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building dept software

Permit software??

Our dept is looking into new permit software. Can you give me some ideas regarding what software you are using, if it's worth using etc. The area of jurisdiction is approx 10 sq miles with 15,000 residents. Also, other than construction permits what about your usage for programs that contain mapping, zoning,SLD , storm water, signs , roads etc.

POP
 
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POP,

Since you asked for input, it would be my recommendation to you

to use Excel and customize something yourselves.......It will cost

less, ...be immediately accessible, ...easier to learn and actually

use, ...can be changed immediately, and more user-friendly.

At my former place of employment, we looked and looked and

looked for something that had all of the above characteristics.

We never did find anything to meet most, if not all of the above.

The time you will invest in creating your own database, might

actually be less than an "off the shelf" type software package.

Others may have a different experience... :cool:

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My experience is the same as North Star, first employer used Excel. At that time the employer was using Excel and we assumed our IT dept was just watching the financial bottom line. It always worked well, the concern that was it can be altered by anyone but concerning ease of use it can be altered by anyone, thats a double edged sword.

Current employer uses a custom program that just handles building department, it is good but we have been working through glitches for some time now and frankly it is frustrating. An example would be font or characters coming through differently, thats one among many we work through.
 
Look at Microsoft Access, you can setup different levels of users, share the back end tables and have customized front ends. I set it up here for our department running about 1600 building permits per year, plus tracking complaints, annual inspections etc. The sky is the limit as to what you can do with it with some programming ability and time.
 
MT, any update on your work with Cityworks?

..........going to a meeting with IT on the permitting end of it, curious if, and how it is working out for you.........
 
Well it has been a year and still not up and running. Part of that is the IT person we had left suddenly so that put a big dent in the time frame until we could get somebody else up to speed. We have found areas where it will not do what was presented and they are working on them. What we have found is the PLL portion of CityWorks is a recent addition and their tech/training people are not 100% up to speed with it and what it can or can not do.

Don't jump into this one just yet. We are suppose to have training late February and go live in late March early April. If you can hold off I can give you a real evaluation after we have used it for 30 to 60 days
 
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I'm being baptized into the world of Tyler Munis. We went live the first of the year. So I'm playing a little catch up. Seems like a lot of screen to go through? Any recommendations??? Thoughts???
 
jpranch said:
I'm being baptized into the world of Tyler Munis. We went live the first of the year. So I'm playing a little catch up. Seems like a lot of screen to go through? Any recommendations??? Thoughts???
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Get rid of it now..... :) Although some others on here seem to be having good luck with it, it seemed like a finance program that was forced to do building when I used it...WAAAAY not user friendly
 
jpranch said:
I'm being baptized into the world of Tyler Munis. We went live the first of the year. So I'm playing a little catch up. Seems like a lot of screen to go through? Any recommendations??? Thoughts???
Click to expand...
We are using MUNIS here Jim and have been since late 2010. Any help I can provide PM me.
 
We were told that Accela would cost something less than $1,000,000 and would work great for our community of 250,000 people. After spending $1,000,000 I am convinced that the Accela marketing team deserves a raise and anyone who did not check their references deserves a kick in the arse. We had online plan submittal working with ProjectDox before. A few years after switching over to Accela, we are still struggling to get going with the online plan submittal and online plan review again. Omaha has it working okay for them but not without years of trial and error efforts. #unfulfilledpromises
 
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BayPointArchitect said:
We were told that Accela would cost something less than $1,000,000 and would work great for our community of 250,000 people. After spending $1,000,000 I am convinced that the Accela marketing team deserves a raise and anyone who did not check their references deserves a kick in the arse. We had online plan submittal working with ProjectDox before. A few years after switching over to Accela, we are still struggling to get going with the online plan submittal and online plan review again. Omaha has it working okay for them but not without years of trial and error efforts. #unfulfilledpromises
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They tried to sell me...I wasn't convinced and couldn't afford it anyway....Lucky me!
 
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