It’s finally ready! Over the past year, the Oregon BCD ePermitting team has been developing and testing the Android version of the Oregon Inspector App. We are planning to release the app the week of August 23, 2021, via email, to all jurisdictions. The Android version functions in the same way as the iOS version, but for committed Android users, the change in operating system and design will be a very welcomed change. Much like the release of the iOS version last year, we anticipate a few issues may arise that need to be addressed. Please continue to use the ePermitting Help Desk email epermitshelp.bcd@oregon.gov to submit any issues or call 503-373-7396 so we can work with our app developer to resolve them as soon as possible. 

Any inspectors wishing to download and use the Android Oregon Inspector App can do so by following the instructions provided in the email we will send out next week. The Oregon Inspector App is not available on the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store as it is not a public application. 

We have just finished our first round of testing a video inspection enhancement to the Oregon Inspector App.  The app will allow:

• Real time video inspection, with verification of the contractors’ location
• Photo capture during real time video inspections
• Ability for contractors to submit photos (separate from live video inspections) to a record, with location verification
• Push notifications to the contractor app, so that inspectors can give quick status dates about arrival time, or other information
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Our first round of testing went very well, and we expect to begin piloting video inspections in several jurisdictions during September.

Hoping that everyone is now getting into the groove with the new user interface that came with the recent Accela upgrade, and finding that the bumps are smoothing out. If you have not had a chance to read the upgrade documentation (Delegate User changes, Global Search changes, Known Issues with the upgrade) – take this opportunity to read this extremely important documentation.

• Report Page naming – as a result of the upgrade, we realized a bug where our report page naming was not displaying – instead users are seeing, Report 1, 3, 4, and 5. You may or may not see all of these depending on which modules your agency is using and/or that you have permissions to.  Designations are as follows:

                 o Report 1 = BUILDING
                 o Report 3 = PLANNING
                 o Report 4 = PUBLIC WORKS
                 o Report 5 = ONSITE

If you lose track or forget, once you open a report page, there will be a category named for the module-specific reports – so that’s a quick way to ID what report page you are on.

Unfortunately, we have many communities in Oregon dealing with the aftermath of fires and other natural disasters. In order to assist jurisdictions to better track rebuilding efforts after a disaster, we will be rolling out the following additions to OSM:

• A checkbox on ALL records to indicate it is a post disaster permit.
• A dropdown on ALL records to indicate the name of the disaster  (jurisdictions can let us know when an item needs to be added to the dropdown.)
• A text field on ALL records for additional disaster-related info (e.g.,FEMA case number.)

On Structural/ 1 & 2 Family Dwellings ONLY, a dropdown to indicate full/partial rebuild.

In addition, we will be adding reports to help categorize the post disaster data.

Following our recent Accela software upgrade we wanted to touch base with our delegate users. There were some significant changes to delegate functionality in the new version and your feedback as a daily user is important to us. Please take a moment to complete the survey, it’s short and shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. We would like to receive survey responses by the end of the day this Friday, August 20.

Accela Delegate User Survey

     8. All Modules: ​Owner field was added to the Record List in all OSM agencies.