ePermitting moving to SaaS

​These days, the pace of change for technology and software is very rapid. In order to continue our relationship with Accela, provide stability for ePermitting and adjust for changes in Accela’s product offerings, we recently renegotiated our contract with Accela for the next seven years.

One change at Accela, which will affect ePermitting over the next few years, is that Accela no longer supports the “on premise” version of its software. “On premise” is a version of the software that allows users to install the software on their own servers, and to administer and directly access their own databases. While we have always been hosted on Accela-maintained servers, we have used the on-premise version of the software because it gave  the ePermitting team direct database access which provided us with additional tools to enhance and customize the product.

Because the on premise version of the product is no longer supported (or updated), we will be moving to the Accela Software as a Service (SaaS) offering. The move is going to involve a three-step process:

1. Oracle to SQL conversion. We need to convert our database and our reports out of Oracle and into SQL Server, since Accela no longer supports Oracle. This process is currently underway and is expected to be completed by Summer, 2026.
   
   What does this mean for you as an ePermitting user?
   The Oracle to SQL conversion should mostly be invisible to jurisdictions except that if you are using custom reports (reports that are specific to your jurisdiction, that you may have written yourselves), we may be reaching out to you about the conversion and testing of those reports.
   
   
2. Start using the SaaS version of Accela’s software. We do not know the exact date when this will happen, but it is likely to be in Fall 2026.
   
   What does this mean for you as an ePermitting user?
   The SaaS version of the software should not involve major changes to our existing configuration and features, but it should have some new features that we can leverage, including Accela Analytics (a dashboard tool that allows you to generate statistical reports from Accela data) and a new Public Portal which is supposed to improve the options available for the customer-facing website (ACA). However, like any software upgrade it is important for us to do a lot of testing, and even with testing there can be unforeseen issues that arise that require adjustments.
   
   
3. Once we are using the SaaS software, we will move from a single-tenant environment to a multi-tenant environment.
   
   What does this mean for you as an ePermitting user?
   This should not directly affect jurisdictional users, although it will be a big change for the ePermitting team. Moving into multi-tenant will require us to be on the same upgrade schedule as all other Accela customers. This will compress our testing time for new software releases. Moving to multi-tenant will also remove the ePermitting team’s direct write access to our database and will change some of the ways that we do configuration and scripting. This will require our team to learn some new technical skills in order to provide some types of enhancements, and require us to have Accela do some things that we can currently do ourselves. 
   
   

This three step process will involve a lot of time and effort from our team, but we are committed to doing this in a manner that ensures the best outcome for all our ePermitting users. Moving to SaaS will ensure that we can continue to use the Accela product, and that we will have access to new features and product enhancements. As always, please feel free to reach out with questions or concerns.

Celina Patterson, ePermitting Manager: [email protected]