The next Focus Training will cover a new web-based data tool called Analytics Dashboard that will soon be available.  Celina Patterson, ePermitting Program Manager, will demonstrate Analytics Dashboard that is being developed for us by CityGov Apps against our Accela database.  The training will outline how the tool can be used for jurisdiction staff and also show the agency data that will be made available for the public to see.  This training will take place on Wednesday, September 13, 1 – 2 p.m.  Please send an email to Heidi.S.Shamberger@oregon.gov as soon as possible and let her know how many from your office plan on attending the training by Monday, September 11th.

Future training topics to watch for:  What’s New in 9.1.3, Using New Workflow Emails, State Surcharge Reports, Creating Phased & Deferred Records, and Fee Estimates.

1. Revised Report: Inspections Completed (Live 8/8)
A new parameter was added to this report to select the Inspector Name to generate the data for.  The parameter is a dynamic dropdown list where “All” inspectors within an agency can be selected or an individual inspector.

2. New Licensed Professional Work Categories (Live 8/8)
Five additional work category fields have been added to the Licensed Professionals, listed below.  The work category is a way to note the type of work each LP is doing on an individual permit.

• Insulation
• Limited Energy
• Plumbing – Exterior/Site Utilities
• Sheetrock
• Solar/Renewable Energy
  

3. New Report: Structural Exemption Certificate (Live 8/8)
A Structural Exemption Certificate report has been created for the Commercial Agricultural Equine record type.  This report will contain all of the application specific questions and entered answers, comments placed by the jurisdiction, worksite address, and the Address/Parcel/Owner information. This report can be found under the “Permit Specific” reports section with the title “Structural Exempt Certificate”. The purpose of this report is to provide a document showing that an exemption review has been done and then whether it was approved as exempt or denied and requiring permit(s).

Things to keep in mind:

• Comments entered in the “Comments and Conditions” box in the specific workflow task “Exemption Review” will be displayed on the report. If there are no comments, then the comments section will not appear.
• “Certificate not issued – review of application not complete” message will appear if the workflow task status for the “Exemption Review” has not been resulted to “Approved” or “Denied” through the workflow task.

4. Revised Report: Detailed Inspection Report (Live 8/10)
As requested and prioritized from multiple agencies, a variety of changes were made to the Detailed Inspection Report.  Please see last page for a detailed list of parameter selections and the layout of the data.

5. Prevent Payments on EST or TMP Records (Live 8/11)
Previously and through a very convoluted path, Accela would incidentally allow a payment to be submitted on both EST and TMP records but the payment was no longer visible once the record was submitted and became a real record.  A script was put in place so that payments can no longer be submitted on EST or TMP records.

6. Updated Message for Applicant on the Intake Form (Live 8/25)
A red message displays for the Applicant section on the Intake Form as a reminder to enter a name in either the Full Name, Last Name, or Organization Name fields.  This message was mistaken very often for an error message.  The message has been revised to say it is not an error.

7. Resolved Issue: Schedule or Result Inspections for any Status on Onsite Records (Live 8/25)
Now, inspections can be scheduled and/or resulted on Onsite records regardless of the record status when “Allow Inspections Prior to Permit Issuance” in the custom fields tab is checked.

8. Inspection Result Email Includes Result Date (Live 8/28)
The inspection result date was added to the optional email that can be sent out to the customer from the back office when inspections are resulted.  The result date was inadvertently missing from the email content.

9. CET Changes
We revised the display of the CET fields so that they are shown on their own tab called, “Construction Excise Tax” but the fields and selections haven’t changed.  These changes go along with revisions made to the complex scripting that goes on behind the scenes to assess and calculate the CET fees.  Because of the complexity of the changes and the custom school districts for each agency, we are pushing these changes out individually to each agency.  You will be contacted by ePermitting staff when it is your agency’s turn to move to the new CET display and revised scripting.

​To access the search function from the inspector application touch the “Search” feature on the home page.  Make sure to select “Records” then select “All” and clear the “Open Date” range for best results.

The valuation calculator has been updated for all ePermitting agencies with new, more specific Occupancy Types that were broken out from existing Occupancy Types, listed below.  These changes were made based on the assessment of the Building Codes Division Policy section for better categorization on the Certificate of Occupancy.  The new Occupancy Types are already available for your use.  The old Occupancy Types will be removed on Thursday, September 7, 2017.

New Occupancy Types (now available):

• A-5 amusement, bleachers, grandstands, stadiums
• H-2 High Hazard
• H-3 High Hazard
• H-4 High Hazard
• I-1 supervised environment-cond 1
• I-1 supervised environment-cond 2
• R-4 care/asst living facility-cond 1
• R-4 case/asst living facility-cond 2

Old Occupancy Types (to be removed 9/7/2017):

• H234 High Hazard
• I-1 supervised environment
• R-4 care/asst living facility

We are planning to upgrade PRODUCTION from Accela Civic Platform version 8.0.3.0.2 to 9.1.3 on Monday, October 9th.  This version is advertised to fix up to 15 cases that we have submitted to Accela based on feedback we received from you.  The ePermitting team has tested this new version for OSM agencies for some time but we would like you to test out your daily activities in the TRAINING environment where we have copied PRODUCTION data, as of 8/17/2017.  This is your opportunity to find bugs in the software BEFORE we upgrade so please take some extra time to do this important testing.  Custom agencies (Lane County, SWS, MHODS) and the remaining D14 agencies (Lake Oswego, Lebanon) are responsible for testing their own configuration, as our focus is OSM agencies, so we do not test these agencies.  On a related note, we mentioned in a previous newsletter that we were working with Accela on a project to move our hosted environment off of Accela servers located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and onto a true cloud-hosted service called Microsoft Azure.  This project did not align with our 9.1.3 version upgrade schedule so we are postponing this move.  The Monthly Focus Training for October will be on Wednesday, October 4 from 1:30 – 2:30 where we will go over the new Workflow Card View and fixed bugs in 9.1.3.  This training will be open to all ePermitting agencies, with sign up information coming in the October newsletter.  Please send an email to ePermitsHelp.BCD@oregon.gov if you see any errors or issues while testing.

This year, instead of large regional ePermitting training we are considering doing individualized in-person training for interested jurisdictions.

Please let us know if your City/County is interested.

• If so, what type of training are you interested in?
• How many participants will you have?
• What dates/times will you have available in the fall/winter for training?

Please send your response to the above to:
Krista Allman
503-373-1983
Krista.M.Allman@oregon.gov

The Open Permits After Final report is a hidden treasure!  This report will show all Building permits that have a positively resulted Final inspection (“Approved”, “Approved with Conditions”) but are still open, not in a “Finaled” record status.  The intent of this report is to help agencies make sure they are closing records that are completed.  This report is especially helpful for those agencies that have elected to auto-close their trades record types (Elec/Mech/Plumb) but there was an issue that prevented it from closing automatically such as outstanding unpaid fees, outstanding incomplete inspections (pended, scheduled/not resulted) – and it is not obvious when signing off the Final inspection that the record is in fact not successfully auto-closing.  Running this report will not only show where trades permits are not auto-closing but also where Structural permits are not closed due to possible data entry issues such as a prematurely signed-off final inspection, extraneous/unnecessary/incomplete inspections, incomplete TCO child records, etc., or ultimately, it’s just ready to be finaled in Workflow now that the final inspection is signed-off.  Best practice is to run this report on a monthly basis for general housekeeping.  Find this report in Building Reports > Monthly Reports > Open Permits After Final.

Shane O’Donnell joined the ePermitting team in November 2016. He assisted in implementing the City of La Grande, and is currently in the process of implementing the City of Junction City, and assisting in implementing Columbia County. Shane is also involved with the reports, assisting in the rewrite of the Building Permit, rewriting the Certificate of Satisfactory Completion, and the Structural Exemption reports most recently.

Prior to working for the State of Oregon, Shane spent 12 years working for a large bank. His last position was scripting reports for Fraud Policy, Compliance, and Strategy groups.

After living in Phoenix, AZ for 12 years, Shane now lives in Salem with his wife Dalia, two daughters Adeline (4) and Zinnia (1), and two dogs Chip and Chester. In his spare time he enjoys camping, hiking, fishing, and crabbin