• Welcome to The Building Code Forum

    Your premier resource for building code knowledge.

    This forum remains free to the public thanks to the generous support of our Sawhorse Members and Corporate Sponsors. Their contributions help keep this community thriving and accessible.

    Want enhanced access to expert discussions and exclusive features? Learn more about the benefits here.

    Ready to upgrade? Log in and upgrade now.

What century is your building department in? (POLL)

Does your Building Department use software for the permit process?

  • NO We do not use software at all and use nothing but paper

    Votes: 1 3.6%

  • YES We use a combination of computer and paper

    Votes: 10 35.7%

  • YES We use permitting software but not for all aspects of the permitting process

    Votes: 9 32.1%

  • YES We use permitting software from soup to nuts including inspections and plan review

    Votes: 8 28.6%
  • Total voters
    28
tbz said:
It surprises me that the ICC has not developed its own marketable software system for building departments.

Being they have resources and a very strong knowledge base behind them.

Just a thought
Click to expand...
They have.....

www.iccsafe.org

Innovation - ICC

ICC Innovation integrates the power of the world’s most trusted digital tools and latest SaaS applications to transform how communities operate and thrive. Contact Us Explore how ICC Innovation can...
www.iccsafe.org www.iccsafe.org
 
The pandemic forced us to accept electronic submittals and I'm glad for it, we should have all along. We just don't have any modern software to connect the dots. Electronic submittals come in emails as attachments or links and we do our intake in our 90's style access program, then back to emails to distribute plans/links to various departments for review, then we get emails back with comments which we then log in the database. Once we have all comments we create a consolidated correction list in word, then email that back to the customer. It works and really isn't much different than the way we did paper submittals. The new software we we supposed to get was advertised as a "all in one" program that did all of that and there was an online portal for customers. Program not as advertised so we are just making do with what we have. Really it's not bad, just outdated.
 
I've never really looked into it, but I believe Municity has the ability to do "everything" I have a peer using some form of Municity and he is not in love, which seems to be the opinion of most software...
 
Once upon a time, we used a combination of Permits Plus (which I think went extinct) and ProjectDox. For twelve years, Permits Plus allowed us to enter code review comments and track the status of the permit application and inspections. ProjectDox allowed permit applicants (architects, developers, contractors, etc.) to upload their PDF plans and ProjectDox is still used by our Planning Department to review site plans. Ten years ago, we were in Utopia and life was perfect. Then we switched to Accela which has a great marketing department. As a matter of fact, I think the entire company is one big marketing department with only one technical person who knows how to make their software work. Our department of fifty people paid $1,190,000 for the software. That's $23,800 per seat. No, I am not joking or exaggerating. Accela was installed and then we cried. But several years later - after paying hourly fees to Accela - it works perfectly as advertised.
 
Last edited:
Our department uses Filemaker, which is a standard database software that has been around for a long time, and my boss custom-made the database to do everything we need to do. Which is nice because if something doesn't work right, we can fix it in house.

Probably not a solution that is feasible for everybody... It took a lot of work to get to this point...
 
Beniah Naylor said:
Our department uses Filemaker, which is a standard database software that has been around for a long time, and my boss custom-made the database to do everything we need to do. Which is nice because if something doesn't work right, we can fix it in house.

Probably not a solution that is feasible for everybody... It took a lot of work to get to this point...
Click to expand...
Who maintains it after he departs?
 
tbz said:
Who maintains it after he departs?
Click to expand...
This was my concern as well. Too often we get complacent that everything works right now, not realizing that a single change could completely cripple us.

Business continuity planning remains one of the most critical functions of any manager to ensure that their employees are prepared to meet challenges as they arise.
 
The city I work for had a BO for a long time, I think he worked for the city for 25+ and at least 15 of those as BO. He "built" the current Access program that we use, sounds similar to FileMaker. He didn't train anybody else and his retirement caused a cascade of failures and 7-8 years later we are still picking up the pieces. For the software we did hire a local consultant who knows how to repair/maintain/improve our software when needed.
 
Beniah Naylor said:
We're screwed...

He has trained a few of our people, I think we could muddle through... but it would suck.
Click to expand...
I had built more than a few DBase programs first in Visual basic and then Foxpro, and then access, the issue becomes as operating systems change, if the base programing language goes away and is replaced or needs to be upgraded in a manner that does not cascade the old logic into the formatting, well it becomes a really big issue.
And as the operating systems push more towards cloud based programs, you are going to see a big issue with the older programs.
 
tbz said:
It surprises me that the ICC has not developed its own marketable software system for building departments.

Being they have resources and a very strong knowledge base behind them.

Just a thought
Click to expand...
The ICC acquired a company that had been in business since 1962 and developed municipal software. It is now available.
 
wont let me vote. we are 100% Trakit and project docs. Set up well and working great! I have used others that were not set up well and were not great. Set-up makes all the difference.
 
sbeckman said:
wont let me vote. we are 100% Trakit and project docs. Set up well and working great! I have used others that were not set up well and were not great. Set-up makes all the difference.
Click to expand...
We found the same thing, the initial set up makes it easy, or a living hell. Fortunately, we ended up more on the well set up. We also now have a full time business manager that knows it inside and out. And yes, if he left, we would be in a tough spot. I know enough to be dangerous.

As said, could muddle through probably till we got another person trained up, through trial and error.
 
cant vote

We use Municity... an older version that is not very user friendly due to not set up properly.

asked for money in budget for an upgrade but you know how that is.......... we will see
 
We got hit with ransomware so we are back to 100% paper for the last 3 weeks. And we now have no idea what jobs failed or passed inspections or what they failed for.
 
Last edited:
Rick18071 said:
We got hit with ransomware so we are back to 100% paper for the last 3 weeks. And we now have no idea what jobs failed or passed inspections or what they failed for.
Click to expand...
geez, thats a nightmare.......

our town supervisor (mayor) wants to go 100% paperless. Especially since we asked for $ for more filing cabinets last month... HAHA

I cant see that ever happening.
 
I think it would be prudent to always have the option to use paper for some of the most essential functions. Paperless is great but when something unforeseen happens (ransomware, power failure, IT fire, etc...) it would be extremely beneficial to have the ability to function. Later when systems are back up and running things can get digitized.
 
This is the exact topic I was looking for!

There is a total of 6,000 people in the city so I am the guy doing everything from the building side (permitting/inspections/plan-review) for the jurisdiction.

We currently use all separate systems for the finance/public works/building departments and it would be nice to just use a single system for it all.

Are there some smaller communities out there who have found a solution that works for them?

I am waiting to hear back from ICC on Municity to see if their system will work for our small town.

Feel free to private message me if you have time to chat!
 
Here in San Diego I would say we are in the stone age. After 2 years of digital permit submittals, the process has gotten so bad that I just cannot see how it is sustainable for anyone to actually get a permit. I am only speaking about Tenant Improvement permits because that is what we do. We just got a few tidbits of information that is laughable at best. Here are the time frames they just sent out. From receipt of the digital submittal until they have the project set up in the system will be 30 business days. That is nearly 2 months of admin. Then you will be assigned a plan reviewer and plan check can begin. obviously plan review time is dependant on the scope and size of the project, but safe to say it is painfully slow. Then after all approvals have been completed they move the project to Permit Issuance. The time frame to issue the permit once it reaches permit issuance is 20 business days. That is another month. So just for the most basic of permits the admin time involved to obtain a permit is 3 months.
 
JPohling said:
Here in San Diego I would say we are in the stone age. After 2 years of digital permit submittals, the process has gotten so bad that I just cannot see how it is sustainable for anyone to actually get a permit. I am only speaking about Tenant Improvement permits because that is what we do. We just got a few tidbits of information that is laughable at best. Here are the time frames they just sent out. From receipt of the digital submittal until they have the project set up in the system will be 30 business days. That is nearly 2 months of admin. Then you will be assigned a plan reviewer and plan check can begin. obviously plan review time is dependant on the scope and size of the project, but safe to say it is painfully slow. Then after all approvals have been completed they move the project to Permit Issuance. The time frame to issue the permit once it reaches permit issuance is 20 business days. That is another month. So just for the most basic of permits the admin time involved to obtain a permit is 3 months.
Click to expand...
Wow... you would think the digital process would help! Maybe a dedicated person to handle all issues related to the permitting system would help things. Yeah... its not in our city budget either...
 
JPohling said:
So just for the most basic of permits the admin time involved to obtain a permit is 3 months.
Click to expand...

Sweet bippity - we're aiming for two weeks MAX. Smaller jurisdiction, but one with some complicated land-use, as we provide service to several municipalities which each have unique zoning requirements.

We're (finally) moving to a digital system.
 
Inspector Gadget said:
Sweet bippity - we're aiming for two weeks MAX. Smaller jurisdiction, but one with some complicated land-use, as we provide service to several municipalities which each have unique zoning requirements.

We're (finally) moving to a digital system.
Click to expand...
Who are you going with to digitize your permit/plan review processes?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top