On March 26, 2018, Wallowa County went live on the ePermitting System as our newest OSM agency.  Wallowa County is using the Building and Planning OSM modules.  We converted Wallowa’s building data from Simply Sassy and converted their planning data from a spreadsheet.  Wallowa marks our 55th OSM agency and our 25th Oregon county on the ePermitting System.  We are thrilled to have Wallowa County join the ePermitting System!

Deschutes County uses the Accela GIS (AGIS) interface to display their ArcGIS map within the Accela back office software.  Recently, Tim Berg, Applications & Systems Analyst at Deschutes County, configured in AGIS what is known as Dynamic Themes, which is an Accela database query that is a visual display of the records plotted on the map.  Tim configured a Dynamic Theme for each inspector that runs a query to find all inspections assigned to the inspector for the day and then highlights the property on the map.  If you would like more information about how to create or use Dyanmic Themes, you may contact Tim Berg at Deschutes County at 541-330-4648.  Great job, Deschutes County for taking advantage of this helpful Accela functionality!

Randy Scheid, Deschutes County Building Official, responded to a few questions regarding the use of Dynamic Themes:

Question: How has AGIS and Dynamic Themes helped with managing your inspections?

Randy: With the rapid population growth we are experiencing within Deschutes County, new subdivisions are being platted on a regular basis.  This presents a challenge for building inspectors when new roads are created in unfamiliar areas.  By leveraging AGIS and Dynamic Themes, we are able to use a map service to display the location of scheduled inspections using individual color-coded points for each inspection and subsequent building inspector.  By using AGIS, we can immediately see which inspectors are assigned to each requested inspection on a daily basis.  

Our inspections are assigned to inspectors using the auto-assignment toolset provided by Accela, using geographic inspection areas.  Overlaying assigned inspections on a map with an inspection area layer, we can immediately see when an inspection is assigned to an inspector outside of their normal inspection area.  This allows for a rapid visual assessment of the inspector/inspection assignment and the number of inspection stops for each inspector on a given day.  When inspections are resulted, they are dynamically dropped from the map, which allows visual confirmation of the number of inspections that are scheduled on a given day.

Question: Has AGIS sped up the inspection assignment process?

Randy: AGIS has definitely increased the speed and efficiency of the inspection assignment process.  For example, if one building inspector has more inspection stops in their inspection area than a neighboring building inspector, it becomes very easy to visually see, then reassign an inspection to the closest neighboring inspector.  As a day progresses and inspections are resulted, we can always see which scheduled inspections are still un-resulted and can visually redistribute the workload to nearby inspectors.  As our Assistant Building Official says, “They are not my inspections and your inspections, they are our inspections and the work is not done until all inspections are completed and resulted”.

Question: How did you manage inspections prior to Tim developing Dynamic Themes on the map?

Randy: Prior to implementing AGIS, we would copy and paste addresses that had scheduled inspections into google maps to determine where the address was located (this has been incorrect many times!).  We would then reassign the inspection to the inspector assigned to that particular inspection area.  This was a long and tedious process when we were unfamiliar with specific road names.  Now, we are able to use our own map service which provides identical address and parcel data to what we are loading into Accela via our weekly Address, Parcel, Owner (APO) uploads.  Having an efficient and accurate mechanism to display scheduled, but un-resulted inspections has allowed for much more proficient inspection management on a daily basis.

To meet the needs of agencies that use multiple modules and offices, financial reports are getting a facelift.  Over the next few months, new versions of the financial reports will become available.  Before  beginning a new report installation, an email will be sent to all agencies explaining the changes.  However, there may be  lag time between  email and installation  because the epermitting team must individually change report settings in each agency.
 
The following daily balancing reports will have versions that allow the user to run the report  for all, one, or several modules or offices.  In some cases the reports may be run by payment method and cashier too.  The heading on these reports has changed as well – the agency contact information has been replaced with the name, phone, and email for the user running the report.

• All in 1 Financial Report 
• Daily Summary Report
• Deposit Slip
• Payments Received
• Transactions Applied
• Payment Exceptions
• Payments with Unapplied Funds

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There are also some new, or modified,  special use financial reports:
Fees by Account 

• Shows fees paid and subtotaled by account code; it can be run for account code 1, 2 or 3.

Fees by Account Code and Module  

• Displays fees paid and subtotaled by account code for all, one or several modules; account codes can be selected; and it can be run for a single account.

Records with Nonzero Balances 

• Pulls records with fees that have been invoiced and not paid, or records that have a credit balance; the report can be run for all, one, or several modules.

Billed Records Report

• Identifies records that have been paid with the ‘Billed’ payment method where the fees paid with ‘Billed’ have not been voided;  it also includes the ‘Billed to’ contact information for each record; and it can be run for all, one, or several modules.

Transaction Audit Report (Completely new version!)

• Compiles payments and applied transactions in an Excel spreadsheet format;  each transaction will include the office, module, cashier, and receipt number; applied transactions that are subject to the Building Permit surcharge or the DEQ surcharge will be indicated; and the report can be run for all, one, or more modules.

Fee Code Report (New!)

• Presents a list of records and applied amounts for one or more fee codes.

Refunds Issued Report 

• Compiles all records or POS transactions that have refund payment and refund payment applied transactions; it  can be run for one or more modules or offices.

The financial transaction reports will also be  changed.  Each of  these reports, except the Set Receipt, will have contact information in the header that matches the record’s module or in the case of POS transactions the module that was used when the POS transaction was completed.  When applicable the header also includes the office.

Invoice and Grouped Invoice 

• Includes either ‘Applicant’ or ‘Billed to’ contact information as well as primary address and primary parcel information.

Transaction Receipt (Redesigned!)  

• When the ‘Billed’ payment method is used the ‘Billed to’ contact information is displayed. 
• When a Fund Transfer is used for a payment, the refund receipt will show ‘Funds transferred to’ record information and the payment receipt will show ‘Funds transferred from’ record information. 
• For each fee paid, the quantities are shown.  Fees that  do not have visually informative quantity amounts, like the building surcharge, building permit or plan review,  will have a quantity of 1 displayed. 
• May be re-formatted to portrait layout again - epermitting is still investigating the feasibility of this change.

Set Receipt 

• Will have a header that includes the agency logo and name, the office, and cashier information.   Each individual record payment included in the receipt will have the contact information for the record’s module. 

Fee Estimate report 

• Will include the jurisdiction and module specific statement for the length of time the estimate will be valid as well as the user name for the user who created the estimate.

Record Fees

• Will only include the new header agency contact change.

Some of the financial reports used to pay others will be modified as well:

• Building State Surcharge and Building State Surcharge Audit reports will not be changed.
• Third Party Payment report will be modified to be run for one or more modules.
• CET and Metro Excise reports are completely new versions.

Te reports have 3 sections – one that shows the fees based on permit issued date and the other that shows the fees based on when the payment was applied.  The third section will show records that have an exemption.  The exemption must have been added or modified within the reporting period.  

• Affordable Housing report will be similar to CET and Metro Excise reports.
• DEQ Surcharge report is a completely new version that will calculate the surcharge amount due  based on any payment applied to a DEQ eligible fee, whether the DEQ surcharge fee was actually collected or not.  A DEQ surcharge audit report will show DEQ surcharge fees collected as well as DEQ eligible fees.

May Training Opportunity: Changing Financial Reports

• The new Transaction Receipt
• Changes to Daily Balancing Reports

Our next Focus Trainings will be the second part to our two part series covering the plan review record types.  This second session will cover Phased Permitting and will be held in May rather then April on May 16, 2018 at 9:00 AM.  Up to 12 participants can attend each class so please send an email to [email protected] and let her know how many from your office plan on attending the training session.  We will schedule additional training dates if the classes fill up. The May Newsletter will have details on the “Changing Financial Reports” training to be held in May also. 

You can easily enter today’s date into any date field in Accela with a single key stroke!  Simply place your cursor in the date field then press the Space Bar on your keyboard and click any where off of the field.  Today’s date will automatically populate!  You can do this in place of clicking on the calendar picker icon to select the date.

1. Place your cursor in any date field:

​2. Press the Space Bar on your keyboard then click off of the field.  Today’s date will automatically populate.

1. Updated Transaction Receipt (Live March 6)
The Transaction Receipt was updated.  Please see the Kayako Knowledgebase article for the new features:
http://orepermittinghelp.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/44/2/sample-reports-with-instructions

2. Corrected Onsite Permit Workflow (Live March 8)
An error was displaying intermittently when updating the Onsite Permit workflow on any of the Review tasks.  This error was corrected.

3. Corrected Cut Off Time for Canceling & Rescheduling Inspections Online (Live March 9)
Previously, inspections could be Canceled or Rescheduled after the Same Day, 7:00 AM cut off time through Citizen Access.  This has been corrected so that inspections cannot be scheduled, canceled, or rescheduled Same Day after 7:00 AM.

4. Corrected Building RV/Manufactured Home Parks Workflow (Live March 21)
Previously on the RV/Manufactured Home Parks workflow, when the “Ready to Issue” status was selected, no tasks were left activated so users would have to use the Supervisor feature to activate the Permit Issuance task.  This has been corrected where “Ready to Issue” will automatically activate the Permit Issuance task without using the Supervisor feature.

This new report has been configured to work specifically within the Public Works module. There are two required parameters which are the Start Date and End Date. These dates will use the Permit Issued Date field in the database. It will display a high level summary of each record and will total how many permits were issued on the last page of the report.  To view this report, go to the Public Works Reports page, expand the Public Works report section, and click on the “PW Permits Issued” report.

Fields on the report:

• Record Number
• Issued Date
• Record Status
• Total Fee Amount
• Parcel
• Address
• Applicant
• Owner
• Licensed professional(s) (displayed only if one on the record)
• Census code (displayed only if it is not blank or empty)
• Application Type
• Detailed project purpose/description
• Work Description
• Includes Erosion/Sediment Control (checkbox)
• Includes Drive/Sidewalk/Curbcut (checkbox)
• Includes Right-of-Way (checkbox) 

​The Inspection Log is available as a function in the Inspection List page.  This function is very helpful in answering questions about inspection scheduling – who, what, where, and when.
Go to the Inspections List page > check the checkbox for the inspection you are needing log details for (can only select one) > select the View Log button > select Inspection Log.

A pop-up window loads, edit the Log Date fields if you need to look beyond the one-month default period – often going back to the date the record was created is most ideal (this date is available in Description of Work as “Opened Date” or on the Record List as “Opened” date) – then select Filter to get log results/complete history for that selected inspection.

Note the different log detail information that provided for the selected inspection.  This includes the following:

• Log Date - the specific date/time that log detail was recorded;
• Log Action - if it was Created or Updated (from Update to Update, you can see what changed such as which Inspector it’s assigned to);
• Operator- who scheduled/edited it (IVR User, Oregon Mobile – app), etc);
• Status - indicates what was done, ie. Scheduled; 
• Scheduled Date - the date it is actually scheduled for;
• Inspector - who it is assigned to (manually or via auto-assign);
• Request Date - the date and time the inspection was requested or updated on;
• Requestor - is whatever name was entered by staff as to whomever requested the inspection or whomever scheduled it otherwise; and lastly
• Inspection Sequence Number - the unique # assigned in the database for each instance of this given inspection – for example, if the original scheduled instance is Denied and a new pending instance is automatically created by the system and then further scheduled – this sequence # will be different for the original resulted instance than for the pended scheduled instance – this helps in grouping the log details to a specific instance.

All of this detail data can be very helpful in determining who ‘changed’ an inspection in any way, including assignment and any other important edits that may have affected your daily schedule or been contrary to your scheduling policy/practices.  If you are unable to run the Inspection Log or need assistance interpreting this data, please contact our help desk at 503-373-7396.