Appointments are canceled: Citizens' offices only able to work to a limited extent

Berlin's citizens' offices are currently only able to work to a limited extent for technical reasons. Appointments scheduled for Wednesday have been canceled. The aim is to offer affected Berliners an alternative appointment as soon as possible, said the spokesperson for the Mitte district...

, and Lauren Adams

2023 December 27 . 4:33 PM

1 min read

Two employees work in the Training Citizens Office. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de

Berlin - Appointments are canceled: Citizens' offices only able to work to a limited extent

Berlin's citizens' offices are currently only able to work to a limited extent for technical reasons. Appointments scheduled for Wednesday have been canceled. The aim is to offer affected Berliners an alternative appointment as soon as possible, said the spokesperson for the Mitte district office, Christian Zielke, on Wednesday. According to the district office, the background to this is a database problem at the Berlin-wide IT Service Center (ITDZ). Several Berlin media outlets had previously reported on the issue.

Accordingly, a notice on the platform X (formerly Twitter) read: "Berlin-wide failure of the VOIS software - no citizens' office appointments possible on 27.12.2023."

The information from the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district office on X was similar: "The citizens' offices are not operational all day. Appointments will be canceled in writing," it said. "Customers with an appointment for today can present their appointment confirmation at the information desk of the citizens' office in the coming days and will be given a new appointment at short notice, depending on capacity, even for the same day."

"We have a problem in the database," ITDZ spokesperson Olaf Reimann confirmed to the daily newspaper "B.Z.": "The failure affects the appointment allocation. Unfortunately, this is not possible throughout Berlin today." The solution analysis is currently still ongoing.

Zielke said that this was understandably very annoying for those who had been looking forward to having an appointment at the citizens' office between the years. It is not yet clear when the system will be up and running again. "We are all a bit up in the air," said the spokesperson.

Tweet from the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district office Tweet from the Mitte district office Report in the "B.Z." newspaper Report in the "Tagesspiegel" RBB report