Toon Timbermont

Want to become a Skryver?

I did an internship at Skryv as part of my studies Multec at Erasmus University College Brussels. In short, my assignment was a mix of front-end dev and designing wireframes for the Skryv Studio. Working in a scale-up was a challenging and get-out-of-your-comfort-zone experience. These are my 3 takeaways of the past three months, enjoy!

## #1 Learn to ask “good” questions
I remember being afraid during my first weeks to ask a question which would make me look “stupid”. Well, you will probably look more stupid once you spend a few days on that problem. Asking questions can save you at least half of the time.

### Plan your question
Planning your question is key. Give enough context to the listener, so the listener can understand the current situation with minimum effort. This will make the situation and problem easy to understand and will save you and the other person’s time.

## #2 Understand the project
You need to understand the project and see the bigger picture before you dive into coding. Misunderstanding the requirements can lead to a huge waste of time and energy. You can avoid this by putting a little bit more effort into communicating with your mentor or project manager to clarify some requirements.

### Break the project into smaller pieces
A big project can be scary sometimes. I remember me stressing about how big the project was during my first weeks.

The key here is to break the project into smaller pieces that can easily be done and managed. Using a visual project organizing tool such as Trello can definitely help you with that.

## #3 Write code that’s clean, understandable and maintainable
I learned that the key for a clean, understandable and maintainable code is to ensure classes and function have a single purpose, and the purpose can be understood at first glance.

###Read your code in 2 weeks
Reading your own code 2 weeks later is no different from reading other people’s code. If you don’t understand the code that you’ve written 2 weeks ago, you can’t really expect that other people who will read that code 5 years later will understand it. Just as you would not like to spend hours to read and understand the complicated code, your teammates wouldn’t appreciate it either.

Blogpost - my 3 takeaways frontend internship.jpg

I did an internship at Skryv as part of my studies Multec at Erasmus University College Brussels. In short, my assignment was a mix of front-end dev and designing wireframes for the Skryv Studio. 

My 3 takeaways from working as a front-end developer intern at Skryv

It all started with a simple question: “So… are you guys looking for a motivated intern?” 4 months later, Arno learned a lot, Skryv learned a lot and our platform came better out of it! Herewith, the full story of Arno’s internship.

## Interning at Skryv
As a college student in Europe , doing an internship in the industry related to your field of study is a given. For me this wasn’t any different.

Usually, the internship starts off with finding a company to actually work for and College University Ghent helped out with this by providing a list of companies. Too bad there weren’t any that caught my eye and so I started searching on my own.

I knew a couple of people who already worked at software development companies, but the one that interested me most was Skryv.

## Why Skryv?
I found out about Skryv through a friend of mine, Gertjan, who works as a front-end software engineer and was talking very highly of them.

I queried about the technology they use and luckily for me, the software and the way of working at Skryv are up-to-date. Furthermore the front-end codebase uses AngularJS, which is a Javascript framework I was already familiar with and EcmaScript 6 (the next version of Javascript).

These were things I was already aware of and excited me, as I had a small introduction into what the software stack looked like by Gertjan.

Another positive aspect that attracted me to Skryv is that the team is small since it is still a startup. This also means that the organizational structure is very flat, and everyone’s part of 1 team.

## “So… are you guys looking for a motivated intern?”

That’s what I asked Gertjan. And that’s how the ball got rolling.

It was surprising how fast the whole process of applying to actually interning was. I sent in my CV and was promptly invited to a Skype-interview with Toon, the co-founder of Skryv. After this interview, where I was given an overview of what Skryv actually meant for customers and what I could bring to the table during my internship, another interview was scheduled with Adriaan, also a front-end software engineer, to evaluate my hard skills.

After Toon & Adriaan debriefed after this last interview, I got the heads-up that they were interested in letting me run along for a day with the team and seeing how it goes. It was a stressful day since I wanted to do well on my first day at Skryv, but nevertheless it was exciting to have my first day on the job. At the end of the day, I discussed with Toon & Adriaan if I saw myself working at Skryv for 3 months. You already know the answer.

## The internship
Now came the real deal: programming 4 days a week. Adriaan took up the (sometimes gruelling) task of mentoring me during my internship.

As a student in Applied Informatics with a specialization in native apps, the obvious starting point was building out a first prototype of a mobile application of the Skryv-platform.
Before I could even begin writing code, I was invited along on a team-building exercise so instantly I was introduced to the whole team in a casual atmosphere.

The main activity of the team-building exercise was completing an escape-room. The concept of an escape-room is to work in a team to try and find your way out of a room with the items inside of the room before time runs out. This gave me a bit of insight on how everyone behaved in the team and was really handy to take my place in the team. Since we were 9 , we split up into 2 teams, resulting in some friendly competitiveness as well.

Back at Co.Station in Brussels, where the main office of Skryv is located, I started coding again on the mobile app. This was an entirely new project based on existing code from the front-end and since the codebase is written in EcmaScript 6, I could easily reuse the existing modules and components from the front-end application and just override unwanted behaviour.

All in all this was a pretty good way to get acquainted with the source-code. During my internship I also had to work on my thesis which talked about going offline-first with an existing web-application. After Toon heard about my topic, we talked about allotting some time for a possible proof of concept in the existing Skryv platform. This has been a huge benefactor for me since this was exactly the use case for my thesis I was looking for.

During my first few weeks at Skryv I also attended a couple of UX meetings where existing views and components were iterated upon after feedback of the users of the platform. End-user testing is oftentimes not looked into as it is conceived as a ‘hassle’ for the client, but this showed to me personally that this kind of testing is very much worth the while.

## FIN
I’m writing this as I’m approaching the end of my internship. I’ve learned a whole bunch in the last 3 months about working and communicating in a team, why best practices exist and what’s possible in a small startup of 10 people. The quality of my code has improved pretty much every week and I finished some (if I may say so myself) pretty good features and a proof of concept for the Skryv platform.

In hindsight, the key takeaway for me is that I need more time to develop features and that the quality of my code is still up for improvement. You get out of school and think you can write some decent code, but the code written in the industry is on a different level and mine wasn’t up to par yet :)

But hey, that’s what code reviews are for, right?

Blogpost - looking for a motivated IT intern.jpg

I’ve learned a whole bunch in the last 3 months about working and communicating in a team, why best practices exist and what’s possible in a small startup of 10 people. 

So... are you guys looking for a motivated intern?

For five weeks, I’ve been a marketing intern at Skryv as part of my business engineering degree at the VUB. One of the goals of Skryv is to formulate their value proposition more clearly. In order to work on this, they asked some help and looked for an intern. So this is how I got into the company! Let’s find out more about my experience.

## Books, theory and more books… Time for some action!
After four years of studying theory, I decided it was time to turn knowledge into practice. I already realized that marketing could be one of the fields in which I would like to work later. Since my degree didn’t offer a marketing-specialized master, I concluded that doing a marketing internship would be a good solution to gain some more experience. Skryv gave me the chance to make this happen!

## “eGovernment and APIs”, what?
For getting more insight into the company, I started by reading a lot of literature about eGovernment and the working of APIs. I had never heard about these concepts and I was asking myself how I would be able to contribute something relevant to them in only five weeks. What I learned is that you don’t always need to possess all the information. Sometimes, only knowing the basics in combination with receiving good guidance in a flexible environment is enough to create something useful.

## Formulating the Value Proposition more clearly
For developing a more concrete formulation of the value that the products of Skryv can bring to its clients, the strategy included the following. First, I took part in creating a questionnaire that is sent to organizations to have a look at what their current needs consist of. 

Next I was the moderator of two workshops where some colleagues brainstormed and filled the Value Proposition Canvas. I had studied that Canvas before in the marketing course of the VUB, but I had never applied it in reality, which was a very enriching exercise for me where I realized that everyone showed up with different ideas. 

The combination of these two elements will give a good idea about the value Skryv can deliver to their clients and how to communicate this to them. It was interesting to see that following all the rules and the definitions as originally described in models is not always necessary. Sometimes, changing them a little bit and doing your own thing leads to more inspiration and delivers a better output.

## To conclude…
Already from the beginning, it was clear that the five weeks were not going to have a fixed planning. And it was true: after some time I realized that marketing is not really about following a list of steps. It’s about being creative, thinking out of the box, never stop trying and creating ideas in unexpected moments. I am very grateful to have had this experience as my first marketing practice ever!


Blogpost_marketing_internship_source_strategyzer.jpg

For five weeks, I’ve been a marketing intern at Skryv as part of my business engineering degree at the VUB. One of the goals of Skryv is to formulate their value proposition more clearly. In order to work on this, they asked some help and looked for an intern.

Theory becomes practice during my marketing internship

In 2014, we started with 3 and we are now with a team of 10. As our business grows (somewhere around 40% in 2018), we are constantly looking to add great people to the team.

The team is the place where all the magic happens and knowledge grows. So we ask a lot of questions within the team. Like “why do we work for Skryv?”. We found 4 common themes (and a bonus one).

Hopes this helps YOU to consider becoming a Skryver!

## (1) We want to Shape a Growing Company

Skryv is a growing company in which each of the Skryvers has a big impact. This is true for what we do (How can we best serve our clients? What is the best next feature for our platform?), how we work (Which tooling? Which technology?) and who does what (Which roles?)

Any team member has a big impact on the company. No matter the role one takes, one receives ownership of a part of the organisation, and the possibility to shape and co-create the future evolution of Skryv. In other words, there is plenty of room for entrepreneurial mindsets.

## (2) We want to Shape Our Work
We go for self-organisation. None of the roles is set in stone and all are open for improvement. So we all have the opportunity (and responsibility!) to optimise the way we do our work and take up (new) roles.

The key is that we – as a team – deliver results. We pay a lot of attention to work-life balance, but sometimes we go the extra mile to get things done!

In summary: we’re self-starters with great freedom… (You all know the spiderman quote, right?)

## (3) We want to Learn & Grow
The more we know and the more we are able to do, the better we will be at having a positive impact, getting to self-organising, … 

So we created an environment of active coaching and constant learning.  This happens on the job through discussions with colleagues, peer reviews, … But more formal trainings, conferences, books, … are also on the learning agenda.

So as a new joiner, you will find yourself surrounded with smart people and receive a lot of input & feedback. Indeed, we want you to become good at your job and this goes much faster if you are well coached!

## (4) We Seek and Live Respect
Finally, we believe that the only way to treat people is with respect. So we listen to understand and take the time to explain our point of view and come to the best solution. We pay a lot of attention to respectful communication, constructive handling of differences in opinion and providing actionable feedback

This also means that all Skryvers get insight in how Skryv is doing as a company (e.g. through quarterly updates on the business metrics). As such, you get the transparency you need to know how your (future) company is doing.

… and of course we have fun :)
No need to be serious all the time! Every 2nd Thursday of the month, we go for a drink, play games and have a relaxed portion of fun: our Thirsty Thursday!

Blogpost - 4 + 1 reasons to work at Skryv.jpg

As a full-stack developer of applications on the Skryv platform, you are the primary technical contact for the client. You get to know their architecture, you design & develop technical integrations and you install the solution.

You are comfortable in client settings and not afraid to roll up your sleeves. In short: this is the ideal role if you want to grow from a developer to an all-round technical designer and architect.

## Skryv, Digital Gov entrepreneurs
Our mission is to simplify the (digital) interaction with and within the government. We are the fastest way to digitise government services. We offer low code software modules. Both for government agencies that provide services and companies that use digital government services.

With Skryv being part of the Vanden Broele group, you will experience the best of both worlds: a dynamic start-up culture within the stability of a larger group of experienced players.

## A day at Skryv
At Skryv we are currently working fully remotely, so your workday usually starts in your home office. You open your laptop, check in to say hello and start the day with one of the following tasks:
- Talk with the client to design the technical solution (cloud infrastructure, features & integrations). You’ll need to get a good understanding of the client's architecture and requirements (both functional and non-functional).
- You develop the customisations and integrations, together with other developers and functional analysts. All of our development is based on a modern technology stack (Java, Spring, Node.js, React, ElasticSearch, docker, terraform, AWS, …).
- You roll out the solution using continuous delivery on our or the client's cloud infrastructure.

## Your profile
Do you recognise yourself in this description? We want you to fit in with the team. Do not worry if you cannot tick all of the boxes yet, we are not perfect either.
- You have a master's degree in IT, computer engineering or a related technical field.
- You have 2-4 years experience with Java (incl. Spring) and/or javascript (Node.js, React). You have a broad technical interest and are keen to learn new stuff.
You have a first experience with standard Web Security technologies (LDAP, Oauth2,…)
- You are familiar with Infrastructure as Code, continuous delivery, continuous integration and have a DevOps mindset.
- You are a good communicator, in English, French and/or Dutch. You like to communicate regularly with our clients and the team. You always keep the customer in mind and get a good understanding of their needs.
- You deliver high-quality, maintainable code of which you want to take ownership.
- You have the guts to work at a dynamic scale-up. This means that you are self-driven and autonomous, that you like to work in a quickly changing environment and have a flexible attitude whenever the job requires it (which works both ways, as you can read below).
- You are on the path of mastering Agile Technical practices (TDD, eXtreme Programming in general).
- You like working in a team and you are not afraid to ask for help
- You are not afraid to be wrong
- Are you looking for bonus points? Experience with BPMN is a plus.


## What do we offer apart from your paycheck?

We want you (and all of us) to become the best in what we do. So you’ll get:

- An attractive reward package, including mobility budget (you choose the way you move around), digital budget, group insurance and health insurance. 
- Projects with social relevance and on applications that reach thousands of citizens. 
- The freedom to choose your tools (OS, IDE, …)
- A learning path that will advance your career, at Skryv we believe in T-shaping and continuously invest in our employees. You’ll learn on the job by pairing with your colleagues, as well as through formal training. We reserve fixed time slots dedicated to learning and exploring new topics, whether it is developing your technical skills or improving your soft skills. As a company, we want to foster curiosity and encourage you to experiment safely without fear of failing.
- Flexibility to organize your work (the two-way flexibility :).
- And of course, we have fun! No need to be serious all the time! Every 2nd Thursday of the month, we play games and have a relaxed portion of fun.


## What's the procedure?
You drop us a note explaining why you want to work for Skryv and how your experience can help us to become even better as a company. A link to a blog, a github account or any other info is always a plus! Next, we set up a call to get to know each other. If you and we are convinced that there is a good match, you meet the team and do a short exercise that resembles the work you will do. If both sides are still happy and fully convinced, we sign a contract and get going!
Interested? Or do you want to know more? Get in touch with Laura, our HR business partner: by mail laura.praet@vandenbroele.be, or by phone +32 474 685 394 - 050 456 188. We are looking forward to meet you!

Full-stack developer (Javascript, Java, AWS)

You help clients with the simplification of their (administrative) processes. You work with them to identify the simplification opportunities and set up the ideal case management workflow on our platform.

## A day at Skryv
At Skryv we are currently working fully remotely, so your workday usually starts in your home office. You open your laptop, check in on Slack to say hello and start the day with one of the following tasks:

- You simplify the administrative processes by rethinking the functional flow, the information in the process, the wording of the questions, etc. In doing so, you always aim for clarity and simplification.
- You aim to optimise the user experience by reducing the effort and time needed to complete the process. (E.g. Which steps can be automated? Which steps are optional? Where can information be pre-filled? Which information can be deduced from other answers? Etc.)
- You configure the solution via Skryv Studio and test it out. When doing this, you search for common patterns to reduce the overall work and finetune our simplification approach.
- You do all of the above in close collaboration with the client during focused configuration sprints.
- You work together with the application developers on the custom client features.
- You work with the rest of the team (product engineers, product owner, sales & marketing) to identify and define creative and innovative solutions for client challenges.

## Your profile
Do you recognise yourself in this description? We want you to fit in with the team. Do not worry if you cannot tick all of the boxes yet, we are not perfect either.
- You have a master in business engineering, business management,.. or equivalent through experience.
- You have a background in functional analysis and/or technical writing.
- You have a strong affinity with or interest in web technologies.
- You are a good communicator in English, French and Dutch. You feel comfortable in client workshops and are willing to take the lead in these workshops (over time).
- You want to take ownership of your work and deliver top quality.
- You have the guts to work at a dynamic scale-up. This means that you are self-driven and autonomous, that you like to work in a quickly changing environment and have a flexible attitude whenever the job requires it (which of course works both ways).

## What do we offer apart from your paycheck?
We want you (and all of us) to become the best in what we do. So you’ll get:
- A learning path that will advance your career, at Skryv we believe in T-shaping and continuously invest in our employees. You’ll learn on the job by pairing with your colleagues, as well as through formal training. We reserve fixed time slots dedicated to learning and exploring new topics, whether it is developing your technical skills or improving your soft skills. As a company, we want to foster curiosity and encourage you to experiment safely without fear of failing.
- Flexibility to organise your work (the two-way flexibility :).
- A sports budget, a mobility budget (you choose how you move around), health insurance, a group insurance and we cover your work-related expenses.
- And of course, we have fun! No need to be serious all the time! Every 2nd Thursday of the month, we play games and have a relaxed portion of fun.

## What's the procedure?
You get in touch with us through [our mother company's job site](https://jobs.vandenbroele.be/o/functioneel-analist-digital-gov) or you drop us a note at [jobs@skryv.com](mailto:jobs@skryv.com), explaining why you want to work for Skryv and how your experience can help us to become even better as a company. A link to a blog, previous achievements or any other info is always a plus! Next, we set up a call to get to know each other. If you and we are convinced that there is a good match, you meet the team and do a short exercise that resembles the work you will do. If both sides are still happy and fully convinced, we sign a contract and get going!

Functional analyst

Did not find what you are looking for? No problem! We are always looking for new talent. Skryv is a great environment for both starters and more experienced employees. Give it a try ????

## Part of a growing company
Skryv is a young and growing software company that focuses on smart technology. We offer a platform which helps businesses to simplify and automate their internal processes. At Skryv we co-create to come to the best solution, in an environment of active coaching and lots of learning opportunities.

## What's the procedure?
Very simple: you drop us a note [(jobs@skryv.com)](mailto:jobs@skryv.com), explaining why you want to work for Skryv and how your experience can help us to become even better as a company. A link to a repo, blog or any other info is always a plus! Next, we set up a Skype call to get to know each other. If you and we are convinced that there is a good match, you come over for a few hours. You meet the team and do a short exercise that resembles the work you will do. If both sides are still happy and fully convinced, we sign a contract and get going!

Spontaneous application

As a software engineer you are part of the product development team, which is responsible for developing and maintaining the Skryv Platform and the Skryv Studio. You get to design new features from scratch, experiment with new technologies and continuously improve our products.

## Skryv, Digitale Gov entrepreneurs
Our mission is to simplify the (digital) interaction with and within the government. We are the fastest way to digitise government services. We offer low-code software modules. Both for government agencies providing services and for companies using digital government services.
Because Skryv is part of the Vanden Broele group, you will experience the best of both worlds: a dynamic start-up culture within the stability of a larger group of experienced players.

## A day at Skryv
At Skryv we are currently working fully remotely, so your workday usually starts in your home office. You open your laptop, check in to say hello and start the day with one of the following tasks:
- Develop our Skryv Platform or our Skryv Studio, either through pair or mob programming or by working individually.
- Participate in refinement sessions with the product team to clarify upcoming to-dos.
- Participate in design sessions for new features.

## You as Skryver
Do you recognise yourself in this description? We want you to fit in with the team. Do not worry if you cannot tick all of the boxes yet, we are not perfect either.

- You have a master's degree in IT, computer engineering or a related technical field.
- You are a motivated developer eager to learn.
- You care about what you build and focus on quality.
- You take ownership and always look for improvements.
- You value good development practices (TDD, CI/CD, XP, …).
- You like working in a team (pair programming).
- You are able to split large problems into smaller parts and share your solutions with the team.
- You keep an eye on the bigger picture (the direction of our productss).
- You are a good communicator, both in English and Dutch or French.
- You have the guts to work at a dynamic scale-up with an agile way of working. This means that you are self-driven and autonomous, that you like to work in a quickly changing environment and have a flexible attitude whenever the job requires it (which works both ways, as you can read below).

## Our stack
Our stack consists of the following main technologies:
- Javascript, Node.js, React, Some Angular (but we are switching to React) 
- Java, Spring Boot
- Elasticsearch, MySQL
- Containerized applications (on AWS)
- Jenkins

## What do we offer apart from your paycheck?
We want you (and all of us) to become the best in what we do. So you’ll get:
- An attractive reward package, including mobility budget (you choose the way you move around), digital budget, group insurance and health insurance. 
- The freedom to choose your tools (OS, IDE, …)
- A learning path that will advance your career, at Skryv we believe in T-shaping and continuously invest in our employees. You’ll learn on the job by pairing with your colleagues, as well as through formal training. We reserve fixed time slots dedicated to learning and exploring new topics, whether it is developing your technical skills or improving your soft skills. As a company, we want to foster curiosity and encourage you to experiment safely without fear of failing.
- Flexibility to organise your work (the two-way flexibility :).
- And of course, we have fun! No need to be serious all the time! Every 2nd Thursday of the month, we play games and have a relaxed portion of fun.

## What is the procedure?
Very simple: drop us a note explaining why you want to work for Skryv and how your experience can help us to become even better as a company. Next, we set up a call to get to know each other. If you and we are convinced that there is a good match, you come over for a few hours. 
You meet the team and do a short exercise that resembles the work you will do. If both sides are still happy and fully convinced, we sign a contract and get going! Interested? Or do you want to know more?
Get in touch with Laura, our HR business partner: by mail laura.praet@vandenbroele.be, or by phone +32 474 685 394  - 050 456 188.
 We are looking forward to meet you!

Software engineer

During a brainstorm, we asked ourselves the question “why do we work for Skryv?”. We found 4 common themes (and a bonus one).

4 (+1) reasons to become a Skryver

Fancy smart and easy-to-use online services? 

The Vlaams Rampenfonds compensates individuals and companies who suffered from damages caused by an exceptional, general disaster (e.g. excessive rainfall). The disaster fund was created after the state reform of 2011 when the competence was delegated from the federal to the regional level.

## The challenge
The team had to find a new way to treat the submitted compensation claims. They tried out multiple approaches but none seemed to fit the bill. Systems were aged, it took a long time to treat the claims and collaboration with multiple people was a challenge.

The two biggest motivators for the Vlaams Rampenfonds to move to a case management software were:

* To ease the collaboration between the different stakeholders (external experts, case managers, citizens, head of the department,…)
* To simplify and digitize the request process for citizens and companies that suffered damages

## The solution: an end-to-end digital process that fits the ecosystem

Due to the introduction of new legislation, the organization had to start from scratch. It had no internal IT team at its disposal. Skryv started off with a business analysis track (Think & Try). At the end of the workshop series, the organization knew what the future would look like and what features the solution should have. The three most important features for the organization are:

### A smart ePortal.
Citizens can now submit their request for compensation digitally via the ePortal. It guides the user through the forms and ensures a seamless experience. It is powered by smart forms, the collection of data from authentic sources and error recognition (e.g. when the national number is missing a digit). Before the introduction of the ePortal, different paper forms had to be completed based on the damage one had suffered. Today, a digital request is possible and the citizen is led to a customized form based on his context.

### Digital processing of the claims. 
Today there is one smooth digital flow, from the moment a citizen starts a request to the actual payment (or denial) of the compensation. This allows for a significant decrease in processing time of the claims. Firstly, all the information is brought together on the Skryv platform. The case manager has everything he needs within reach. Secondly, all calculations are done automatically, based on a limited number of inputs from the experts. Lastly, all communications to the citizen are generated automatically by the system.


### Integration with the building blocks of the Flemish government.

The Flemish government provides different IT building blocks. Both the ePortal and case management platform needed to fit into this ecosystem. Today the Vlaams Rampenfonds fetches data from different authentic sources (parcel registry, KBO, …), uses the login system of the Flemish government and has an ePortal that reflects the Flemish corporate identity.

##Advantages
This digital and automated way of working created various efficiency gains:

-  **Simplified administrative process.** Requesting compensation is no longer an administrative hurdle. The citizen does not have to enter the same information over and over again. He gets a personal approach that fits his context. Once submitted, the request can be handled promptly. 
- **Improved collaboration with all stakeholders.** The case managers, victims, heads of departments and external experts work together on one platform. Based on the allocated rights they have secured access to the appropriate data and dashboards.
- **Quality improvement, both for the organization and the citizen.** By following the only-once principle and automating repetitive tasks, typos and miscalculations can be avoided. This speeds up the process and prevents the case manager's frustrations about incomplete or incorrect dossiers or repeating the same acts over and over again.


Customer story - Vlaams Rampenfonds.jpg

Citizens submit their requests via a smart eportal which triggers the digital evaluation process on the Skryv platform. Fully integrated with the Flemish gov IT building blocks.

Rampenfonds created a digital experience for the citizen and a better collaboration with external experts 

Your DIY toolkit to digitise your services and create the best online experience for citizens. It is easy to set up and adjustable at any time.

Create and edit forms without having to rely on a developer. Fast to set up, maintain and in a language that both business and IT understand.

product-1-feature-1.png

Low-code DIY platform

Actively inform the citizen on changes or questions about his dossier. Send notifications via different channels (email, eBox, MijnBurgerprofiel, etc). It helps you to decrease the number of worried phone calls by citizens and increase transparency.

Proactive communication

Ease the evaluation of the dossiers and integrate with your back-office system by using API, webhooks or file-export.

Back-office integration

Minimize the effort for the citizen and avoid mistakes by using smart form techniques. Requesting a service will become a walk in the park.

Feature - smart citizen forms.svg

Smart citizen forms

Keep the citizen well-informed and increase transparancy. Every client has an overview of the status of his dossier(s) and their history.

Overview

logo-front-office.svg

Module-front-office.svg

Front-office

Front-office software to help you digitise your services, improve the quality of requests and inform the client.


Smart forms, happy citizens

Want to tackle your backlog of dossiers?

Wonen-Vlaanderen helps to make sustainable and affordable housing available for everyone in Flanders. They provide different support measures, such as the “renovation premium” to support the renovation of houses that are at least 30 years old, or the “adaptation premium” to support the modification of houses to the needs of the elderly. 

## Challenge and objectives
Wonen-Vlaanderen struggled with a backlog of cases, due to a long processing time of premium requests. It took up to a year for the citizen to receive a (final) decision. They worked based on a paper dossier and used an application to store the (meta)data of each dossier. The work pressure for the case managers was high.

They decided to simplify and digitise the administrative process of the renovation premium, with the following objectives:
- Substantially reduce the processing time;
- Move towards a paperless work environment;
- Have a software system that is easily adaptable to organisational reforms and legislative changes.

## A digital back office to save time
Wonen-Vlaanderen selected a scanning solution to digitise its paper dossiers and selected the Skryv platform for process automation and case management. 

The process automation of multiple objective checks and calculations allowed to drastically reduce the dossier processing time. The system automatically gathers info from different authentic sources and checks specific conditions such as the level of income, the age of the house, the type of house, etc. Thanks to this automation, it is now known within seconds whether a requester qualifies for the premium.

By digitising the remaining administrative workflow on the Skryv platform using the case management,  the case manager’s work is simplified. When a case manager starts a task, the system offers the exact info and documents needed to complete it. The automated task assignment ensures the work is distributed and that the case managers focus on the most important tasks. Dossiers can easily be retrieved with the search function. The dossier overview gives the case manager all key information about the dossier at a glance and makes all dossier information easily available.

Finally, it was important for Wonen-Vlaanderen to have an adjustable system that can adapt quickly to changing regulation.  For example, an updated premium type was added and activated on the platform within one month of publication of the new regulation. 

## Advantages
By introducing a fully digital way of working, together with the necessary simplification measures, Wonen-Vlaanderen reached its goals: 
- They noted a substantial decrease in the processing time, allowing to eliminate the case backlog that had been increasing in the previous years;
- The fully digital workflow allows for case management from home, supporting the teleworking available at the Flemish government;
- Wonen-Vlaanderen increased its flexibility. When legislation around the renovation premium changes they can easily adjust to the new situation, as was demonstrated with the swift upgrade to the new version of the renovation premium;
- They have a strong basis to build on. Other types of premiums, new integrations to authentic sources and reporting tools can easily be added. 


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By digitising its back-office, Wonen-Vlaanderen noted a substantial decrease in the processing time. This allows them to eliminate the case backlog they had built up in the previous years.


Wonen-Vlaanderen reduced its processing time

Everything you need to digitally process your dossiers from submission to payment. It’s adaptable, low-code and integrated with your services. 


Configuration-based set up and maintenance to save costs and improve business - IT alignment. Complemented with customisation to come to the best solution.

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Low-code case management

The low-code approach puts users in control. Add intelligence, introduce templates and let the processes work for you. Laying the foundation for a qualitative workflow. 

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Smart workflow management

Control and divide the amount of work and ease the collaboration with externals. (Automatically) assign tasks, define responsibilities and visibility according to the user's role. Check the version history to know who did what and when.

Collaboration & team management

A central overview of all the dossiers and to do's that varies according to one's responsibilities. Use the search and filter function to quickly find info and dossiers.

Overview & reporting

Maximally reuse data and avoid copy-paste and mistakes. We integrate with your organisation's log-in, authentic sources, databases, look & feel and other tools.

Integration

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Case management

Case management software to help you focus on the real deal, decrease the processing time and get insight into dossiers. 


Right info, right time, right place

Want to increase productivity and focus on your efforts?

Your low-code tooling to automate repetitive tasks and decisions. Easy to maintain and 100% reliable.


Save cost and gain flexibility with our low-code tools. They allow you to quickly set up and maintain your processes without heavy dependency on the software vendor.

Low-code set-up

Orchestrate how third party data enters your systems, how information is modelled and other actions in your end-to-end process. Optimize the process in order to eliminate redundancies and increase productivity.

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Orchestration

Support the case manager by automating decisions, so he can focus his efforts. Define the business rules in DMN and automatically generate an advice for specific questions. Obtain a lower error rate and overall quality improvement of dossiers. 

Decision automation

Easily integrate the automated process in your (case management) system. You can trigger or manage it via the properly documented Rest API. To save even more time, you can execute the automated processes in bulk instead of executing them individually.

System to system

Use the easy & accessible user interface to quickly validate the automated processes. It also comes with an admin page and support tooling. 


User interface

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Process automation

Automation software to help you automate repetitive tasks, make decisions and increase productivity.


Ease your work, increase productivity

Want to make maximum use of existing IT building blocks?

The all-in-one connectivity suite to integrate with eGovernment services. Prevent duplication of effort and minimize the IT and maintenance costs 


Connect faster to a whole range of eGovernment services and always have the most up-to-date version at your disposal. We are currently connected to: 

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Out of the box connectors

Difficulty with understanding the variety of technical implementation and documentation? Bypass the technical complexity of the eGovernment services by integrating to the connectors suite.

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Easy to integrate

You are automatically compliant with security requirements. Several government services expose sensitive personal data and require specific security measures. Examples are certificate management and legal logging each time data is consulted. 

Security compliance

Avoid fall-downs, useless calls and learn from best practices. Use smart techniques such as throttling to not overload the 3rd party service and circuit breaking to help bring the 3rd party service back in business. 

Robust connectors

Add more business oriented functionality to maximally benefit from the eGovernment service. For example, fall-back scenarios when the service is not available.

Mini-processes

Use the connector factory to quickly add connectors or follow evolutions. Including secure development practices and knowing how to deal with (anonimised) personal data during the development cycle.

Connector factory

Quickly get started, test without any hassle and get a view of the status and history of calls. Easily manageable and always up to date.

Easily accessible user interface

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Connectors

Connector software to help you reuse information, improve collaboration with others and to avoid copy-paste. 

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