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The Role of ePermitting with Agency Fees/Fee Updates and Going to Notice

8/8/2022

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We had a record-breaking number of agency fee updates this past July, approximately 63% of our 80+ agencies had a major fee update.  Given the sheer volume, we ran into several agencies that thought that only sending their fee update for BCD Notice would also come to ePermitting for update – this is not the case.  This misunderstanding caused significant delays and rework for many agencies.  

As a result of these challenges, we wanted to share the ePermitting fee update process and BCD Notice requirement with all participating agencies.

Fee Update process with ePermitting – we ask that you send us your final fee update draft as soon as it’s available, it does not have to be adopted and we highly recommend that you send any fee updates to us PRIOR to submitting for BCD Notice.  

We will perform a fee analysis – reviewing for methodology requirements as per Division 50, fees required by program authority, Policy interpretations, and any ePermitting system requirements (including standardization of Residential/Commercial Plumbing fixture list and Residential Mechanical appliance list).  Upon analysis, we will send back any suggested corrections and/or updates that might be necessary - again PRIOR to adoption or going to BCD Notice – this is key!  Agencies that miss this step or are unaware, often end up delayed in implementing their updated fees, doing rework, and in some cases having to repeat the BCD Notice process – we don’t want this for any of our agencies.  The ePermitting system, records and applications, are designed to incorporate the required fees and methods.

Once the fee update draft is finalized – then it is ready for local adoption and BCD Notice.  The local adoption and Notice processes can happen concurrently.

BCD Notice for Building fees – any new fees, increases to existing fees, or changes in methodology that result in an increase must be sent through the required BCD Notice process.  Teri Watson ([email protected]) is the Policy contact that manages this process.  The BCD Notice period is 45 days – so updates should be sent/done in enough advance of the effective date of your fee update.  Please note, that it has recently been determined that Tech fee and any other ‘surcharge’ type fees assessed on building fees, must also go through the BCD Notice process.

If you have any questions about this process, submit a helpdesk ticket to [email protected]. 
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New - ePermitting Jurisdiction HUB Website

8/8/2022

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We have create a new website, the ePermitting Jurisdiction HUB - as a comprehensive resource for participating jurisdictions, so you can bookmark ONE website for all the information and communication you need in using the system. We will be adding informational links along the way as projects are scheduled, that might impact jurisdictions.
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Accela 101 Basics Training – New Series Beginning Aug. 16

8/7/2022

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Our Accela 101 Basics Training will be starting a new 3-part series Aug. 16. It's been slightly delayed due to staff schedules but will be back on track starting Aug. 16. 

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Each weekly training session will be offered to assist agencies who have lost their in-house experts/trainers or are needing a refresher of the basics. We have a lot of agencies that have lost their experts or are dealing with recent or high turnover, so training to ‘hit the ground running’ is now being offered. Submit a ticket to the Kayako helpdesk to request information on the current training schedule and availability. We plan to provide training every week on Tuesdays from 9:30 a.m. to noon.
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Office Field on the Payment Form

8/6/2022

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One of the changes that occurred during the last software upgrade was the inclusion of the “Office” field on the payment screen. In order to avoid negative consequences for jurisdictions that have different offices for accepting payments, we have had to add this field to all jurisdictions’ payment pages.

For jurisdictions that do not have offices, we have defaulted the value to “not applicable” (we are using that instead of no office, so that receipts do not say that the payment was received in “no office”).
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By defaulting this, no one needs to choose a value when taking a payment in a “no office” jurisdiction.

In addition, this change affects financial reports that have an office parameter choice. For jurisdictions without offices, there used to be the choice of, “all, online and no office.”
Now there is, “all, online and not applicable.” The “all” choice will bring up absolutely every payment (even some old ones that have blank office fields); “online” brings back online transactions only, and “Not applicable” brings back the non-online transactions only. 
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State Surcharge – ‘Billed’ Payment Type Caution!

8/6/2022

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It has recently come to our attention that some agencies are still using the ‘Billed’ exceptional payment method to pay permit fees in the Building Module.

Billed: The ‘Billed’ payment method was created to allow the agency to indicate that the customer will receive an invoice or bill and the permit will be allowed to advance through the workflow regardless of when actual funds are received.  This is the decision of the issuing agency and the responsibility to track of the issuing agency.
 
Please note, if you are one of these agencies:
  1. The ‘Billed’ paid fees will not be included in State Surcharge reporting, which means no surcharge will be reported up and until you pay permit fees with an actual CASH (cash/check/credit card) payment method.
  2. The prescribed process for using the ‘Billed’ exceptional payment method:
  • Invoice the permits fees to be paid and generate the Invoice report (you will need this later on and then it will be available in Documents)
  • Pay the invoiced permit fees with ‘Billed’
  • Run the Revenue Exceptions report (Report 2 > Reconciliation reports > Revenue Exceptions) to track these ‘billed’ records and to send the Applicant/Owner a copy of the Invoice you generated at 30/60/90 days asking for CASH payment  
  • When they come in to make a CASH payment – you will void the ‘Billed’ payment which will make the fees outstanding again (as per the invoice you sent), and then post their CASH payment.  Once this CASH payment is posted on the permit fees, these paid permit fees will then be included in the State Surcharge reporting as required.
It is important to be aware and follow the above process above all the way through to receipting a CASH payment.  If you don’t, you run the risk of issuing or even finaling a permit with no actual payment made (we see this happening sometimes in the database) – or of never paying the required State Surcharge on permit fees (we’ve also see this happen).
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Ending Support of Accela EDR and Adobe Acrobat on November 1, 2022

8/5/2022

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The ePermitting Program will be ending support of Accela Electronic Document Review (AEDR) and Adobe Acrobat on November 1, 2022.  This means we will no longer support or provide the AEDR client software or Adobe Acrobat licenses to jurisdictions.  We made the hard decision to end support of AEDR and Adobe Acrobat because of the complexity of Adobe licenses, the difficulty of staying up to date with a compatible version of Adobe Acrobat, and the addition of new electronic plan review alternatives.  If your agency uses AEDR with Adobe Acrobat for electronic plan review, please contact us right away, by submiting a helpdesk ticket to [email protected], so that we can help you implement one of the alternative electronic document review products we offer – see below.
 
BlueBeam
  • Free licenses provided by the ePermitting Program.
  • Does not directly integrate with Accela so the document review is performed outside of Accela.
  • Allows plan reviewers to view each other’s’ comments and publish them together during concurrent plan reviews.
  • Industry standard.
  • Implementation is simple.
  • Training - ePermitting Program provides in-house training and there are online training materials available.
 
DigEplan
  • The jurisdiction is responsible for paying the annual licensing costs to use the software and the ePermitting Program will reimburse the jurisdiction for the implementation costs.
  • Directly integrates with Accela and includes an additional workflow task for Review Consolidation, additional email communication to customers, and no need to save electronic plans outside of Accela.
  • Requires an implementation project with TruePoint, an Accela partner.
  • Implementation is more in depth but is standardized across all ePermitting jurisdictions.
  • Training - provided by TruePoint.
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Public Works Focus Training - Aug. 18

8/5/2022

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We are offering a Public Work focus training scheduled on Thursday, Aug. 18 from 9 to 11 a.m.  This training will be offered remotely also thru Teams.  If you are interested in this added training and your agency has the PW module – even if you’ve already been trained by your coworkers, I would recommend this ‘by design’ training to learn some of the unique features and details of this module.

Please send a email help ticket to [email protected] to request sign up for this PW training.
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Recent OMS changes

8/2/2022

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  1. All Modules: ​The "Attachments" list for a record in Citizen Access has been modified to show 10 files per page instead of 5 files per page.  This helps in scenarios when there are numerous documents that public users want to sort through. (5/31/2022)
  2. Onsite Module: Verify all Onsite pageflows do not require an LP - A license professional was required when public users submitted an Onsite Site Evaluation application.  This has been corrected so that a licensed professional is no longer required so that any user, including homeowners can submit a Site Evaluation online. (6/8/2022)
  3. All Modules: New document types are now available
    BUILDING DOCUMENTS:
     - Customer Mobile Inspection Upload
     - Electrical Permit Application
     - Mechanical Permit Application
     - Plumbing Permit Application
     - Structural Permit Application
    ONSITE DOCUMENTS:
     - Customer Mobile Inspection Upload
    PUBLIC WORKS DOCUMENTS:
     - Customer Mobile Inspection Upload
        (6/9/2022)
  4. All Modules: Alerts that started with the record number have been modified so that the record number falls at the end of the message.  This was because alerts that start with a record number were not showing the whole message after the v. 21.2.5 upgrade.
    Example: ACA Application Submitted within the last five days and is now ready to be reviewed [record number]. (6/23/2022)
  5. Onsite Module: Onsite Permit workflow, 'Close Out' task was updated so that when the task status is 'Denied,' the record status will also become 'Denied'.  Previously the record status would  incorrectly become 'Finaled'. (7/14/2022)
  6. Building Module: Updating the electrical and plumbing custom fields so that the fields that would indicate whether or not plan review is indicated are now both required and null (so the customer must choose either Yes or No for each item). (7/21/2022)
  7. Building Module: The subgroup for fee item "Electrical master permit (one time fee)" has been updated for all OSM agencies and all fee schedule versions from EL1,EL2,ELF,SSEL,ELFP,TEC to ELF,SSEL,TEC. This indicates that this fee is not subject to minimum fee, plan review, or plan review fees. (7/26/2022)
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