Our next Focus Training will be taught by Kelly Marshall and will cover Workflow and Activities – how to use these together to document your process and notify others involved.
In this training, we will cover the added functionality of using workflow notifications, and then how activities will record the work you do between tasks. Both can offer greater efficiency in documenting your process from beginning to end.

It will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2018, from 10 – 11:30 a.m. Up to 12 participants can attend the 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 class fills up.

Accela’s move of our ePermitting servers to the Microsoft Azure cloud is proceeding smoothly and on schedule. The plan is to move the Production environment to Azure over the weekend of Nov. 2 – 4. On Nov. 5, we will all be logging in with the same user names and passwords. You shouldn’t see anything different when you log in, but the database and all of our server infrastructure will be located at Microsoft, rather than at Accela. The only visible change for end users will be for jurisdictions that use the Data Warehouse for running reports; rather than running these at the State Data Center, these will run off of a “read only data stream” at Microsoft Azure. We are currently working with jurisdictions that use the Data Warehouse to get them set up to use Azure.

​General Program overview: the Electrical Master Permit Program allows covered/qualifying facilities OAR 918-309-0100 (b) to pull an annual permit which allows “repair, alteration or replacement of existing electrical products” – please review what is allowed under this permit and what is not at OAR 918-309-0100 (4). A roster of all current electricians, their license # and type, must be filed at the time of application. The applicant/facility must keep records of all electrical work done – the person doing the work and their electrical license #, and date of work – this record must be available to the jurisdiction inspector at the time of annual inspection.
 
ePermitting Process:
1. Commercial Electrical application is initiated:

• Address is the covered facility address.
• Licensed Professional should be the Electricians of record for work under this permit. 
• The Category of Construction should be “Commercial or Industrial”.
• Type of Work should be “Other” > when the “Other Description” field pops up, indicate “Master Permit”.
• For ease of use in searching, we also recommend indicating “Master Permit for xx” in the Description of Work and/or in the “Project Name” field – both of these fields show on the Record List. 

2. Once the record is created:

• There is a Master Permit one-time application fee that is charged first time.
• Once the one-time application fee is paid, the first Master Permit can then be issued through workflow. 
• After permit issuance, you will need to go to the Navigation pane > Expiration Date > and change the expiry date to one year from the issue date. 
• For the annual inspections, the Model has a Master Permit Inspection fee that can be charged at an hourly rate for Travel Time, Inspection Time, and Report Writing time at the time the inspection is provided.

3. For renewals:

• When the annual permit is going to expire, our recommendation is to create a related child record from the original for each subsequent year and schedule/record that years’ yearly inspection on each. Make sure to Final your current record in Workflow as you create the new related child. 
• No application fee is charged for the renewal permits, but you still charge for the annual inspections at the hourly rate for Travel Time, Inspection Time and Report Writing.
• Please refer to https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/viewSingleRule.action?ruleVrsnRsn=227928 for any code questions and contact our helpdesk at 503-373-7396 for how to track these in Accela.

​Ian Campbell joined the ePermitting team in May 2018. Ian works as a Business Systems Analyst on various projects within the division to improve customer service and transparency, streamline business processes, and improve communication between departments and all Oregonians that interact with Building Codes Division.

Ian was born and raised in Canada, moving to the US in 2008. He previously worked for a national healthcare company managing the local office here in Salem Oregon. Ian and his wife Krista were married on the beach in Jamaica before welcoming their first daughter Anni in 2017. This year the couple welcomed baby number two, Ellee, in June just as Ian was getting settled at ePermitting.

Ian has traded in his hockey skates and rugby cleats for golf clubs with the mild, if often times wet, Willamette Valley weather. He and his family enjoy exploring the Oregon outdoors; camping, hiking, kayaking and fishing.