​Conditions of Approval

• Indicate for specific conditions of approval for permit issuance unique to the given permit/record/scope of work; particularly items that would have to be fulfilled and/or completed prior to project completion as a caveat of permit issuance.
• Tend to be project/permit specific in nature and time sensitive.
• Are included on the Building Permit report (when indicated for “ACA displayable”) [also included on the Public Works Permit report].
• Is automatically applied only as a “Notice” which does not stop any activity on the record such as payment processing or inspection scheduling.

Conditions (Standard)

• Tend to be more global in nature and applicable more often to reference data such as parcels, addresses, licensed professionals – regardless of the project/permit they are indicated on.  Example: applying a standard condition (typically a “notice”) to a general parcel in reference that is in the floodplain so that anytime that parcel is used for any permit application, that information is shared.
• Are not generally time sensitive.
• Are not indicated on the Building Permit or Certificate of Occupancy reports (note: must use the “Special Conditions” task specific information or TSI to include any requirements of occupancy on the Certificate of Occupancy report).
• Can be applied as a “Notice”, “Hold”, or “Lock” – particularly where a Hold or Lock will technically not allow additional activity on the record such as payment posting or inspection scheduling.

** Important Note:  currently only the Conditions (Standard) applied to the Record show thru to the Inspector App [Accela design] – ePermitting has requested that all Conditions (Standard) and Conditions of Approval show thru to the Inspector App.  If it is important that a Condition of Approval show thru to the Inspector App, consider duplicating the condition as a Condition (Standard) applied to the individual record so it will show thru as desired.  
In all other cases, careful consideration should be taken on whether a permit-specific condition should be added as a Condition of Approval or as a Condition (Standard) applied to the Record based on the intent of the condition.  If it is necessary to stop progress/activity on the specific record, then it should be added as a Condition (Standard) with severity of Hold or Lock to prevent payment processing or inspection scheduling – if it should only serve as a requirement at project completion, then it should likely be added as a Condition of Approval, keeping in mind the above “Important Note”.

The Production upgrade to Civic Platform 9.1.3 on Mon, Oct 9, 2017 is quickly approaching!  The system will be upgraded by the time you log in on Monday morning.  We are very excited about this upgrade since it will fix a handful of long-standing issues in the system, including the “5MB error” that intermittently appears when emailing a report like the Building Report or the Receipt that has been a frustration since we upgraded to 8.0 in summer 2016.  Accela also redesigned the workflow in 9.0, now called Workflow Card View.  The look and feel has changed but the functionality remains the same.  You will only see the new redesigned Workflow Card View in the New UI.  A full list of the fixed bugs and a training document on the new Workflow Card View are appended to the end of the newsletter.  This month’s Online Focus Training will be dedicated to reviewing these changes.  The training will take place on Wed, Oct 4, 2017 (1:30 PM – 2:30 PM).  All agencies are encouraged to sign up and attend – please see sign up details below.  Also, a BIG thank you to agencies who have been testing 9.1.3 in Training.  No issues were reported to us.

With the planned Accela upgrade scheduled for Oct 9, 2017, we, unfortunately, need to remove Admin access for the SupervisorAdminDailyUser groups (also known as Admin Lite or Admin Daily users).  Users in this usergroup can currently perform three Admin tasks: 1) Maintain system users; 2) Update inspection calendars; and 3) Manage Standard Comments.  Access will be removed for all three tasks and agencies should submit a Help Desk ticket so that we can make these changes for you going forward.  Because of Accela software changes, ePermitting staff must complete new user configuration (for Communication Manager) and changes to inspection calendars. Additionally, changes that came along with Accela Version 8.0 and the New UI allow all users access to Admin features which may put our abilities to provide support at risk. Once we upgrade to version 9.1.3 we will have the ability to turn off that access for all user groups.  Admin Daily Users will maintain all of the permissions they now have on the daily side of the application.

Assigning multiple workflow tasks on a record can be slow and time consuming when clicking into each task individually.  A quicker, easier way is to use the workflow Supervisor button!

Heidi Shamberger has been with the Building Codes Division since 2005 where she supported a variety of sections in the division before joining the ePermitting Program in 2009.  Heidi assisted in the City of Springfield and Lane County custom implementations prior to the creation of the Oregon Standard Model.

You can usually find Heidi working on new enhancements for the ePermitting System, troubleshooting system issues that surface, and managing the different environments by coordinating with our Accela hosting team.  Heidi also reports defects that are found in the software to Accela and manages those until a fix is put in place.

Heidi spends her free time refinishing broken-down vintage furniture and giving them new life, driving around Oregon looking for the next great kayaking spot, hiking, traveling the world, and cooking and eating good food with family and friends.

1. Revised Record Search Screen (Live Sept 12)
Zip Code search field was added to the Record Search screen and ASI was changed to Custom Fields.

2. 1 & 2 Family Dwelling – Type of Work (Live Sept 12)
The Type of Work field now defaults to New.

3. New Report: Phased Project Summary (Live Sept 19)
Purpose
The purpose of this report is to provide a high level summary view of a Phased parent record and all of its related child record.

Report header
Information in the report header contains the parent permit number, parent project construction type, parent site address, and the parent project name.

Sorting
Each report section is displayed with the phased (parent) record always on top, followed by the structural permits, and then each trade thereafter in alphabetical order.
Project Permit Summary Section
This section displays each child record that is related to the parent record, including the record status, valuation type, valuation amount, invoiced fee amount and description of work. At the end of this section the sum of the child record valuation amounts are compared to the parent record valuation amount, and if there is any difference, the valuation difference field will be highlighted in red and display the difference. Fees are also summarized at the end of this section.

Project Fee Summary by Permit Section
This section only shows what has been invoiced on the record and does not do any further financial checks beyond that (i.e. verify payment, refunds etc...). If a record does not have any fees it will say “none invoiced” in the fee item category field. Fees are summarized at the end of this section again.

4. CET Changes (Live for every agency by Sept 26)
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.  Each agency who assesses CET fees was contacted individually throughout the month of September by ePermitting staff to announce the changes were completed in Production.  All agencies should now see the new Construction Excise Tax tab.

In the next Online Focus Training Kelly Marshall and Heidi Shamberger will review the fixes and changes in Accela Civic Platform 9.1.3.  They will also demonstrate the new redesigned Workflow Card View that appears in the New UI.  This training will take place on Wednesday, October 4, 1:30 – 3 p.m.  Please send an email to [email protected] as soon as possible and let her know how many from your office plan on attending the training.

Future training topics to watch for: Using New Workflow Emails, State Surcharge Reports, Creating Phased & Deferred Records, Fee Estimates.

You may have received notification from Converge stating there is action that you need to take to adopt TLS 1.2 encryption standards by Oct 31, 2017.  Please note that the upgrade to Accela Civic Platform 9.1.3 on Oct 9, 2017 will automatically upgrade to TLS 1.2.  This means we will be able to meet the October 31, 2017 deadline for TLS 1.2 with the Accela software.  If you use Converge with any other system besides Accela, you will need to verify that it is using TLS 1.2 encryption standards by the deadline.