ProNa
Nature Authorization Workflow Platform
A fully digital authorization pipeline replacing a 1996 legacy system — processing ~3,500 requests per year through the complete governmental chain, from citizen portal to ministerial signature, with full traceability and zero paper.
A 1996 system handling Luxembourg's entire nature protection authorization chain.
Every construction project, land development, habitat modification, or public event taking place in a protected natural zone in Luxembourg requires a ministerial authorization under the law of 18 July 2018 on the protection of nature and natural resources. That means roughly 3,500 authorization requests per year — from a simple cattle shelter to a new railway line — each requiring instruction by regional ANF forest officers, review through a multi-level administrative chain, and a formal ministerial decision.
Until 2020, this entire process ran on an application dating back to 1996, updated in 2018 but never fundamentally redesigned. Paper documents circulated between services. Visibility into dossier status was limited. The decision-making chain — from field officer to ministry — had no unified digital backbone. The MECDD and the ANF decided to restructure: transferring full processing responsibility to the ANF and replacing the legacy system with a modern application capable of handling the entire authorization lifecycle digitally, end to end.
The decision-making chain — from field officer to ministry — had no unified digital backbone.
One application. The entire authorization lifecycle — citizen portal to ministerial signature.
ProNa is the application Thelis built to digitize and manage the complete authorization workflow under the 2018 nature protection law. It covers the full chain — from the moment a citizen submits a request on the MyGuichet national portal, to the ministerial signature on the final decision. Citizen requests are automatically ingested from MyGuichet via a structured data flow, eliminating manual intake entirely.
MyGuichet integration
Citizen requests are automatically ingested from Luxembourg's national portal via a structured data flow — eliminating manual intake, ensuring data consistency, and returning signed decisions back through the same channel at closure.
End-to-end workflow engine
The dossier moves through a defined workflow: analysis by regional ANF forest officers, review at successive administrative levels, escalation to the ministry, and return of the signed decision. Every step is tracked, every transition is enforced.
Role-based access & electronic signature
Each level of the decision chain — field officers, regional services, ministerial staff — has distinct permissions and views. Electronic signature satisfies legal requirements for authenticity and non-repudiation on ministerial decisions.
Full traceability & living maintenance
Complete audit trail of every action on every dossier. Thelis handles both corrective maintenance and ongoing evolutionary development — because every change to Luxembourg's nature protection legislation propagates directly into ProNa as a development task.
A fully digital authorization pipeline — from citizen portal to ministerial signature.
Paper circulation between services eliminated. Every actor in the decision-making chain — from regional forest officers to ministerial staff — has real-time visibility into dossier status. Ministerial decisions are traceable, signed electronically, and automatically transmitted back to applicants via MyGuichet.
Beyond the initial delivery: Thelis maintains ProNa as a living application aligned with Luxembourg's evolving legislative framework. Every regulatory change — a new authorization category, a modified procedure, a changed competence — is reflected in the system. For a public institution, this ongoing reliability is as important as the initial build.
Key Challenges
Modeling a legally-defined process
ProNa doesn't implement a business process — it implements a legal one. Every workflow step, every actor's permission, every notification, every deadline is defined by legislation. That means the application is not just a tool for the ANF: it is a technical expression of the law. Getting that right required deep immersion in the regulatory framework, close collaboration with the administration's legal and operational teams, and the discipline to model rules precisely rather than approximately.
A living application under a changing law
The legislative framework governing nature protection authorizations in Luxembourg continues to evolve. Each regulatory change — a new category of authorization, a modified procedure, a changed competence — propagates into ProNa as a development task. Thelis ensures both corrective maintenance and evolutionary development, meaning the application stays aligned with the law as the law changes. For a public institution, this ongoing reliability is as important as the initial delivery.
Managing a multi-level decision chain in a single system
The authorization process involves structurally different actors — field officers who analyze dossiers on the ground, regional services that compile instructions, and ministerial staff who issue final decisions. Each level has different permissions, different views, different responsibilities. Modeling this hierarchy without creating rigidity — so that the system can accommodate exceptions, delegation, and urgency — was one of the core architectural challenges.
Integrating electronic signature into a governmental workflow
Ministerial decisions carry legal weight. Integrating electronic signature into the ProNa workflow — in a way that satisfies regulatory requirements for authenticity and non-repudiation, while remaining practical for the staff who use it daily — required careful integration work and close alignment with Luxembourg's national digital infrastructure standards.
Bidirectional integration with MyGuichet
ProNa is not an island. It receives structured data from the national citizen portal at intake, and returns decisions to it at closure. Keeping that integration stable across portal updates, maintaining data consistency between two independent systems, and ensuring that citizens receive timely, accurate responses through their official channel adds a layer of complexity that pure internal applications don't face.