​Auto-assignment of inspections by discipline can help organize your jurisdiction’s daily inspection load. We recommend that each discipline is assigned to only one single inspector as the ‘lead’ or primary for that discipline (inspectors can, however, be assigned more than one discipline).This is because if you have 2 or more inspectors assigned to a discipline, Accela will simply “share” out the inspections without paying attention to whether or not inspections are on the same permit or at the same address;  so, you could end up with one permit having two inspectors scheduled for inspections on the same day- not very efficient! 

Example, if Jim and Tom are both certified for Residential Electrical – we would recommend that you only add the Electrical (Residential) discipline as “primary” to either Jim OR Tom’s user profile.  If both Jim and Tom’s users were set up with the Electrical (Residential) discipline, the system would simply alternate between them to assign incoming residential electrical inspections, with no reference to address or project.  If Jim is set up as primary, then every morning he can assess the inspections and logically reassign some of them to Tom.

User Disciplines as provided in the Model:

Auto-assignment helps save a lot of time and assures that the assigned inspector is certified to perform that type of inspection.  It is important to keep track of your inspectors that have auto-assign disciplines set up.  If an inspector leaves your agency, any of their assigned disciplines would need to be reassigned to minimize the disruption to your daily inspections. 

Auto-assignment is also available by district.  A district is a way to break down your jurisdiction into manageable parts for the purpose of inspection.  District data would need to be provided in your APO load as parcel data in order to use this option.  In this case, we could set up an inspector for a given district – as designated in your APO load (this can be added if you don’t already have this)- and they would be assigned all inspections with parcels that occur in their designated district.  This option can be very helpful for counties where it could take hour(s) just to drive to one inspection. 

An inspection is assigned to the discipline associated to the large inspection group it belongs to.  Because of this, sometimes the autoassigned  inspection will need to be reassigned  to another inspector. For instance, 1065 Sidewalk inspection has an designated discipline of Structural (Commercial) , however in some jurisdictions these are performed by a Public Works inspector. This inspection will be auto-assigned to the Structural (Commercial) inspector and would need to be reassigned to Public Works if that is who does the inspection.  There are a small number of inspection types that have a similar conflict like this – if you are unsure, please submit a help ticket to inquire.

If you would like to add/remove/change disciplines or districts on any of your inspector users, please submit a helpdesk ticket to epermitshelp.BCD@dcbs.oregon.gov  and fill out the Add/Remove user form found here: http://orepermittinghelp.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/addingremoving-user-accountorepermittinghelp.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/addingremoving-user-accounts.

​The Valuation (Calculator) tab provided on all building record types would be required in several business cases. The Valuation Calculator would be populated whenever occupancy would need to be granted – when there is new square footage being added (Type or Work = New, Addition), or when the permit is for a Tenant Improvement (Category of Construction = Tenant Improvement, Type of Work = Alteration). The Valuation Calculator tab values are used to populate the Certificate of Occupancy report where Occupancy and Type are requirements. Even if you are not using the Valuation Calculator to determine the fees in reference to valuation rules, the Certificate of Occupancy report still requires it be populated.  Note, you are indicating which you are using for fees, Valuation Contractor or Valuation Calculator, using the Fee Calc Factor dropdown on the Fee tab.

During the pandemic, there has been an increase in electronic plans being submitted online and reviewed electronically. Currently, in ePermitting, customers can upload plans on ACA but the electronic plan review and mark up is happening outside Accela in either Bluebeam or Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

ePermitting is interested in providing some enhanced options:
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1. ePermitting has been pursuing purchasing a Bluebeam “connector” from Velosimo, that would allow you to open plans in Bluebeam directly from Accela and have concurrent reviews be visible to multiple reviewers. Unfortunately, due to procurement issues, we are on hold with that project for the time being.
2. Several ePermitting jurisdictions, including Jackson County, Talent and St. Helens are implementing DigEplan, a separate mark-up software, which can be readily  integrated with Accela so that plans can be opened directly through Accela, reviewers can perform and view concurrent reviews, and workflow can be used to track revision cycles (we have created a modified “model” workflow to use with DigEplan). DigEplan will likely be reaching out to jurisdictions to see if you are interested in a demo of this product. Individual jurisdictions are responsible for paying the annual licensing costs to use the software, but ePermitting will reimburse jurisdictions for the implementation costs.

You can set a custom landing/home page in Accela, rather than using the Dashboard view that is currently the default landing page in Accela.

To set a custom landing/home page, follow these quick steps (Important Note:  these steps cannot be done while delegated in thru Oregon, favorites and home pages must be set directly by logging in to each individual agency):

1. Make sure the page is first favorited to Your Pages – if not favorited already, go to Launchpad > All Pages > bubble in the star next to the page you wish to favorite.
2. Once the page is favorited to your Launchpad group, you will see a house icon on the page as you hover over it, you can additionally bubble this house icon in to set this specific page as your custom landing/home page at login.

We’ve had a lot of questions recently about the Dashboard versus the My Tasks page in Accela.  Here is some helpful information to help you decide which view/page is best for you.

Dashboard
The Dashboard is the default landing/home page when you first login to Accela each day, it is the upper-most left icon in the blue.  When the task cards/list is first displayed at login, it is not accurate – you must first apply a filter to it for the displayed items to be correct.  The suggested filter to start with is ‘My Active Tasks’ or ‘My Active Tasks – All Modules’ – either of these specific filters will show you all of your assigned Workflow tasks for your preferred module or for all modules, depending on which you select.  All system filters are available in the My Filters dropdown to be applied.  Filter results/displayed task cards cannot be further sorted or exported in any way.  There are some quick controls available on each task card type (three dots in upper right-hand corner of the card) that can be helpful for resulting inspections or assigning unassigned Workflow tasks.  

My Tasks 
My Tasks is a page available from Launchpad > All Pages, you can favorite it here to add it to Your Pages. This page contains all the exact same information as the Dashboard, but is organized into the four functional assignment areas in Accela – Workflow, Inspection, Document Review, and Activities.  In this way, all of the displayed tasks are not commingled – and the available Filters for each of the four tabs are also specific to that assignment area.  The Workflow tab includes only Workflow-related filters, the Inspection tab includes only Inspection-related filters, and so on.  Once data is displayed on any given tab, the data/filter results can be further sorted (by Address, Record Type, Assigned To, Assigned Date, Due Date, Task Type, etc) by clicking the column header.  The displayed data/filter results can also be exported to Excel and/or printed if needed.  We tend to recommend the My Tasks page over the Dashboard, particularly for newer users as it is more organized into the different assignment areas as are the Filters for each area, requiring much less in-depth knowledge of the system and of the filters which can be very helpful.  Also the added functionality of being able to sort and export can be much more efficient when processing the filter results for yourself or for your workgroup.  You can set My Tasks as your custom landing/home page, if desired – so the Dashboard would no longer be displayed by default at login – to do this see the Setting a Customer Landing/Home Page in Accela article, article in this months January BLOG.

Important Note!  Although some user groups might have permissions to do so, never delete any items from the Dashboard or from the My Tasks page – doing so will actually delete these items (tasks/inspections/documents/activities) from the database and from your records.  ePermitting has had only mixed success in restoring data that has been deleted in this way, so please be very aware that you aren’t just deleting ‘completed’ items from your task list, you are actually deleting them altogether!

When you reschedule an inspection there is NOT an automated message that gets sent from Accela to let the customer know that the inspection has been rescheduled. 

You need to let them know that you have rescheduled the inspection. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t an Accela option to send an automated email when you use the Reschedule function/button – We will suggest the ‘automated email at Reschedule option’ to Accela, because it certainly would be nice to have.

For more information on Resulting inspections, see Resulting Inspections so your trips count.

ePermitting has recently received a few help tickets from agencies needing to provide a discount or credit to an applicant – there is a way to do this in the system using the PAYMENT functionality.  

1. Assess the fees in full and invoice them,  
2. Go to the PAYMENT tab, initiate a payment,
3. Select ‘Method’ = Credit Memo,
4. Change the ‘Amount’ to the amount you are wanting to credit or discount, 
5. Enter the ‘Payer’ = Credit Memo (there is no payer for this type of exceptional NON-CASH payment transaction),
6. Enter ‘Comments’ to record who authorized the discount/credit and any other important notes regarding the discount/credit being provided.
7. Submit > a Fee List will be displayed where you will determine what fee items you are applying the credit/discount to and for how much > Submit again to complete the payment
8. Retain the Credit Memo receipt for your Finance Department – they likely need to be made aware of the discount and what fees/accounts it was applied to
9. Print the Revenue Exceptions report under Financial Reports v3 and submit this with your nightly balancing reports to Finance

Important Note: Credit Memo exceptional payments should never be refunded as CASH – if voided, they look and act like cash – so anyone processing refunds needs to be aware of this when voiding fees that might have been fully/partially paid by a Credit Memo, or are voiding payments for any reason.

Please take a moment and learn about this and other Exceptional ‘Payment’ Types thru our Kayako Knowledgebase!

Common renovation activities like sanding, cutting and demolition can create hazardous lead dust and chips by disturbing lead-based paint, which can be harmful to adults and children. To protect against this risk, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP Rule) that became effective on April 22, 2010. 

Oregon enforces federal regulations for contractors working on housing or child-occupied facilities built before 1978.

For more information about licensing, visit the Oregon Construction Contractors Board.
To read the rule, visit the ​Oregon Health Authority’s Lead-based Paint Program. 

First did you know that all records – permits, applications, and licenses have a unique identification code within their agency called the Record Id?  The Record Id often appears in the extreme right hand column on the Building or Record List portlet. 

The Record Id is used to link all of the components – like custom fields, owner, site address, parcel, inspections and work flow – to the record.  In the data base each of these components represents a table. 

The Record Number exists in two places in the data base – the main table for the record (B1PERMIT) and the table that includes all the financial transactions for the record (ACCOUNTING_AUDIT_TRAIL) starting when fees are invoiced.  Both tables have the Record Id as well.  The table with the financial transactions copies the Record Number from the main table for records for each step in financial transactions.
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The Record Number can be modified on the ‘Description of Work/Copy Recs (Unrelated)’ portlet.  When the Record Number is modified, the date the modification occurred can be found by using the ‘View Log’ button on the ‘Description of Work/Copy Recs (Unrelated)’ portlet.

When reports are run, the report will show the Record Number as it existed at run time.  This is not a problem unless a report was run that shows the original system generated Record Number and subsequent report was run that show the modified Record Number. 

The problems can be increased when report results end up as a documents attached to the record.  It is possible to have  documents with different Record Numbers attached to the same record.

Reports include invoices, receipts, permits and applications as well as tabular reports like Permits Issued.

To prevent these problems either never change the Record Number or only change the Record Number before invoicing fees and an application is printed.

On Monday, Feb. 24, the Start_time (default 00:00:00) and End_time (default 23:59:59) parameters will now be shown when the Deposit Slip report is run. This change will allow the user to tailor the report to match the jurisdiction’s business-day cutoff times for making their physical bank deposit of cash and checks. 

We do not recommend using the Deposit Slip to reconcile credit card transactions as these are not actually part of the physical deposit. Additionally, when a customer pays fees with a credit card, the logic in ePermitting assumes the funds are present and can be applied to the fee item – this is not necessarily the case as the funds from a credit card transaction are not actually available to your jurisdiction until the credit card transaction is settled. Settling often does not coincide with the date/time  of the credit card payment. Additionally the Deposit Slip report does not include the credit card authorization number which is needed to reconcile credit. It is best to use either the Payments Received by Method or Credit Card Detail reports to reconcile credit since again there is no actual deposit action associated to these transactions.

An example on how to set the parameters when using the updated Deposit Slip report for a physical (money bag) deposit is displayed below. In this example, the office’s business day starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. Note the report uses a 24-hour clock for the time parameters.

In this particular example, the jurisdiction does not have separate offices and all of the departments combine the money received into a single deposit and money bag – therefore, Office is set to ‘-All-‘ and Department is set to ‘-All-‘.

Because the report should list only transactions that were paid with money that would be included in the physical money bag, only select ‘Cash’ and ‘Check’ for the Payment_Type – select CTRL while clicking more than one value in the dropdown list.

The included screenshot shows the parameters for the daily deposit done at the end of business on January 28, 2020. Because cash and check payments could have been accepted after 4 pm end of business on Jan. 27, the report Start_date should be 01/27/2020 and the Start_time should be set to 16:00:01 (4:00:01 p.m.). The End_date should be 01/28/2020 and the End_time should be set to 16:00:00 (4:00:00 p.m.).

Note that the Deposit_id is not saved in the database and only appears on the printed report.

In the Accela system temporary parcels can be created by ePermitting staff or by the Agency directly, and can then be used for work being done where a permanent or numbered parcel is not applicable. Some examples of this, is for work being done in the Right-of-way, Code Enforcement cases where no parcel would apply such as transient, illegal camping, graffiti, etc, or the parcel is simply unknown at the time of application intake. A temp parcel could also be used to flag a record for tracking purposes of ‘assets’ such as bridges, statues/fountains, fire hydrants, bus stops, parklets, etc. More than one temporary parcel can be applied to a single record, i.e. a complaint included both Graffiti and Transient, both temp parcels could be associated. Using temp parcels gives agencies the ability to search by the temp parcel name and see a list of all records that are associated to said parcel – Reference Data: Parcel > Associated Record List.

It’s helpful to consider the purpose/use of the temp parcels created prior to creating them, so they can be named in a meaningful way, i.e. creating one temp parcel called ROW versus creating 3 temp parcels called ROW – UTILITIES, ROW – CONSTRUCTION, ROW – EVENT, etc., an agency could quickly and easily see how many records were in the differing types of right-of-way versus having to go thru a long list of all records associated to just a generically named temp parcel like ROW.

Examples of Temporary Parcels
Code Enforcement (Planning Investigation):

• CE ROW – GRAFFITI
• CE ROW – HABITATION
• CE ROW – SOLID WASTE
• CE ROW – TRANSIENT
• PARKING

• TRANSIENT
• TEMP PARCEL

Planning:

• CITY WIDE (example: Amendment to Development Code)

Public Works:

• ROW
• ROW – GENERAL
• ROW – VARIOUS
• ROW – COASTCOM
• ROW – COMCAST
• ROW – EVENT
• ROW – FRONTIER
• ROW – MWL
• ROW – NW NATURAL
• ROW – ONLINE NW
• ROW – UTILITIES
• ROW – WAVE BROADBAND
• ROW – FIRE HYDRANT
• ROW – TRAFFIC SIGNAL

Building:

• TEMP PARCEL
• NEW DWELLING

There is an issue trending where agencies are experiencing scheduling and auto-assign confusion and problems related to PW inspection types. There is an important distinction to be made between Public Works inspections provided in the PW Module and those provided in the Building Module.

The PW Module has the Public Works inspection group that provides a large number of very detailed and diverse public works inspection types, the 6000 series. The Building Module has the Building/Structural inspection group that provides only a small number of high-level public works inspection types, the 1000 series.

Building Module > Building/Structural inspection group > offers 1050 Excavation, 1060 Driveway Approach, and 1065 Sidewalk – these are the few public works inspection types specific to building projects.  Because this Building Module inspection group is a Structural inspection group, auto-assign is also Structural (if auto-assign is ON) and therefore these few inspections would auto-assign to a named Structural Inspector, not to a Public Works Inspector. Additionally, these are also the only public works inspection types a customer can self-schedule on a given Structural record type – unless explicitly PENDED by the agency, the customer cannot self-schedule any public works inspection types included in the Public Works inspection group/module on a Structural record type. Note, the many public works inspection types included in the Public Works inspection group/module are set to auto-assign (again if auto-assign is ON) specifically to a named Public Works Inspector.

Please refer to the ePermitting Inspection Brochure for inspection groups and types.
 
If you are an agency experiencing any issues related to this and need more information, please submit a helpdesk ticket to epermithelp.BCD@oregon.gov. 

We will be adding a new exceptional “payment” method to the Model effective November 18th called Restore Payment. After much data analysis, it was determined that the Journal Entry payment method was being used for much more than restoring payments voided in error – it then became necessary to break the restoration of a payment voided in error out uniquely so that it could be included in the nightly financial batch where Journal Entry is excluded. This new method now requires a change in how the Journal Entry method is used – these differences are explained below.

Journal Entry: The Journal Entry payment type is will be used to reflect/record a payment that was posted or receipted outside of Accela, such as receipted to a financial software. This payment type is only used to reflect payments made outside of Accela such as with a case where you need to demonstrate that a deposit payment was made to the City/County cashier and receipted in the agency financial system directly. You would process a payment type of Journal Entry for the external payment amount - in the Payer field you will type “Journal Entry Payment” and in the Payment Comment, and as best practice, you would include a brief comment that the payment was made in an external system, the reason, the receipt number from the other system, the payment method, the date posted, and any sort of approval code or check number.

This payment type effectively demonstrates that an external payment was made, and does not show up on your cash balancing but does show in the transactions applied/revenue reports as a result of a payment method being applied to fee items in Accela. The Transactions Applied by Method would show this type of transaction clearly as would the standard Revenue Exceptions Report. Important note: You cannot process a refund on this payment type as it is just a reflection of a payment made outside of Accela, the payment would have to be refunded in the external system it was posted in.

Restore Payment: The new Restore Payment payment type will be used to restore a payment transaction to a record where the payment was voided in error. This payment is only used to restore payments voided in error as the monies were already deposited on a prior date/year/fiscal cycle such as with a 6-month old payment that was accidentally voided today. You would process a payment type of Restore Payment for the voided payment amount – in the Payer field you will type “Restore Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment that a payment was voided in error and is only being restored, and reference information to the original ‘voided’ payment such as original receipt #, payment method, payor, and original posting date.

This payment type effectively restores the original payment transaction, although on current date, and does not show up on your cash balancing but does show in the transactions applied/revenue reports as a result of a payment method being applied to fee items in Accela. The Transactions Applied by Method would show this type of transaction clearly as would the standard Revenue Exceptions Report. Important note: Restore Payment should only be used to restore ‘Cash’, ‘Check’, ’Credit Card’, ‘Fund Transfer’, ‘Internal Transfer’ and ‘Refund Check’ payment types. Using it to restore other exceptional payment types to include ‘Credit Memo’, ‘Fee Waiver’, ‘Write Off’ and ‘Billed’ will not appear correctly on reports and cause financial issues. You cannot process a refund on this payment type as no cash was currently exchanged/paid – you are only restoring the transactional payment record.

To refresh on the other available Exceptional Payment Types, check out the Knowledgebase article Payment Processing Cases and Types.

​What are the limitations in naming sets? Because set names are stored in the database and these names are used to retrieve information about the sets, special characters like ‘&’, ‘%’, ‘-‘, ‘()’, single quotes (‘) and double quotes (“) should not be used. These characters have special meaning in the programming languages used to develop reports. When these special characters are used, the reports will often fail. Please take note the next time you are creating a new set in the system.

It’s helpful for Inspectors and Building Officials to understand what inspection results mean, what they do in ePermitting, and how they are being counted in data reports. The following chart and definitions may be useful in understanding the functions of inspection results.

• Denied = failing the inspection and citing the required code correction in the Comments.
• Information Only = indicates a request for some level of consultation on a particular portion of the construction project – inspector goes out, reviews, and provides code reference.
• No Access = inspector has no access to the job site or location to be inspected.
• Not Ready = inspection was scheduled but the work is not completed/not ready for inspection.
• Partial = this is partial approval of a section/area of the named inspection, i.e. Foundation Inspection – due to the size of the project, it may require multiple trips/inspections of the foundation prior to the total foundation being poured/complete. Customer requests the section/area to be inspected – inspector performs the inspection of that specific section/area and partially approves the foundation inspection only for that specific area, noting that in the Comments. The expectation is that the inspector will go out to inspect the remaining sections/areas up to completion of that particular inspection.
• Cancelled = when the customer cancels the inspection at any point in time.
• Wrong Inspection Requested = inspector gets to the job site and determines that the wrong type of inspection was requested – schedules the correct type of inspection and performs that inspection within the SAME TRIP.
• Holdover = commonly known as “rolling” an inspection – inspection was scheduled for today but due to workload or extenuating circumstances, the inspector is unable to complete that inspection on that day, noting that in the Comments; is often driven by local policy.
• Approved = passing the inspection, Comments are optional.
• Approved with Conditions = passing the inspection with specific required conditions noted in the Comments, considered complete.
• Not Required = the wrong inspection was requested and no inspection will be provided on that trip (in contrast to Wrong Inspection Requested where correct inspection is scheduled real-time and performed within the same trip).
• Accepted = most typical case is work was done in advance of permit issuance or without permit, sometimes years prior, and a policy decision is made, after inspection and review, to accept the work/inspection as complete.

It is very helpful if these are used consistently in ePermitting and outside of ePermitting. Inspection trip count is used in various data reports based on the descriptions provided.

The ability to use smart devices to result inspections via the Accela Inspector App is a great tool but it can be frustrating when working in locations with little to no cellular service for the devices. Fortunately, you don't need cellular service or even a Wi-Fi connection to result the inspection, look at record details, or even send a summary report to a customer.

Below are instructions on how to first refresh your system data and second, set the Accela Inspector App to download offline jobs. Before leaving the office or area with a Wi-Fi or cellular connection, do the following:
Setup Accela Inspector App in Offline Mode

Once you have completed these steps you will be able to access all of the inspection and record information needed to complete your inspection. Please note that you will need to keep the Inspector App open on your device and remain logged in. If you close or log out of the app it will require you to log back in, which won't be possible without either cellular or Wi-Fi service.

Note: After completing the above steps test the app to see if it will work by going to the settings on your smart device and switching the device into Airplane Mode. This will disconnect all cellular and Wi-Fi to your phone. Next, navigate back to the app and select an inspection from your job list. From there select "details" and then "view record." When the record/permit opens you should be able see all of the information.

For assistance please contact Jerod Broadfoot at jerod.a.broadfoot@oregon.gov or via mobile at 541-240-1256.

​The Inspection Log is available as a function in the Inspection List page. This function is very helpful in answering questions about inspection scheduling – who, what, where, and when.
Go to the Inspections List page > check the checkbox for the inspection you are needing log details for (can only select one) > select the View Log button > select Inspection Log.

A pop-up window loads, edit the Log Date fields if you need to look beyond the one-month default period – often going back to the date the record was created is most ideal (this date is available in Description of Work as “Opened Date” or on the Record List as “Opened” date) – then select Filter to get log results/complete history for that selected inspection.

Note the different log detail information that provided for the selected inspection. This includes the following:

• Log Date - the specific date/time that log detail was recorded;
• Log Action - if it was Created or Updated (from Update to Update, you can see what changed such as which Inspector it’s assigned to);
• Operator - who scheduled/edited it (IVR User, Oregon Mobile – app, etc);
• Status - indicates what was done, ie. Scheduled; 
• Scheduled Date - the date it is actually scheduled for;
• Inspector - who it is assigned to (manually or via auto-assign);
• Request Date - the date and time the inspection was requested or updated on;
• Requestor - is whatever name was entered by staff as to whomever requested the inspection or whomever scheduled it otherwise; and lastly
• Inspection Sequence Number - the unique # assigned in the database for each instance of this given inspection – for example, if the original scheduled instance is Denied and a new pending instance is automatically created by the system and then further scheduled – this sequence # will be different for the original resulted instance than for the pended scheduled instance – this helps in grouping the log details to a specific instance.

All of this detail data can be very helpful in determining who ‘changed’ an inspection in any way, including assignment and any other important edits that may have affected your daily schedule or been contrary to your scheduling policy/practices. If you are unable to run the Inspection Log or need assistance interpreting this data, please contact our help desk at 503-373-7396.

​Did you know that the Expiration Dates of related Building records will always be synced?  This was an enhancement that was released in the model in February 2015.  This means that if any related record, including a parent, grandparent, child, or sibling, has an update to it’s Expiration Date all other related records’ Expiration Date will also be updated.  

There are a handful of exceptions where the Expiration Date will NOT be updated from a related record:

• If a record does not have an Expiration Date (this can happen on converted records and certain record types such as Inquiry).
• If the record is a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy.
• If a record is related to a Building record but is from another module (Code Compliance, Licensing, Onsite, Planning, or Public Works).
• If the record status is Finaled, Void, Withdrawn, or Closed.

Record Expiration Dates are automatically updated in the following scenarios:

• An inspection on the record is given a positive result.
• The Expiration Date is manually updated from the Expiration Date page (only available to Super Techs and Supervisors).
• The workflow is updated with any of the following statuses:
     o Application Accepted
     o Ready for Plan Review
     o Ready to Issue
     o Addl Info Received
     o Revisions Received
     o Permit Issued
     o Under Inspection
     o Work Authorized
  ​   o Reinstated

Traditional
Making “child” records in ePermitting is a way of copying and joining records that logically go together. In the most traditional case , child records are records that are related to or part of a larger overall project – the parent record is for example the Structural permit and the child records are the Electrical, Mechanical, and Plumbing permits– these trade records have the same address, parcel and owner as the parent record and are part of the same project. By making them child records, they get the same permit number as the structural permit, with a “01” appended to show that they are child records; however, the trade permits could be issued separately, as standalone permits, and related after the fact to tie them together. 

Records that can only be “child records”
There are some child records, however, that can never be standalone permits, – these are Revision, Deferred Submittal, and Structural Phased. These three record types are plan-review only records and will never become permits. These child-only record types allow you to document an exceptional plan review process as – to review a secondary/revised set of plans [Revision], to review a deferred portion of the structural plan [Deferred Submittal], or to review the plans limited to only a phase of the construction and authorize work to begin on only that phase [Structural Phased].

Records that should never be “child records”
Some record types should never be child records - those are 1 & 2 Family Dwelling, Manufactured and RV Park, and Manufactured Dwellings. Because these records are for complete projects with complex underlying forms, they should never be made as child records (or unrelated cloned records), except from the exact same type of record. So you can clone or make a child of a Manufactured Dwelling Record ONLY from a Manufactured Dwelling record. If you try to clone an Electrical record to make a Manufactured Dwelling record your permit for the Manufactured Dwelling will never work correctly because it will not have access to some of the Manufactured Dwelling required fields.
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If you have further questions/concerns about whether a record should be a child record, please submit a helpdesk inquiry to epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov.

Credit Memo: this non-cash exceptional payment type is used when your agency is going to provide the customer with some form of discount. It is used case by case at the individual record level – i.e., you lost the customer’s plans somehow, so now you need to request additional copies and plan review will take one week longer – in this case, you agree to provide them with a 30 percent discount on their plan review fees. This exceptional payment type reduces the amount owed by effectively “paying down” the outstanding balance by the amount of the discount.

Fee Waiver: This non-cash exceptional payment type is used when your agency has a policy for waiving fees in certain defined cases such as not charging Habitat for Humanity or only charging 50 percent of permit fee when a home in your Wildfire Hazard Zone is being rebuilt after fire. This exceptional payment type also reduces the amount owed by “paying down” the outstanding balance by the amount defined in your policy.

Journal Entry: The Journal Entry payment type is used to reflect/record a payment that was posted or receipted outside of Accela, such as receipted to a financial software.  This payment type is only used to reflect payments made outside of Accela such as with a case where you need to demonstrate that a deposit payment was made to the City/County cashier and receipted in the agency financial system directly.  You would process a payment type of Journal Entry for the external payment amount - in the Payer field you will type “Journal Entry Payment” and in the Payment Comment, and as best practice, you would include a brief comment that the payment was made in an external system, the reason, the receipt number from the other system, the payment method, the date posted, and any sort of approval code or check number.

This payment type effectively demonstrates that an external payment was made, and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being revenue posted in Accela.  Important note:  You cannot process a refund on this payment type as it is just a reflection of a payment made outside of Accela, the payment would have to be refunded in the external system it was posted in.

Restore Payment: The Restore Payment payment type is used to restore a payment transaction to a record where the payment was voided in error.  This payment is only used to restore payments voided in error as the monies were already deposited on a prior date/year/fiscal cycle such as with a 6-month old payment that was accidentally voided today.  You would process a payment type of Restore Payment for the voided payment amount – in the Payer field you will type “Restore Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment that a payment was voided in error and is only being restored, and reference information to the original ‘voided’ payment including original receipt #, payment method, payor, and original posting date.

This payment type effectively restores the original payment, although on current date, and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being “new” or current revenue.  Important note:  Restore Payment should only be used to restore ‘Cash’, ‘Check’, ’Credit Card’, ‘Fund Transfer’, ‘Internal Transfer’ and ‘Refund Check’ payment types. Using it to restore other exceptional payment types to include ‘Credit Memo’, ‘Fee Waiver’, ‘Write Off’ and ‘Billed’ will not appear correctly on reports and cause financial issues. 

Billed: details about this payment type are outlined in the article “How to Use the ‘Billed’ Payment Method” on Page 3. Additionally, this exceptional payment type requires the agency to track these closely and re-invoice the customer up and until the fee is actually paid. Generally there is a due date given in these cases. Permits should never go to Final with a Billed payment type still active – this would mean your agency never received actual revenue/cash payment for the completed work.

None of these exceptional payment types appear in your nightly batch as they are not actual revenue, not money, therefore they are not included in any balancing reports since they are not CASH. On this note, it is important to always be cautious to never incidentally refund any of these as they were never money. There is a dedicated report for monitoring these called “Revenue Exceptions”  – this should be run weekly at a minimum to be sure these are being applied as per business rules and resolved as in the case of Billed payments. If you have further questions on how to use these or when, please submit a ticket to epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov.

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.
 
If the building department receives payments for the bills or billed invoices, when the CASH (cash/check/credit card) payment is received, the ‘Billed’ payment should be voided and the new payment having a payment method of ‘Cash’, ‘Check’, or ‘Credit Card’ should be recorded and applied to the fees that were previously billed. Using ‘Cash’, ‘Check’, or ‘Credit Card’ will enable the deposit slip or payments received reports to match the actual funds taken in as well as enabling the payment applied information to be included in the nightly Financial Batch.
 
The ‘Billed’ payment method is NOT included in State Surcharge reporting.  Only CASH payments are included in the State Surcharge reporting, therefore it is imperative that the agency follow through with collection of CASH payment prior to final or closing the record.
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If the finance or treasurer’s department receives payments for the bills or billed invoices and records the payment in a separate system from ePermitting, once the building department is notified that payment has been received, building department staff should void the ‘Billed’ payment in ePermitting and record the payment made through the other system (department) using the ‘Journal Entry’ payment method. Using the ‘Journal Entry’ payment method does not affect the nightly Financial Batch, the Deposit Slip or Payments Received reports.

Over the years as we support and add agencies, we have seen all kinds of documents attached to records, from one document to more than a 100+ documents – how you manage all of these documents over the life of the record is very important. Many of the documents that auto-save to the Documents tab on records are considered part of the ‘official’ record.

Some of these auto-saved documents include the Receipt, Invoice, Permit, Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (TCO), and Certificate of Occupancy (C of O). As each of these documents is generated thru a process, sometimes we discover that we missed filling in necessary or required information, forgot to update an address or owner, didn’t edit the Description of Work, etc. Once fixed - particularly for the Permit, TCO, C of O, and CSC - you regenerate the report then from the Record Summary > Reports dropdown. After doing this, it is very important to delete the former incomplete/incorrect copy from Documents given you have now generated a new corrected copy – ideally there should only be one ‘official’ Permit, C of O or CSC, on any given record. Keep in mind that the customer can see Documents on their records thru ACA and when there are multiples of the Permit or other important document – this poses the risk of them pulling an incorrect or inaccurate version of this important document.

When you need to see the Receipt or the Invoice once it’s been generated, go to Documents, locate the document, Actions > Preview. If you go to the Receipt # in the Payments screen or the Invoice # in the Fees screen, and click the link to see them, you are generating another copy of these same documents which could result in multiple copies of the same receipt/invoice in Documents over time. Keep in mind that the receipt is a living document, it will change when any fee included in a particular receipt # is changed such as voiding a paid fee – in this case, generating a new copy of the changed receipt would be necessary. Any documents that are in PDF format can be viewed thru Preview, however other document types will have to be downloaded first thru the Actions menu and viewed in the source application.

For all these reasons and more, good housekeeping of your record documents is a good habit to get into.

​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.

We receive questions about Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) regularly from agencies, so thought we would shed some light on this report and the Certificate of Satisfactory Completion (CSC) and when these would generally be used.

In Accela, the C of O is available thru Workflow on Structural records as this record type is where occupancy is granted for new or added square footage, changes in use/occupancy, and tenant improvements (TI’s).  Outside of being generated thru Workflow, the C of O report is also available to be run manually once Workflow is closed thru the Reports dropdown in the Record Summary on building records and thru the Launchpad on the Building Reports page. However, if you are attempting to generate a C of O on a record type that it is not indicated for/not generally required for, the report will run but will be largely blank.  To answer a recent agency question, C of O is not required on Manufactured Dwelling placements/sitings (MFD record type), occupancy is typically granted on these at the factory – however, alteration/remodel of an existing Manufactured Dwelling may require change of use/occupancy or additional square footage and therefore is handled thru a Structural record type in Accela where the C of O is available if needed [Category of Construction = Manufactured Dwelling, Type of Work = Alteration].  Consult your Building Official for all decisions related to granting occupancy.  

The CSC report is an available report that formalizes the final inspection and overall completion of a construction project, any discipline, where occupancy may not need to be granted such as for Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, many Structural Alterations, etc.  This report is not available thru Workflow so must be manually run from the Reports dropdown in Record Summary on building records or thru the Launchpad on the Building Reports page.  This report is often requested now by banks/lenders at the time construction loans are funded or completed, Homeowners, Real Estate agents at the time of sale, etc.   

Note, these two reports may not run successfully on converted records due to missing yet required data elements, check all tabs in Record Navigation to check for and complete required fields.  If you have any questions on how to run one of these two reports, contact the helpdesk at 503-373-7396 or submit a helpdesk ticket to epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov.

We’ve recently received some customer calls inquiring about why the permit valuation in Accela does not match what they indicated on their application.  Recorded valuation is used on a majority of Building Reports and often shared with the local Tax Assessor who then reviews this information to determine whether a new appraisal is needed to re-evaluate property taxes.  And where valuation is used to calculate permit fees, it’s important to note that Accela will impose your minimum structural permit fee regardless of the valuation entered and will otherwise accurately calculate the exact permit fee as per your permit fee table.  Example, your minimum structural permit fee is $85 for valuation range $1 - $2000 – you do not need to input a job value of $2000 to make sure you get your minimum structural permit fee – you could enter only the $500 submitted job valuation and the system will still impose your minimum structural permit fee of $85.  Any dollar valuation in that first range and/or up to the calculation that meets your minimum permit fee will be imposed by Accela automatically – so you do not need to adjust the submitted job value to make sure your minimum permit fee is assessed.  The customer in our example was contacted for a possible appraisal but they had in fact not done an improvement valued at $2000 so they had to request a copy of their application from the agency and a copy of their contract with the licensed professional to show the lower valuation/improvement value.

If you have any questions about permit fee calculations, use of Contractor or Calculator Valuation, please submit a helpdesk ticket to epermitshelp.BCD@oregon.gov for assistance.