Walsall Council Webforms Project

The need

Deliver complex, case-like webform journeys without investing in a separate case management system.

Agile Collective collaborated with Walsall’s digital team to address these requirements, enabling LGD webforms to support multi-stage workflows, integrated payments, reusable components, automation, and a staff dashboard linking all case documentation and decision-making.

The challenge

Bringing services together

Legacy systems

Walsall Council’s service landscape featured a tangle of submission methods, such as:

• DNN webforms on an outdated platform
• Editable and static PDFs
• Word documents and ad hoc templates sent by email
• Webforms provided by core line of business applications

This led to recurring issues:

• Residents repeatedly submitted the same information in varying formats
• Service teams manually re-entered data, chased missing information, and handled payments
• Technical teams maintained technology outside council CMS strategy
• The overall objective was clear: a unified, digital-by-default journey for residents, with integrated processes across the new LGD website, Drupal commerce, and payment providers.

Why Standard Webforms Weren’t Enough

Many council services follow straightforward patterns, but others,like planning or parking, are inherently complex:

• Residents submit requests with supporting documents
• Officers review, clarify details, set fees
• Residents pay, sometimes with refunds or top-ups

Legacy workflows required email exchanges, manual payment corrections, and data held in multiple places. Key operational needs included:

• Save and return for long/complex forms
• Full case history and task management
• Granular permissions between service teams
• Secure file uploads for large documents

Could these needs be met within LGD’s existing webforms, avoiding a separate case management platform?

Our approach

Extending LocalGov Drupal Webforms

Using and expanding existing tools

Agile Collective’s approach was to build on LGD’s robust foundation and fill gaps with proven Drupal modules and limited custom coding.

Case Management via “Process” Entities

We developed a custom “process” entity joining:

• Multiple webform submissions
• Drupal Commerce order  records
• Status, assignee, and progress tracking

Each “process” uses Drupal’s State API to track stages like “new,” “reviewing,” “awaiting payment,” and “complete.” Webform handlers transfer data between steps, automate updates, and link everything together for effective staff oversight.

Payments Integration

Handling payments via Drupal Commerce was crucial, especially where officer review determines fees. Our solution enabled:

• Dynamic order items and fee structures
• Scheduled price-lists for future updates
• Integration with Walsall’s existing Pay360 payment portal

Residents complete webforms, officers review, and order items are generated for secure payment, handling both immediate and deferred fee journeys.

Automation

Using the ECA (Event–Condition–Action) module, we set up automations triggered by:

• Submissions
• Payments
• Status changes
• Permissions

Sensitive data is protected by the Drupal Group module, reflecting council teams and service boundaries. Only authorised officers see relevant cases, supporting privacy and internal governance.

Resident experience improvements

Forms now allow saving and returning without logins, using secure emailed tokens. Document submissions feature repeatable upload components, file size and type limits (aligned with hosting constraints), and virus scanning using ClamAV.

“Check your answers” summary steps and GDS-compliant error messaging help residents correct information, reducing back-and-forth.

Staff and Back-Office Integration / Centralised Dashboards

Council teams have a dashboard that provides:

• Case summaries
• Status, service area, and assignee filters
• Task assignment and document access

Flexible data flows include:

• Email/PDF submission outputs for teams without system integration
• CSV exports for bulk data import
• Secure retention, anonymisation, and deletion policies for sensitive data

Collaborative delivery and reusability

Wireframes in Balsamiq ensured a cohesive and testable design process. Reusable form components, documented workflow patterns, and composite fields support faster, standardised webform creation. Several forms are already live, and many more legacy forms are currently being migrated, making the solution enduring and robust.

Outcomes

By extending LGD and adopting open-source solutions, Agile Collective and Walsall Council have:

• Enabled multi-stage, case-driven processes directly in the LGD site
• Automated key actions and notifications for staff
• Reduced manual interventions and duplicate data entry
• Improved resident experience through usability enhancements
• Enhanced permissions, security, and governance

The patterns and components developed are suitable for reuse by other councils and support best practices in open-source development.

Next steps

Teams are focused on:

• Sharing reusable code and components with the LGD community
• Designing and building more reusable form components
• Continuing to migrate webforms to LGD forms

Agile Collective continues to offer council-focused digital strategy, integrations, and webform development for organisations looking to improve public service delivery.