Smart Company Project:
Agentschap Natuur en Bos

Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos preserves, protects, and develops over 70,000 hectares of natural areas, parks, and forests across Flanders. Its mission is to allow as many people as possible to enjoy the natural beauty that Flanders has to offer. The agency also supports numerous valuable nature projects.

What was needed?

Natuur en Bos was looking for low-code and no-code solutions to simplify and automate certain internal processes.

What did Sirus do?

Maarten was appointed as a developer to explore how various existing processes at Natuur en Bos could be transformed using low-code and no-code technologies. He provides technical expertise on SharePoint and assists whenever the agency wants to implement Power Apps solutions. In doing so, he develops a range of small applications that make life easier for the agency’s employees.

Some SharePoint and Power Apps projects where Maarten provides advice:

Renewing outdated case management systems

ADICT – the system for managing advisory, permit, and subsidy files – was migrated to a new solution, using SharePoint Online for the document management component.

Maarten is also investigating how FinDos – the financial system used by Natuur en Bos to manage invoices and budgets – can be renewed in a similar way using Power Platform components.

Previously, colleagues at Natuur en Bos had to manually copy and paste data between nearly a thousand different Excel files to maintain worklists for nature management plans. Maarten was tasked with creating a POC to automate this process and thus reduce the error rate.

Using Power Automate Desktop, files are automatically read and processed, with business rules guiding certain decisions. The Natuur en Bos employees now only need to review the automatically generated list for any errors, resulting in significant time efficiency for this administrative task.

Forest rangers regularly carry out field visits, during which they plan routes, inspect forest areas, take photos, and write down their observations. With a Power App developed for these visits, rangers can easily log routes, photos, and notes directly in the app. The data is automatically stored in SharePoint, eliminating the need for manual input at the end of the day and enabling effortless reporting.

Maarten also provides advice on the automated processing of emails into SharePoint via Power Automate.

Technicalities of the project

What’s next?

In the future, Maarten will continue identifying opportunities at Natuur en Bos to simplify and automate employee workflows. He will also help transition various existing applications to low-code and no-code solutions wherever possible and beneficial.

What did our Sirus developers think?

“At Natuur en Bos, I get to work on a wide variety of things, it’s a very diverse job. Power Platform allows you to create many small-scale projects with quick, tangible results. That has already led to a lot of progress and has helped many people. It’s rewarding.”

Maarten De Bont, M365 developer at Sirus

Maarten De Bont Developer at Sirus

What did the customer think?

“Low-code technology, such as the Power Platform, will play an increasingly important role in the near future within the strategy of Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos to accelerate process automation. Our collaboration with Sirus has enabled us to phase out outdated technology and develop efficient solutions that not only meet our needs but which have also strengthened our own team with valuable knowledge and insights.”

Daan Rombaut Vendor Manager at Agentschap Natuur & Bos