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To enable agencies to more easily view and update the information for Certificates of Occupancy, ePermitting has deployed an enhancement that includes the following updates:
   
 Once all required information is populated, selecting ‘C of O Issued’ status from the Workflow task will launch the report pop-up as it currently does.
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This is a friendly reminder that the system does not automatically send expiration courtesy letters. Generating the expiration courtesy letters and sending them out is an extra step that jurisdiction staff must take on their own. In most cases, there is a routine batch job that executes weekly or monthly that creates a set of records that are about to expire. Once that set is created, you will need to take a moment to intentionally send the letters.
Here is an ePermitting Help Center article that describes how to generate the letters from a set. If you are unsure about your jurisdiction’s configuration, please reach out to the ePermitting program by submitting a support ticket. A new Contact Type named Utilities is now available. It can be used to create a reference contact for each of your utility companies (electric company, gas company, etc.) so that they can be added as a contact to permits where it’s necessary to notify the utility company of finaled permits. Back office staff will need to monitor incoming applications that require communication to the utility company and must add the reference contact to the record. Then the inspector can easily notify the utility company at the time an inspection is positively resulted. Here is a new ePermitting Help Center article describing the process.
The ePermitting team has transitioned to a new ticketing system. We moved from our previous ticketing system, Kayako, to a new ticketing system called Service. Another exciting part of this transition is that we have reshaped our knowledgebase into a new self-service ePermitting Help Center. Here are the details that you need to be aware of: ePermitting ticketing system - Service:
 Auto pend functionality has been added for Residential Fire (auto pend selections for Residential fire will apply to both multipurpose and standalone fire applications).
The inspections available to auto pend are:
Please submit a ePermitting Help Desk ticket, if you would like to auto pend inspections to your Residential Fire applications. These days, the pace of change for technology and software is very rapid. In order to continue our relationship with Accela, provide stability for ePermitting and adjust for changes in Accela’s product offerings, we recently renegotiated our contract with Accela for the next seven years.
One change at Accela, which will affect ePermitting over the next few years, is that Accela no longer supports the “on premise” version of its software. “On premise” is a version of the software that allows users to install the software on their own servers, and to administer and directly access their own databases. While we have always been hosted on Accela-maintained servers, we have used the on-premise version of the software because it gave the ePermitting team direct database access which provided us with additional tools to enhance and customize the product. Because the on premise version of the product is no longer supported (or updated), we will be moving to the Accela Software as a Service (SaaS) offering. The move is going to involve a three-step process:
Celina Patterson, ePermitting Manager: [email protected] Managing APO - addresses, parcels, and owners can sometimes seem exhaustive. New addresses are needed for new structures, parcels split or are annexed in, owners change all of the time through property sale or transfer - so much to keep up with.
We have provided the following helpful training articles located in our new Help Center to assist you in managing this information.
Join us in welcoming the City of Clatskanie, Dunes City, City of Jacksonville, City of Lafayette, City of Lakeside, City of Oakridge, and City of Vernonia who joined Oregon ePermitting in the Spring/Summer of 2025.
If your agency has a January 1 fee increase for your Building Department, please submit a ePermitting Help Desk ticket sending your new fees to the ePermitting team by Monday October 27. Remember to go back and look at your previously adopted fee schedule.
If you are increasing Building Department fees, you will also need to notify the Policy section of Building Codes Division as well: [email protected] Fee increases received after October 27 may not be ready to install by January 1. State offices will be closed on Friday, November 28 for the day after Thanksgiving. If your agency will also be closed and not conducting inspections on that day, please submit a Help Desk ticket to block out November 28 on your inspection calendars and let us know whether to block out the day after Thanksgiving on future calendars. We will not be automatically blocking out the date, so we would appreciate hearing from you if you need inspections blocked out.
By default, the Public User who submitted the online application can always view electronic plans on the record. To allow other Public Users to view the electronic plans, a Reference Contact can be added to both the Public User account and Record to link them together.  Go to Contacts from the Launchpad.  This will open up the Reference Contacts page. First, search for the appropriate contact to see if it exists. If it doesn't, go ahead and create it. After its created, take note of the Reference Contact ID. This is a unique number associated to each reference contact and can be used in the next steps.  Go to the Record List and search for the appropriate record. Go to Contacts and hover over Manage Contacts. Select Look Up Contact.  Search for the appropriate reference contact. Make sure to select the one with the matching Reference Contact ID as seen in the step above.  You should receive confirmation that the contact was added successfully.  Next, associate the same reference contact to the public user account. This step can only be done after the user has created their public user account. Go to the Launchpad and open the Public User page.  Search for the public user account based on the email address associated to the account. Email or User ID are generally the best ways to search for a public user account.  Select the public user account by clicking on the email address.  Click on Contact and choose Look Up.  Search for the same reference contact that was associated to the record. Make sure to select the one with the matching Reference Contact ID. Click Connect.  You should receive confirmation that the contact was added successfully.  At this time the public user can log into the Public Portal and see all electronic plans.
We are now receiving daily updates for Landscape Architects, a new license type available to all participating ePermitting agencies, as of September 8, 2025. This license is issued by the Oregon State Landscape Architect Board (OSLAB) and is generally used within the Building module. These licensed professionals can now be added to records through the back office where their license status and expiration date is automatically validated. Landscape Architects are unable to apply for any new applications through Citizen Access
Beginning January 6, 2025, the “OWNER” licenses (OWNER-PLUMB, OWNER-ELEC, OWNER-STR/MECH), that were configured for homeowners to use to apply online on Citizen Access for building permits, will be retired and no longer available for homeowners to use. They will be replaced with a new “Homeowner Path” for the online Building application process where the user must certify that they are the homeowner by entering contact information and uploading a Homeowner Acknowledgement Form for every online application. The new Homeowner Path is available in our Staging environment for you to preview. This new process should be more user-friendly and streamlined for homeowners! More important notes:
These are the high level steps a homeowner will take to submit an online Building application. New training documentation for homeowners can be found here: https://www.oregon.gov/bcd/epermitting/howto/homeowners/Pages/index.aspx
 4. Once the permit type is selected, the homeowner will have a new screen where they will certify that they are the homeowner by 1) adding their contact information; and 2) uploading a copy of the Homeowner Acknowledgement Form. 
Jurisdiction User Experience:
Changes to Citizen Access Wrapper: A new main navigation button will be added with information that is specific for homeowners:  At any point in time when withdrawing a record, it is important to consider what to do with any new or outstanding, unpaid fees. Just because a customer has withdrawn their application or permit does not mean they don’t potentially owe on any fees. They could still owe for completed services such as plan review, inspections, or other departmental fees that should be collected. If the fees assessed are no longer due, then delete them if NEW or VOID them to credit if invoiced and unpaid. If fees are already paid, consider if a refund is due based on the circumstances of the withdrawal.
Withdrawn is an available status on all Workflow tasks – this result status will close the record and update the Record Status to ‘Withdrawn’. Check that no other Workflow tasks remain open after withdrawing – if any remain active, use Supervisor mode to set them to Active = NO and to remove any user assignment (note, Department must remain selected as a requirement, only the User can be rolled back to -Select-). Don’t forget to SUBMIT to save your changes, CANCEL to leave Supervisor mode. There are standard Model reports and Filters that can assist in identifying any records that are withdrawn but still have outstanding fees and/or assigned tasks. Permit process in ePermitting:
As you probably know, ePermitting loads CCB contractor licenses and BCD contractor licenses daily, as well as the monthly loads of Architect, Engineer, LCB, Surveyor, and Septic Installers and Pumper licenses. Most ePermitting online applications require a contractors’ license of some sort (unless a homeowner is doing the work). However, within each application type, the scripts check only to see that the applicant has the general type of contractor license required, not that they are working within the scope of that license. Licensees should know the scope of work allowed by their licenses and filling out an online application leaves a clear trail if someone is exceeding the scope of their licenses.
Examples of exceeding license scope:
Occasionally contractors do pull permits that exceed the scope of their licensing. If you discover one of these, you should ask the contractor to provide the appropriate license information, and if they do not you should revoke the permit. If you suspect that the exceedance was purposeful, or that the contractor is repeatedly pulling permits that exceed their license scope, please forward the information to either CCB’s or BCD’s Enforcement sections. The permit types that are available to public users when they are creating an online Building application is dependent on the licensed professional (LP) requirements that are configured in Accela, as well as the license associated to their public user account. The ePermitting team found that Driveway, Commercial Sign, and Residential Sign permit type LP requirements were incorrect. The following corrections have been made across all jurisdictions.
Note: no changes were made to how these permit types function in the back office.
During the first half of 2025, ePermitting will be phasing out the IVR (telephone) inspection scheduling system, which also includes SelectText inspection scheduling.
We are phasing these out because the usage is very minimal, and those users that try IVR often struggle to successfully schedule their inspections. The phase out will happen over the course of the next six months:
We anticipate that IVR will no longer be available by Summer, 2025 but will send out updates as we proceed with this project. With the sunset of the IVR Inspection scheduling option, customers can still schedule online thru ACA directly or using Easy Scheduling, and/or through the ePermitting app. Also, if you would like to have Jerod Broadfoot conduct contractor training on how to schedule inspections using the app and the website, please contact him at: [email protected]. City of Clatskanie - Go live Spring of 2025
City of Jacksonville - Go live Spring of 2025 City of Lafayette - Go live Spring of 2025 City of Lakeside - Go live Spring of 2025 City of Oakridge - Go live Spring of 2025 City of Vernonia - Go live Spring of 2025 Dunes City - Go live Spring of 2025
Join us in welcoming the City of Fairview, City of King City, City of Lowell, City of Ontario, and City of Sherwood who joined Oregon ePermitting in the Fall of 2024.
A new record type called Code Authorization is now available for all jurisdictions using the Code Compliance module. You may start using the record type anytime! It was developed so that jurisdictions who manage certain authorizations through Code Compliance can record fees and payments, issue an authorization to the applicant, and track inspections. For example, Klamath County authorizes camping on personal property for 21 days. This record type allows the county to manage and track camping authorizations. The record type was designed to be very flexible across all jurisdictions by modifying the Authorization Type dropdown. Other possible use cases are authorizing garage sales, lemonade stands, or even short term rentals through Code Compliance.  Please contact the ePermitting Team to modify the Authorization Type dropdown by emailing [email protected].
Here are more helpful details about the Code Authorization record type:
You can now customize the invoice report to include payment directions. Here is an example:  If you're interested in customizing your agency's invoice report, submit a help desk ticket to [email protected].
In our continuous efforts to improve security, we will be enhancing Accela user security, which includes: Requiring more complex passwords as well as standardization for password timeout and account disable time frames.
Password Requirements Beginning September 1st, new password requirements will go into effect. Passwords will now require:
*These changes will apply to ACA users as well Six failed login attempts within 24 hours will result in your account being locked. In addition to the password requirement changes listed above, we will be standardizing the password timeout (password required to be changed based on the last date it was changed) and account disable timeout (based on the user’s last login date when logging directly into an agency) time frames. The Kayako knowledgebase article about "How to manually reset a password before it expires," can be found here: https://orepermittinghelp.kayako.com/article/224-manually-resetting-password. Account Disable Timeout Account disable timeout is the time period from the user’s last login date (when logging directly into the agency). The user’s last login date is not updated when a user delegates into an agency or when a user logs into the Oregon Inspector App (though we are working with our app developer to see if they might be able to change this setting). As of September 1st, we will be setting the Account Disable Timeout to 365 days for all users with the exception of system users (these are users that are not actually logged into by an individual but are used for integrations such as the apps). If a user has not logged directly into any agencies where they have a user account within 365 days of the last time they logged directly into that agency, their account will become disabled. If you are a DELEGATE USER (you log into OREGON and use the delegate dropdown to navigate to other cities and/or counties) or an inspector that generally only uses the Oregon Inspector App, please be aware, that in order to prevent your account from becoming disabled, you need to log directly into each of your agencies (must log into back office) at least once every 365 days. Password Timeout Password timeout timeframes will be set to 180 days for all users with the exception of system users (these are users that are not actually logged into by an individual but are used for integrations such as the apps). After Sept. 1, you will be prompted to change your password every 180 days (unless you’ve changed it sooner). If it’s been more than 180 days since your last password change as of September 1st, you will be prompted to change it before logging in. If you are a DELEGATE USER, please be aware that passwords are set at the individual agency level (including OREGON) and you will need to log into each of your agencies directly to change the password, if you wish to use the same password in all of your agencies. If you update your OREGON password and then use the agency dropdown to switch to one of your delegate agencies, you will not be able to use the same password that you used for OREGON. You will need to log out of OREGON and log directly into the other agency(ies). It is our recommendation that DELEGATE USERS and app users log directly into each of their agencies when updating their password(s), this will effectively also update the last login date for that agency so that their account will not become disabled. *If you need help with your password or a disabled account, submit a ticket to [email protected] |
DisclaimerPlease be aware that this content is relevant at the time it is published, but as time goes on may become out-of-date. We will do our best to keep the content alive and relevant. Archives
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