Goodbye, paper maze! We developed the Gebouwenpas, a single digital platform that brings together all real estate data

Certificates, inspection reports, permits... Behind every building in Flanders, there is a lot of paperwork. All of these documents are spread across different (government) bodies. That is why the Flemish government was looking for a solution that could centralise all this information. We joined forces to develop a new digital platform: the Gebouwenpas.

About the customer

The Gebouwenpas is an initiative of several departments of the Flemish government:

We have been working together with ACA Group for ten years. They are very committed and deliver quality work fast. Everything always goes smoothly. This collaboration is a continuous dialog with their development team.
— Tine Vande Casteele , Project Manager at VEKA

Challenge: Fragmented property data across government agencies

The information was scattered across different agencies and authorities. This made it difficult to quickly find the documents you need. It was up to us to bring all that data together and make it easy for owners, estate agents, notaries and policymakers to find their way.

Solution: A scalable digital platform for real estate information

We have developed a digital platform that brings all that fragmented information together. One digital passport that contains all important data. First for residential buildings only: the Woningpas. In a next step, for all other types of buildings, such as offices and business premises: the Gebouwenpas.

We opted for Liferay DXP as the foundation of the platform. As a Liferay Gold Partner in Belgium, VEKA can be sure we get the most out of the platform for them. Thanks to us, they are now on the front row for new, interesting functionalities.

On top of Liferay DXP, we have added specific functionalities with Spring Boot and Angular. The result is a modular and scalable solution.

Key functionalities:

Overview of all certificates and reports linked to a building
Integration with data sources of the Flemish government
Single Sign-on (SSO) for seamless access
Intuitive dashboards and widgets for users
Strict security with JSON Web Tokens (JWT)

Thanks to feature flags, we can roll out new functions smoothly. Without making the platform temporarily inaccessible.
— Tine Vande Casteele , Project Manager at VEKA

Recent updates of the Gebouwenpas

Together with the government, we continue to further develop the platform. An overview of some of the most important optimisations and new features:

Gebouwenpas at two levels: information made available per unit, as well as at building level. This also makes information about the common parts of a building visible.
Property sharing: via My Citizen Profile, private or public - depending on what you want.
Printable version: you can now also download your digital passport as a PDF and easily share it.
Expansion to non-residential property: in addition to the Woningpas, there is now also the Gebouwenpas for offices, school buildings, sports centres, healthcare facilities...
Thematic extensions: integration of new information on flood risks, water supply, soil pollution...
Renovation timeline: provides insight into completed and planned renovations. Including grants.
Real energy consumption: integration with digital and analogue meters to provide insight into energy consumption.

The renovation timeline: a quick overview of all renovation projects in a specific building.

The approach: agile to the core

To work flexibly and efficiently, we used an agile methodology with a combination of Scrum and Kanban:

Sprints of 3 weeks with interim demos.
User stories to serve customised content.
Continuous feedback loops and adaptability during development.
Transparent monitoring via JIRA and dashboards.

The agile methodology is very dynamic, structured and comprehensible. Thanks to the dashboards in the planning software Jira, we know perfectly how far along our project is and whether everything is going according to plan.
— Tine Vande Casteele , Project Manager at VEKA

The result

A better overview for citizens and government bodies.
A platform that is future ready: thanks to feature flags, we can roll out new functionalities quickly and efficiently. Without affecting users or rendering the platform inaccessible.
Comprehensible data: we transform the raw numbers into relevant insights about the building.

Our work was awarded the Henry van de Velde Design Award 2020 in the Digital Product category. These awards honour

Companies and governments that use design intelligently.
Products, services and systems with a positive impact on society, the environment and the economy.

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