Municipalities manage complex responsibilities that span infrastructure, safety, planning, technology, and community services. Yet many departments still work with separate systems and disconnected datasets. This fragmentation limits insight, slows decision-making, and makes collaboration harder than it needs to be.
Shared data across departments is a key enabler for smarter governance, better services, and more resilient communities. Below, we explore why shared municipal data is important, how Intoto supports cross-department collaboration, and what results municipalities and communities can expect.
Why is it important to have shared data within departments in a municipality?
Municipal departments often work on related issues, but from different angles. Traditionally, they use separate systems and datasets that rarely connect with each other. This creates silos that limit insight, efficiency, and effective decision-making.
For example, technical departments may operate sensors and isolated systems to monitor infrastructure or environmental conditions. However, this data is often not shared with the risk management department, even though it may be critical for assessing situations such as rising water levels during a flood.
At the same time, the planning department may not have access to either risk assessments or real-time water-level data, as their work is often based on static maps. Meanwhile, the technology department may have tools that show how many people live in a specific area, but this information is not shared with risk, technical, planning, or communications departments. We have seen countless examples of this kind of fragmentation.
Data from Intoto is relevant across multiple departments, which is why we often engage with several teams at the same time. Through these processes, we have learned two key things:
1. Simply adopting the mindset and methodology of cross-department collaboration is new and transformative for many municipalities.
2. Having a shared platform that enables departments to work together using the same data, and ensures that the data is relevant to everyone. This is essential for better coordination, understanding, and outcomes.
How does Intoto bridge various departments within a municipality?
Different municipal departments naturally view the world through different lenses, based on their roles, responsibilities, and daily tasks. Intoto is designed to support these different perspectives at the same time, allowing each department to work in ways that feel familiar while still using shared data.
At the core of the Intoto platform is a unique setup inspired by GitHub’s forking principles. This approach allows data to be shared, reused, and adapted across departments without losing control or ownership. Each team can work with the same underlying data, but tailor it to their specific needs, analyses, or workflows, all while remaining connected to a common source of truth.
In addition, Intoto curates data, making complex and diverse datasets easier to access, understand, and use. This reduces technical barriers and ensures that data is not only available, but also meaningful for non-technical users across the organization.
Beyond technology, Intoto also helps bridge departments through cultural and human factors. By encouraging collaboration, shared understanding, and cross-department dialogue, the platform supports new ways of working together, breaking down silos and fostering a more connected municipal organization.
What are the results of departments sharing common data and information?
More data = more insight and more knowledge.
Sharing = reusable knowledge and saves resources by its synergies.
When municipal departments share common data and information, the most immediate result is better insight. More data, when connected and contextualized across departments, leads to deeper understanding and more informed decision-making. Instead of each department seeing only a small part of the picture, shared data creates a holistic view of what is happening across the municipality.
This shared insight improves both day-to-day operations and long-term planning. Risks can be identified earlier, resources can be allocated more accurately, and decisions can be based on real-time or up-to-date information rather than assumptions or outdated static sources.
Sharing data also enables the reuse of knowledge. Analyses, models, and insights developed by one department can be reused by others, rather than recreated from scratch. This reduces duplicated work, saves time, and ensures that departments are building on each other’s expertise instead of working in isolation.
Finally, shared data unlocks synergies across the organization. Collaboration becomes easier, communication improves, and municipalities can achieve more with the same resources. The result is not only increased efficiency, but also better services, stronger preparedness, and more resilient communities.
Do you have examples of how it is working for municipalities today?
A good example is the municipality of Kristiansand. Before using Intoto, the municipality operated a road-temperature sensor system that was isolated and accessible to only a limited number of people. This meant that valuable real-time information was not available to other departments that could benefit from it.
By connecting this data to the Intoto platform, road-temperature data became accessible to all relevant departments within the municipality. This improved coordination, decision-making, and situational awareness across teams.
In addition, the data can now be shared beyond the municipality itself. It can be made available to the wider community, as well as to the regional municipality. At the same time, the regional municipality can share its own data back with Kristiansand. This two-way data sharing creates a broader, more connected data ecosystem that benefits everyone involved.
Another example is the Torne River, which forms the border between Sweden and Finland. Intoto is being used to improve flood risk awareness for municipalities on both sides, including Haparanda in Sweden and its Finnish neighbors. This collaboration includes integrating real-time radar and sensor data, and now communities along the river have continuous visibility into changing water conditions rather than relying on fragmented or delayed observations. The shared data layer enables coordinated, earlier decision-making across national boundaries, helping both countries move from reactive flood response to proactive risk management.
What are the benefits for the community?
When municipalities connect data across departments, the benefits extend beyond the organization and directly impact the community. By “connecting the dots,” municipalities can shift their focus away from managing fragmented data and toward solving real-world problems that affect residents.
Shared data enables better services, faster responses, and more informed decisions that reflect the actual situation on the ground. Whether it is improving safety, managing infrastructure, responding to environmental risks, or communicating more clearly with citizens, connected data helps municipalities act proactively rather than reactively. The result is a more transparent, efficient, and resilient community where resources are used where they matter most.
How long does it take to do this, and is it costly?
Intoto is built specifically to handle cross-department data sharing, which means the core technology and infrastructure are already in place. Clients are not starting from scratch. They come to a ready-made platform designed to support these use cases from day one.
It takes time for our clients to get the full benefits of data sharing. Identifying synergies, aligning departments, and establishing new ways of working takes effort and collaboration within the municipality. This organizational journey is often the most valuable resource as well as demanding. However, once these connections are established, municipalities gain long-term benefits through improved efficiency, better insight, and stronger collaboration across departments.
As for the cost, Sigurd Paulsen shares his experience of working with Intoto:
“For Kristiansand, working with Intoto has proven to be very high value for the cost. Actually, Intoto has done more than we expected. We have had a good way of working together with an innovative company that is building such a system.”