If your agency has the Planning Module and would like to begin to issue standalone TREE permits, please submit a helpdesk ticket to epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov. There is a submittal form and configuration required to set this up. This record type is also the first online application type available for Planning – however, offering the Tree permit application online is optional.

For agencies that might be interested in offering the Tree permit application online, an address will be required for online application – so applications for undeveloped parcels will have to be applied for directly with the agency.  The application provides the option for the Applicant to indicate a specific Tree Application Type and to further line item the Application Type along with the Type of Tree(s) which can be very helpful details for agencies with a Tree Management Program.

You can also submit a helpdesk ticket to learn more about this new Planning TREE Record Type.  Look for new documentation soon to come to the Kayako Knowledgebase on TREES as well.

​When customers schedule an inspection online through Citizen Access, they are not forced to select an existing Pending inspection to schedule.  They can simply click a link to schedule an inspection, select from a list of inspections associated to the record type, and then schedule.  When this happens an extra Pending inspection of the same type is left on the record, which can cause problems when it is time to Final the permit.  To work around this issue, beginning on Jan 20, 2021, we deployed an enhancement for all OSM agencies where the extra Pending inspection on the record of the same type scheduled is automatically removed by script, cleaning up the record.  If there are multiple Pending inspections of the same type that was scheduled, only the first Pending inspection will be removed.  This enhancement applies to the Building, Onsite, and Public Works modules.

If your agency is in the process of any fee updates for the fiscal year – we are asking that you please work to get them submitted by Friday, May 14. Due to the sheer volume of agencies updating at the fiscal year (July 1st) and other projects that are currently in progress, the turnaround time on all the changes to include testing, could take up to several weeks.

The fee updates do not have to be all the way through the approval process or have completed BCD Notice, so we ask that you send the draft of your fees that is currently under review/in process. We can get all the changes drafted and then only have to make minor changes as needed upon approval.

If you wait to submit your fee updates, we may not be able to guarantee their availability in production for July 1.

If you have any questions regarding fee updates, please contact our helpdesk at epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov. ​

​Version upgrade testing continues for the ePermitting team. We are currently testing Accela version 20.2.2 in our training environment. We hope to finish our initial testing by the end of April and will then be upgrading the config environment and asking agencies to get in and do some testing as well. We are looking forward to performance improvements as well as some long awaited fixes! You’ll be seeing more information from us as we progress through our testing cycle.

​The 2021 Oregon Residential Specialty Code, 2021 Oregon Plumbing Specialty Code, 2021 Oregon Electrical Specialty Code all become effective April 1st. The code edition dropdowns for plumbing and electrical, as well as residential structural and mechanical record types will be updated with the new code editions effective April 1st, including defaulting those values to ‘2021’.

​The February 2021 ICC Building Valuation Data has been loaded into Accela for all agencies and will become effective and available for use on April 1, 2021.

ePermitting has recently received a few help tickets from agencies needing to provide a discount or credit to an applicant – there is a way to do this in the system using the PAYMENT functionality.  

1. Assess the fees in full and invoice them,  
2. Go to the PAYMENT tab, initiate a payment,
3. Select ‘Method’ = Credit Memo,
4. Change the ‘Amount’ to the amount you are wanting to credit or discount, 
5. Enter the ‘Payer’ = Credit Memo (there is no payer for this type of exceptional NON-CASH payment transaction),
6. Enter ‘Comments’ to record who authorized the discount/credit and any other important notes regarding the discount/credit being provided.
7. Submit > a Fee List will be displayed where you will determine what fee items you are applying the credit/discount to and for how much > Submit again to complete the payment
8. Retain the Credit Memo receipt for your Finance Department – they likely need to be made aware of the discount and what fees/accounts it was applied to
9. Print the Revenue Exceptions report under Financial Reports v3 and submit this with your nightly balancing reports to Finance

Important Note: Credit Memo exceptional payments should never be refunded as CASH – if voided, they look and act like cash – so anyone processing refunds needs to be aware of this when voiding fees that might have been fully/partially paid by a Credit Memo, or are voiding payments for any reason.

Please take a moment and learn about this and other Exceptional ‘Payment’ Types thru our Kayako Knowledgebase!

• March 15, 2021 City of Dallas added the Public Works and Planning modules including Code Enforcement.
• March 15, 2021 City of Hood River added the Public Works module.
• March 17, 2021 City of Hermiston and Philomath added the Public Works module.

Welcome to ePermitting!

Our Oregon ePermitting Team is happy to announce the release of version 1.0.22 of the Oregon Inspector App (iOS) which resolves multiple errors. Along with many other issues that we were able to address was the ability to save your Favorite Comments when upgrading your inspector app. From now on you will no longer be required to delete the app before installing the new version. That's right! You will only need to follow the instructions below to upgrade the Oregon Inspector App. You can read a full list of fixes and enhancements in the Release Notes here:
https://www.oregon.gov/bcd/epermitting/Documents/apps/release-notes-1022.pdf.

After opening and logging into the Oregon Inspector App touch the "Menu" option and then touch "Help." This will take you to our help page where you can click the link to install the app. Follow the onscreen instructions to upgrade to version 1.0.22. You will also be able to review our release notes to see all the errors that were addressed since version 1.0.15.

Attention - If your agency requires the MDM File for installation, or you aren't sure; please check with your IT Staff. The MDM File is available from the same "Help" page, or at this URL:
https://citygovapp.com/app/oregoninspectorapp.htm.

For all Oregon BCD inspectors, the app is already automatically updated on your device.

Please contact the ePermitting Help Desk if you have any questions or experience any issues - ePermitsHelp.BCD@oregon.gov or 503-373-7396.