Kick-off for developing an interface to consume municipal statistical data from DUVA within KomMonitor

The open-source monitoring software KomMonitor and the information management system DUVA have coexisted for several years, forming the core part of workflows for users in municipal statistics, social planning, and public administration. DUVA is characterized as a metadata-based data warehouse that enables the collection, management, and primarily table-based evaluation and analysis of municipal statistical data. KomMonitor serves as a municipal monitoring system, enabling the joint, explorative analysis of indicator-based time series data and geoinformation in charts and maps.

Since both DUVA and KomMonitor rely on their own data schemas, manual transformation of the DUVA data was previously necessary to enable its availability and evaluation within KomMonitor. The integration of both systems offers obvious advantages. DUVA functions as a municipal data warehouse, acting as a Single Source of Truth for municipal statistical data. KomMonitor provides extensive tools for the spatio-temporal analysis and visualization of this data. What could be more obvious than implementing a direct interface between DUVA and KomMonitor? Acknowledging this synergy, KomMonitor developers and representatives of the KOSIS network agreed to develop such an interface. The goal of this interface is to enable KomMonitor to access the data directly from the DUVA data warehouse for data presentation.

Those involved in the KomMonitor development have been toying with the idea of a KomMonitor-DUVA interface for a few years. In 2024, Kreis Mettmann and partners from the KOSIS network jointly worked to expand KomMonitor’s rights and roles concept, creating a roadmap for complete multi-client capability. Several extensions have been implemented. As a result, a KomMonitor instance can allow district-affiliated municipalities, upon request, to manage users for their area of responsibility themselves.

KomMonitor has been designated as reference software by the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MAGS NRW) for its funding call “measures to combat poverty and promote social cohesion”. Thus, the development of a KomMonitor-DUVA interface was central to Kreis Mettmann’s funding application. Not only will this be funded, but also the remaining aspects of the multi-client capability roadmap, ensuring KomMonitor’s functionality, data protection, and data security.

A first kick-off meeting between 52°North, Kreis Mettmann, KOSIS network partners, and DUVA developers took place in October 2025. It resulted in a first technical draft of the interface, as well as the identification of municipal requirements for the interface. In an early March meeting, technical requirements and the system architecture were refined based on the existing technical draft. The group also defined important specifications on confidentiality procedures during the implementation of the interface.

52°North will soon begin development on the KomMonitor-DUVA interface, marking a significant step toward establishing digital connections between various municipal specialized systems. The joint use of KomMonitor and DUVA will greatly benefit municipalities by minimizing data redundancies and strengthening cross-departmental planning. Specifically, the interface will make complex, municipal statistical time series data from DUVA readily accessible and analyzable with KomMonitor.