API-ready integration with public services, external registers and institutional digital ecosystems.
Data that already exists is not asked for again
The “once only” principle underlies European digital government policy: the administration should not ask citizens for information it already holds. Regulation (EU) 2018/1724, on the single digital gateway, and Regulation (EU) 2024/903, on an interoperable Europe, turn it from a principle into an interoperability obligation.
In practice, the principle fails where systems cannot talk to each other. And the citizen brings, once again, a certificate the institution could have obtained directly.
How the platform integrates
Communication goes through programming interfaces, not through manual file imports. The platform can consume external services to retrieve identification data, expose its own services to the institution’s other systems, and take part in flows that cross several institutions.
Authentication and authorisation of calls follow the same rules as user access: server-side checks, explicit rights, a trace in the audit log. A system call is not a way around the access rules.
What can actually be integrated depends on the services the partner systems expose. The inventory is done at the start, and its result decides which flows become automatic and which stay manual.
- integration through APIs, not manual file imports;
- external calls follow the same access rules as users;
- the platform can both consume and expose services;
- the interface inventory, done at the start, decides what is automated.
What the institution and the citizen gain
The institution is spared re-entering data and the errors that come with it. Resolution time drops where the wait was really the wait for a document that could have been obtained directly.
The citizen submits fewer documents. And legal deadlines become easier to meet, because part of the journey no longer depends on travel.
How to work
The registry and the portal
The VOGO registry gives incoming and outgoing numbers to documents, in the institution’s registers, with the registration receipt, the register export and the fetching of incoming e-mails. The portal makes digital services available to citizens and customers. The working steps are in the articles on registering a document, export, the receipt and incoming e-mails.
Questions and answers
Which national registers do you integrate with?
Integration depends on the services the registers expose and on your institution’s rights to access them. The actual list is set after an inventory, at the start of the project.
Can we expose our own services to other institutions?
Yes. The platform can publish interfaces, with the same authentication and authorisation rules as for users.
What happens if an external service does not respond?
The flow treats the unavailability as an exception that reaches an operator, not as a silent error. The actual behaviour is configured per flow.
Does integration require changing the existing systems?
Not necessarily. If they already expose interfaces, integration uses them. Where there are no interfaces, alternatives are discussed at implementation.