Nestled in the northern waters of Sweden, Hammarö is a small yet distinctive island municipality, home to just over 17,000 residents. Despite its size, Hammarö faces the same complex demands as larger municipalities ranging from childcare, education, elderly care, infrastructure, and social services.

In Sweden, municipalities bear a wide range of responsibilities, making integrated and efficient digital services not just beneficial but essential. As digital expectations grew, Hammarö realized that its limited resources alone couldn’t keep pace. The need for an integrated, scalable platform became clear.

“We’ve become a more digital society, so naturally we needed to figure out as a municipality how to meet the citizens where they’re at in a more innovative way,” explained Lena Norén, IT and Digitalization Manager at Hammarö.

To improve citizen experiences and streamline internal operations, Hammarö partnered with Lowcodi and Mendix to develop a comprehensive digital portal, combining employee case management with intuitive self-service tools for residents.

Low Code in Local Government

Hammarö’s operations were previously managed by numerous specialized systems, each serving a different function. But this fragmented approach created unnecessary complexity for both citizens and employees.

Supported by national and local digital action plans, Hammarö began looking for a fast, secure, and flexible development platform. Mendix stood out for its rapid prototyping, visual modeling, and secure on-premises hosting.

For Kevin Berling, Hammarö’s sole in-house developer with experience in Java, C#, and Python, Mendix offered a welcome shift from traditional code-based platforms.

“We wanted to kickstart our digital transformation and needed a platform that was fast but could also handle complex functionality. Mendix fit those needs perfectly,” he said.

He was also impressed by how far low-code had evolved. “Before Mendix, I thought low-code was only for simple tasks,” he shared. “But Mendix lets you handle both basic and advanced development. The repetitive parts developers usually try to avoid are much faster to build so you can spend more time on the interesting challenges behind the scenes.”

Berling found that rapid iteration was a key advantage of the new approach. Initial builds didn’t always align perfectly with user expectations, but as users began interacting with the system, their feedback led to immediate refinements.

Traditional coding methods couldn’t match the speed at which adjustments were made, allowing the team to continuously improve functionality in real time.

As development progressed, Hammarö’s partnership with Lowcodi also grew naturally. “Hammarö’s innovative mindset matched well with both Lowcodi and Mendix,” said Niklas Häggström, CTO at Lowcodi.

For Norén, this way of working was a refreshing change of pace.

“In traditional projects, suppliers expect detailed specifications from the start, and changes later often mean delays or new contracts,” she explained. “But with Lowcodi, the process is collaborative. We define priorities together and adjust as the project evolves.”

Unifying Services and Improving Citizen Experience

Many municipalities struggle with siloed digital systems. Hammarö moved in a new direction, designing a modular, future-ready portal that connects new Mendix services with existing legacy systems.

The transformation began with a high-impact area: school and childcare services including enrollment, school transportation and relocation applications.

The first rollout integrates with the educational backend systems to manage the invoicing. For parents, the process is unified, faster, more transparent, requiring less repeated data entry.

The MyPages portal continues to expand, offering services like building permits, trash collection, and utility billing, all through a personalized interface.

Even services still running on older platforms were made part of the seamless experience.

“We can simply link them to the Mendix portal,” Noren explained. “The user selects the service in Mendix, and we redirect them seamlessly. So, while it feels like one unified experience, they’re actually completing the task in the old platform.”

On the backend, cross-department collaboration is made easier with:

• Role-based views
• Integrated case management
• Consistent design across apps

“We’ve streamlined internal processes by integrating backend systems and eliminating manual tasks like copy-pasting,” explains Häggström. “That saves time and reduces errors.”

Central to this was a robust integration strategy. With extensive API use and single sign-on, users log in once to MyPages and access everything from a unified interface.

“All the information is available in one place instead of scattered across many systems,” Berling highlighted. “It’s a huge win for both usability and case management.”

Even better, every feature is built as a modular component, designed for reuse, not just within Hammarö, but in municipalities across Sweden.

“What’s unique is that Hammarö shares our ambition to build something scalable,” Häggström emphasized. “When we integrated with the Swedish Population Registry, we chose a method that works for all municipalities, not just one.”

Turning Feedback into Functionality

The success of the platform wasn’t just about technology. It was also about people. By adopting agile methods and involving end users throughout development, the team fostered a culture of collaboration and co-creation.

“Most of the business users, like school and education administrators, aren’t IT experts,” Häggström shared. “In the beginning, they didn’t fully know what was possible. But through ongoing dialogue, they’ve gained insight into what we can build, and we’ve learned more about their real needs.”

One of the most impactful choices the team made was bringing school staff and parents directly into the development process.

“We invited school staff to participate from the very beginning,” Noren explained. “They created a wishlist of features they wanted to see. We worked in agile sprints, with planning at the start and demos at the end, and they were involved every step of the way.”

Internal departments began to see the potential too. “Our finance team asked if we could display childcare invoices in the portal,” Noren recalled. “That kind of request shows they understand how this reduces questions from citizens and improves communication.”

The process also revealed valuable user preferences, such as how citizens preferred clean, uncluttered interfaces, while employees needed visible identity details for case handling. Balancing these needs became part of the portal’s design.

“They’ve found a new way to approach digitalization,” Häggström said.

Additionally, with guidance from Lowcodi, Berling developed rapidly in his role.

“Their experience has been invaluable,” Berling said. “They’ve supported me technically and even provided one-on-one mentoring. It’s like a free apprenticeship. I’ve grown as a developer while helping move this project forward.”

Scaling Digital Innovation in the Nordic Region

In just six months, Hammarö delivered a feature-rich portal, backed by a small team and big ambition. “Less than a year ago, we weren’t using Mendix at all,” Berling reflected. “Now, we’ve learned the platform and gotten into the Mendix mindset.”

With the MyPages portal live and growing, Hammarö is now recognized as a digital leader among Nordic municipalities. The project’s foundation–a flexible architecture, empowered development team, and collaborative mindset–has become a blueprint for others.

“Many think municipalities are 20 years behind digitally,” Häggström said. “This project, especially with Mendix, changes that narrative and moves them forward. We really admire Hammarö’s courage to try something new. Few public sectors take such bold steps.”

Though the project began with a focus on citizens, it quickly uncovered new opportunities inside the organization.

“During development, colleagues started asking for help digitizing internal processes, things still done on paper,” Norén said. “Mendix turned out to be a great fit. Now, we’re launching a second initiative focused on internal services.”

As the municipality modernizes its intranet, Mendix will be used to develop internal dashboards, automated workflows, and additional employee-facing tools.

The roadmap ahead includes new modules for:

• Housing and building permits
• Waste management and utilities
• Roadwork notifications and property information

Each service added strengthens both citizen engagement and internal efficiency. And with modular components at its core, the system is built to scale.