the state payment gateway. Authentication runs on the national eID scheme, with a verified account as fallback. Interface text, notifications, and generated documents are maintained in all three official languages through a single content workflow.

Architecture

The portal runs as a server-rendered web application on top of a case-management core, deployed in the government data centre and integrated with the municipality's existing registry systems.

• Citizen-facing portal, server-rendered for fast loads on low-end devices and conformant with WCAG 2.2 AA
• Case-management service modelling each service as a configurable workflow with statuses, deadlines, and assignments
• Integration layer syncing applications and issued documents with the civil registry and local tax systems
• Payment service reconciling gateway transactions against open cases with a full audit trail
• Clerk console covering processing queues, document generation, and trilingual content management

Outcome

Six months after launch, counter visits for the digitized services are down 38 percent, and average case handling time has fallen from eleven working days to four. The portal has sustained 99.9 percent availability, and an independent audit confirmed WCAG 2.2 AA conformance in all three language versions. Uptake is highest for services with payments attached, and the programme office is now extending the platform to neighbouring municipalities.