jar546
Forum Coordinator
We are currently using SmartGov by Dude Solutions as our permitting software. It is a good software that is web based and has an app for field inspections which is fantastic. It is nice to do inspections, take a picture on your phone through the app and result in real time. With that being said, the Town decided to move finance and all other departments, including the water department to BS&A Software which has different modules for each department and uses within departments. The great thing about BS&A is that it is finance heavy and integrates with each department so I can check my budget in real time which I cannot do now. I had no say in this decision as I came on board at the end, right before the committee voted on it. There are a multitude of reasons why I did not like the BS&A system for the Building Department (BD), the biggest being the fact that this was not a web-based solution and remote access would have to be to a town computer and the inspections were not in real time. So what went wrong?
Ultimately the system that we have with SmartGov is more powerful, user friendly, web-based, and more technologically advanced. We shut down for 3 business days plus a weekend and the system was unusable with data not being placed in the correct areas along with lack of access to attachment files. Our training was more like a discovery session and the phrase we heard many times was "we will have that fixed for go-live." I had hundreds of hours and about $10,000 worth of new equipment invested in this transfer which ultimately failed. I realized what a good product I already had.
SmartGov was never set up properly when I took over the BD. It was never being used to its potential. When COVID hit I was able to take us from 0% online to 100% online including payments and plan review in less than 2 weeks. I then worked out some bugs and let it sit as I was not willing to put more time and effort into it knowing it was going to be replaced. After the failed launch, I was able to make a case that the new system was not going to work for us as we were already more advanced and the decision was made to allow the BD to continue with SmartGov. Since then (about a month ago) we have been able to take SmartGov to the next level and even have automatic statusing of permits. Between all of the lessons I learned going from 0-100% with online to all of the preparation for the new system that ended up failing, I now have a very good understanding of these systems and the potential pitfalls and situations that can arise.
What I learned in the past 8 months is that it is completely unnecessary for a contractor or owner to step foot inside the building department and you can be 100% paperless if you want to be. For those that say you can't, you either never tried, did not try hard enough or did not have the right software in place. I am in no rush to open our doors again as it will actually cause us more work. The days of paper are over and we are 8 months into it and very happy about it.
Ultimately the system that we have with SmartGov is more powerful, user friendly, web-based, and more technologically advanced. We shut down for 3 business days plus a weekend and the system was unusable with data not being placed in the correct areas along with lack of access to attachment files. Our training was more like a discovery session and the phrase we heard many times was "we will have that fixed for go-live." I had hundreds of hours and about $10,000 worth of new equipment invested in this transfer which ultimately failed. I realized what a good product I already had.
SmartGov was never set up properly when I took over the BD. It was never being used to its potential. When COVID hit I was able to take us from 0% online to 100% online including payments and plan review in less than 2 weeks. I then worked out some bugs and let it sit as I was not willing to put more time and effort into it knowing it was going to be replaced. After the failed launch, I was able to make a case that the new system was not going to work for us as we were already more advanced and the decision was made to allow the BD to continue with SmartGov. Since then (about a month ago) we have been able to take SmartGov to the next level and even have automatic statusing of permits. Between all of the lessons I learned going from 0-100% with online to all of the preparation for the new system that ended up failing, I now have a very good understanding of these systems and the potential pitfalls and situations that can arise.
What I learned in the past 8 months is that it is completely unnecessary for a contractor or owner to step foot inside the building department and you can be 100% paperless if you want to be. For those that say you can't, you either never tried, did not try hard enough or did not have the right software in place. I am in no rush to open our doors again as it will actually cause us more work. The days of paper are over and we are 8 months into it and very happy about it.
