Rural counties face unique challenges in digital transformation—limited budgets, spread-out populations, and residents who prefer face-to-face service. But Merced County, California, proved that even smaller jurisdictions can achieve dramatic results with the right approach.
In this episode, Nicole Ubbink, Assistant Director of Community and Economic Development at Merced County, joins Noam and Dustin to share how her team unified previously siloed departments onto one platform, cut permit times by 72%, and brought 5,000 business license holders into the digital age—all while maintaining their commitment to exceptional customer service.
The Power of Platform Unification
Breaking Down Departmental Silos
Merced County’s transformation began with a structural reorganization in 2021. The county board of supervisors recognized that calling themselves a “one-stop shop” didn’t match reality. Planning, Buildings, Environmental Health, and Public Works all operated independently under different departmental umbrellas, making it nearly impossible to get a complete picture of any property.
By first consolidating departments organizationally and then implementing Accela’s unified Civic Platform, Merced County created a true one-stop shop where building permit technicians and planning permit technicians can work on the same records without handing off phone calls or directing customers elsewhere.
Strategic Technology Selection
Rather than implementing point solutions for individual departments, Merced County chose a unified platform approach. This strategic decision enables staff to access comprehensive property information—permits, business licenses, code cases, and planning entitlements—from a single location, dramatically reducing research time and eliminating communication breakdowns.
Innovation in Rural Government
Transforming Public Works from Paper to Digital
Perhaps the most dramatic transformation occurred in Public Works, which operated on 100% paper and manual spreadsheet tracking before the Accela implementation. Large utilities like PG&E and AT&T previously had to mail checks or bring cash for permits. Now they can submit applications online, make digital payments, and receive permits within days instead of weeks.
The change has been so significant that these utility partners have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback about how much easier Merced County is to work with—a testament to the power of modernization.
Smart Data Migration Decisions
Merced County made strategic choices about what data to migrate from legacy systems. For building permits, they started fresh from day one rather than converting potentially messy historical data. For planning permits and business licenses, where data quality was higher, they performed full migrations.
This thoughtful approach—understanding their data and making calculated decisions—set the foundation for a clean, effective system from launch.
Measurable Results and Improvements
72% Reduction in Permit Processing Times
The numbers tell a compelling story. In the first 90 days after going live, residential new construction permits took an average of 185 days from submission to closure. Just months later, that average dropped to 52 days. That’s a 72% improvement that reflects both system efficiency and staff proficiency growth.
This dramatic reduction directly impacts Merced County’s economic development, enabling builders to move faster and reducing carrying costs for construction projects.
100% Digital Service Delivery
Merced County achieved complete digital transformation across all departments, with 100% online submittals and payments. This represents a fundamental shift in how the county serves its approximately 5,000 business license holders and broader community of residents and builders.
Enhanced Financial Intelligence
The unified platform delivers analytical capabilities that were impossible with disparate systems. Nicole Ubbink can now run comprehensive reports on revenue streams, cost recovery, and staff time allocation across all departments—providing county leadership with the data needed for informed fee-setting and policy decisions.
Change Management in Practice
The Red Carpet Approach
Merced County’s change management philosophy centers on meeting customers where they are. When business license holders who had operated the same way for 20 years struggled with the new system, staff didn’t just point them to online resources—they spent 45 minutes on the phone walking them through setup, hosted office hours in county buildings, and created detailed user guides with screenshots.
This “whatever you need” approach maintained customer satisfaction during a massive operational shift.
Lessons Learned: The Importance of Communication
Nicole candidly shares that if she could do it over, marketing and communication would be even more robust. With only email addresses for 3,000 of their 5,000 business license holders, the county faced unexpected challenges in preparing everyone for the change.
The lesson? Never underestimate how much communication is needed, especially when serving diverse populations with varying levels of technology comfort. Merced County applied these insights to their upcoming Environmental Health go-live in March, planning even more detailed outreach about what customers should expect and how their processes will change.
Technology as an Enabler
Cross-Departmental Collaboration
With Code Enforcement joining the platform, Merced County will eliminate a persistent coordination problem: permits being issued on properties with active code enforcement cases. Code enforcement staff will be able to flag properties and place conditions directly in the system, ensuring all departments see critical information in real time.
This visibility prevents mistakes and eliminates the finger-pointing that occurred when departments worked in isolation.
Real-Time Customer Service
Staff can now navigate the system while on the phone with customers, helping them through processes in real time. Because technicians understand both the public-facing portal and the back-office system, they can effectively guide any customer through any issue without transfers or callbacks.
Best Practices for Rural Jurisdictions
Start with Your Team
Merced County’s success stemmed from having the right people at the table. Subject matter experts from across the organization participated in data analysis, configuration decisions, and implementation planning. This created organizational buy-in and confidence in the decisions being made.
Be Honest About What’s Working (and What Isn’t)
Nicole emphasizes the importance of continuous evaluation: “We can evaluate ourselves on a regular basis and be honest about was that the right choice? Yes it was, or no it wasn’t, and let’s fix it.” This mindset of constant improvement, rather than defending past decisions, drives ongoing optimization.
Embrace the Digital Divide Challenge
Rather than seeing less tech-savvy residents as a problem, Merced County sees them as customers deserving exceptional service. The county maintains its high-touch approach while offering digital convenience, proving that modernization doesn’t mean abandoning personal service.
Understand the Complete Picture
The unified platform now enables staff to see everything about a property—does the business have a license? Is there a conditional use permit? Was that addition permitted? These questions, which previously required searching multiple systems and making phone calls, can now be answered instantly.
Looking Ahead: The Continuous Journey
Merced County’s transformation didn’t end at go-live. With Environmental Health coming online in March and ongoing optimization of existing modules, the county demonstrates that modernization is an ongoing commitment, not a one-time project.
As Nicole notes, “We’re happy with where we started and now we’re looking to do the next level of improvement.” This drive to continually enhance services—measuring success through both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback—positions Merced County as a model for other rural jurisdictions embarking on similar journeys.
The county proves that size doesn’t determine digital maturity. With strategic planning, committed leadership, thoughtful change management, and the right technology platform, even smaller counties can deliver world-class digital services while maintaining the personal touch their communities value.
Explore more discussed in this podcast:
Ready to explore how your agency can follow Merced County’s path to transformation?
Book a demo to learn about how Accela’s platform can support your modernization goals and help you deliver the citizen experience your community deserves.
Dive deeper into this transformative partnership, and read the full transcript below to discover the specific strategies, challenges, and solutions that made this collaboration a success.
Dustin Haisler (00:09):
Welcome to Accela’s Civic Innovators Podcast, where we ask one big question and give one clear answer. I’m Dustin Heisler, president of e.Republic, the parent company of Government Technology.
Noam Reininger (00:20):
And hello everybody. I’m Nom Reininger, the CEO of Accela. Thank you so much for joining our show. The purpose is to highlight and showcase civic leaders and public servants that are really doing something transformational via the use of innovation technology and a deep commitment to citizens. They’re truly changing how government works.
Dustin Haisler (00:45):
So in each episode, we’re gonna explore how local governments are solving big challenges with bold ideas. And today we’re kicking things off with a story that’s all about transformation at a ground level where it matters most.
Noam Reininger (00:58):
All right, so we are really excited to welcome Nicole Ubbink from Merced County. She’s the Assistant Director of Community and Economic Development at the county. Now, we’re really proud here because Merced County is a new addition to the Accela family. And Nicole and her team have been on a quite a large transformation journey, not only modernizing permitting, but really looking and transforming the whole way that the county is managing the land management process.
Dustin Haisler (01:33):
So Nicole’s team has been on a mission to unify systems, streamline processes, and just kind of improve that overall experience for everyone from staff to the builders themselves. And so today we have our one big question that we want to ask Nicole as we go forward around how has Merced County shift to a unified digital permitting and land management system transformed efficiency, customer experience, and collaboration across departments.
Noam Reininger (02:00):
Now, it’s a big question, and Nicole brings a very informed perspective. This transformation journey did not just involve looking at internal teams, but ultimately reimagining how citizens are served and builders in the building community as well.
Dustin Haisler (02:18):
So let’s get into it.
Noam Reininger (02:21):
All right, so let’s start right at the heart of it, Nicole. This was a huge transformation, and so you had fairly siloed departments working on their own processes, and you brought in a brand new, really large, you know, change with a new system. So tell us a little bit about how you imagined that process and how you did it.
Nicole Ubbink (02:43):
Well, it, in all honesty, it started probably in 2021. Um, our county board of supervisors realized there was a disconnect. Our department where we’re located was called the one stop shop, which so incorporated, um, planning buildings, um, environmental health and, um, public works. But they all were under different departments in the county, so everybody was independent of each other. So in 21, we started collapsing departments into one. So we brought in buildings and safety into planning. We brought in environmental health, um, and now we’re all under one roof. We’re under one office roof, but we’re also under a umbrella of a department roof, with the exception of public works. But we we’re, we’re best friends. We work really well together, and now bringing everybody under one system, we have so gained so many efficiencies with a building permit technician and a planning permit technician can work on the same records and serve our customers and not hand off the phone, right? So we are able to be efficient to our customers and not pass the buck, so to say, if it’s, if it’s a planning or buildings or even, um, an environmental health permit when we, when we go live with environmental health. So we’re able to provide that cross kind of, that cross over of all departments, um, in one and have the true one-stop shop.
Dustin Haisler (04:17):
I love that. And as, as I think about, you know, kind of the, the modernization journey that you’ve been on, you know, there’s so many different things that you could do right now, right? There’s no shortage of problems within the public sector to tackle. So what made modernization kind of a non-negotiable from Merced County? Like are there any things that like stood out that just really drove this over the finish line for you?
Nicole Ubbink (04:42):
Well, in the state of California, uh, you know, it was legislation that mandated us to move in this direction, um, to be able to provide transparency to the customer as far as where their application is at any given time in the process. Um, that’s a requirement in the state for a building permit for, um, entitlement permits now. So that was one driving factor because we had to meet the mandate by a certain date and also just to really show our citizens that Merced County is moving at trying to move at the speed of technology. We’re not always the greatest. We’re a smaller county, and you, I think you see that and also in rural counties where sometimes it’s a little bit harder to kind of cross the digital divide and get up to, um, a very modern, a modern field. But we’re doing it slowly but surely and being able to provide everything online and at their fingertips where they’re checking on their permit, they’re making their payments online, they’re submitting, um, uploading documents where before they used to have to email it and wait for us to put it onto their, um, application. It’s just providing them that more self-service, um, that they didn’t have before with our old system. So for Merced County, it was the right decision at the right time, a lot of factors at play, but the ultimate choice in going with, um, Accela and putting this modern approach, uh, really just, it was this perfect crossroads where the timing was, was what we needed to do and wanted to do and made the most sense.
Noam Reininger (06:26):
And Nicole, I’m curious, as you had your different choices on which route to go from a technology perspective and for the project, you know, one option was to have kind of point solutions and make single departments more efficient and then connect them versus going down the one platform approach that really connected all the different departments. As you all thought about those choices and ultimately went with one technology solution to unify and connect the departments, what were the trade-offs and why did you choose to go down the route that you chose?
Nicole Ubbink (07:03):
Well, I think, um, as we were in our department growing in bringing in environmental health and buildings and seeing where, uh, it was really a challenge sometimes to get information that you needed. Because with sometimes with the property, you need the whole picture. You need to see, um, what are all of the permits associated with, with that APN, um, we didn’t have that. Um, research, you know, looking things up would take time in Merced County. Going to one platform made the most sense for us because efficiency, um, for staff is primary for customer service. Having one location to go to for information, whether it be public records request act, um, question, or somebody’s looking for, um, all of the details of a permit on an APN, you know, does that, does that business have a business license? Uh, do they have the right conditional use permit?
Nicole Ubbink (08:09):
Did was that, was that add-on permitted , you know, any of those things. And, uh, it just makes it so much easier for staff to be able to go into one location, um, for that information and provide expeditious service to our clientele. Um, also being in separate systems with me and my role, I have to oversee all of the financial aspects of our department and track revenues and revenue streams and kind of see where, or maybe, um, some are lower than others and what is occurring there in different systems. You’re pulling that information from two different systems, having to bring it together in spreadsheets and, and do analysis that way, where now I have it at my fingertips, um, and just run a report straight from Accela that can tell me all of the pieces I need to know and, and actually do some very, um, creative analysis right from the reports and tools that are there, which has been great for the county in that respect.
Dustin Haisler (09:13):
Love it. So you’ve now gone a hundred percent online for submittals and payments, which is awesome. So like, take note, everybody that’s looking at economic development opportunities in county government like Merced counties where it’s at. But tell me a little bit, like, I want to double click on that, like internally, what operational shifts did this trigger inside the county? Like now that you’ve got this unified infrastructure that is online and accessible, how did it impact the internal dynamics?
Nicole Ubbink (09:42):
Well, everything, uh, changes a learning curve, I would say, um, in, when you’re going from a couple different systems that operate differently into one, um, that’s a change. So they’re, they’re learning how to handle things, um, just day-to-day PO posting payments, um, you know, navigating through, through the records themselves. Um, so they, there was a little bit of a learning curve and now we are, oh gosh, we are 10 months in and they’re pros and . They navigate really well. And, um, starting to now look at different ways to use the system even more so ex enhance our use of the system because we’re just scratching the surface. And that’s the exciting thing about continuing through this process with Accela is what are the other areas that we can tap into to help our staff do more with the system? Um, how are we tracking our time?
Nicole Ubbink (10:45):
Another, another kind of the fiscal aspect of it is you citizens pay X amount for a building permit. Well, what, what is that paying for? How much of the time are recovering of our staff? And by using the tools within Accela to look at, uh, staff time associated to building permits and inspections and plan review versus just, well, it costs X to employ this staff person, so we need to charge y for these, these building permits to cover that staffing cost, but we actually need to see what’s the time spent. And so that’s where, uh, having the, the l platform really helps to provide more specific, um, analytical information to policy makers within the county as well, and setting fees and those types of things where it, it helps just support all of those, um, all of those needs that we have to do in county government and setting our revenues and setting fees and, and communicating to our constituents why it costs a certain thing. We have now have the, the tools to do that more effectively. So it’s effective communication.
Noam Reininger (11:59):
So Nicole, you know, it sounds like you had a 10 month, you know, of being in the system now with your team. There was a change management approach and you know, you talked about kind of some of the roadmap and next steps in terms of bringing more transparency for costs. What are you seeing in terms of the operational benefits to your team and how are those things translating to the community in Merced County?
Nicole Ubbink (12:23):
That’s a great question. Um, for operational benefits, I think we’re being, we’re much more efficient. So when I look at the turnaround time, average turnaround time, in the first 90 days that we went live, um, for a residential new construction permit, that average time was, um, 185 days to get, uh, from when we first was submitted within the first 90 days, the closing of those permits were on average 185 days in the last, um, couple months. It’s now 52 days average turnaround time. So that’s a, that’s an improvement, 72%. Um, and that, that speaks to kind of, I think the staff learning the system, the constituents learning the system, um, and getting over those, those learning curves, I’ll say. Um, but it’s a great improvement and it’s, and it’s actually one of the things that we get asked all the time by our decision makers is how fast are you turning these permits?
Nicole Ubbink (13:28):
Well, now we can show you, um, , I can show you on a very easy chart, like it was this, and now it’s this. Look at that. It’s, it’s great. It tells a good story and helps our, um, helps our customer base understand how quickly we are moving things along. And that’s where, um, I think one of our greatest success stories is really with our public’s work, public works department. They were 100% paper manual processes, everything on a spreadsheet, um, that they would track as far as issuing of an encroachment permit or transportation permits. Now, by having everything submitted online, and, and they weren’t taking credit card payments at that time, either you had to mail a check or bring in cash or your check. So now they’re taking payments online. So they’re dealing with large utilities like PG&E. Um, at and t we’ve gone into, you know, as we talked about earlier, modernization, that’s improving their relationships with their customers so they can issue their permits much more quickly, do inspections much more quickly and, and, um, close those records out as within days at times. And that’s where we’ve heard a lot of feedback of just general happiness, I would say. Um, and satisfaction with the fact that Merced County did this.
Noam Reininger (14:49):
That’s amazing. I was looking for like
Dustin Haisler (14:50):
the mind blown emoji on my computer to see if I could like, have it up as you were talking about how, you know, you chopped in half, like, you know, more than half like three quarters, right? Like the amount of time, which is just incredible. So, you know, kudos to you and the team now. You know, one of the questions I often get is like, how do you bring everyone along, right? As you think about people that are in different states of maturity, some people are more acclimated to doing things in a modern way, and we’ll say that some are not. So as you think about those that are maybe less comfortable with some of the, the digital tools and the modern ways of doing things, how did you, how did you focus on them and kind of bringing them along, uh, in this new unified system?
Nicole Ubbink (15:31):
Well, I think, uh, that’s a very good question, Dustin. And it’s definitely a lesson learned, especially as we go into our next phase with bringing environmental health online. Um, we might have been a little naive in the adoption by what I’ll say our just general public, um, where we, they have their business licenses with us, and some of them, they’ve been a business license holder for 20 years. So, um, they were used to getting their, their paper invoices and, uh, mailing in their checks and, and sometimes cash. Um, I can’t tell you how many times I would open an envelope or staff show me there’s actually cash in an envelope. This is strange. Um, but we’re, we’re now moving them along. And I think adoption of learning the system where I myself had been not have been on the phone with our customers, and it could take them probably 45 minutes for us just to walk them through, get them set up, but we don’t, we, we hold their hand the entire way through the process.
Nicole Ubbink (16:34):
And so that’s our customer service focus is we just make sure everyone’s taken care of. We spend the time that’s necessary to kind of bridge that gap. Uh, especially if they’re uncomfortable with technology, they’ll come to our front counter. We’ve made adjustments on how we have our front counter set up to, to accommodate for that and have almost like teaching sessions. Um, when we went live, we had office hours, uh, that I hosted in the main county admin building in our conference rooms to have just customers come in, ask questions, help them submit a, submit an application, whatever they need. And that’s kind of our approach. It really is whatever you need, um, we’ll, we’ll help them out. I’ll email people user guides if they’re, if they’re a frequent flyer, I’ll say, um, here’s a user guide in creating accounts or adding people to, to your, um, to your account or submitting your applications with, you know, screenshots and all of those good things. And, and we continue to evolve that. So we, we assess where maybe we’re falling short. Um, we put a survey out now on our, um, pub, uh, the public site for our constituents to give us the feedback so we can continue to make improvements. And that’s really the ultimate goal. So it’s just a constant, um, evaluation and listening, listening to what the customers have to say and, and implementing change that will make, make it better for turn makes it better for us.
Noam Reininger (18:06):
Nicole, um, you mentioned a real red carpet approach to change management and earlier you mentioned, especially on the utility side of folks being really pleased and that you’ve gotten positive feedback. You also talked about putting feedback on the website. And so I’m super curious, what kind of external feedback are you getting at this point, 10 months in? What type of feedback are you getting from the staff?
Nicole Ubbink (18:32):
Um, I think the external feedback, uh, 10 months in, they’re, it’s interesting. They, the people in Merced really still like to talk to a person. And so, um, I think we get a lot of, are still reaching out and having those conversations. Um, but then you have people that love to be able to just go and handle all of their business needs online with, have to talk anybody unless there’s a reason. Um, so it’s really just more of the feedback we get typically will be if, if maybe there’s a hiccup or there it’s kind of uncertain on how to use the system. So those are the things that we still continue to hear, but not as much. Right. I haven’t had as many phone calls to my desk as I did in the very beginning, um, because it was a all hands on deck to get people set up and, um, acclimated internally.
Nicole Ubbink (19:32):
Um, staff I are still use learning the system and seeing different ways to use it, but also seeing how it’s making things easier to track and answer those questions for customers as they come to maybe come to the counter or they’re calling over the phone and they, they can navigate and help the customer navigate too. So they’re, our staff had the challenge of learning what the public sees at the same time of what they see in the back office. So they had to know both in order to effectively assist our customers. And, um, that is where you saw our staff just take it, um, take it on and learn it and become even that much more comfortable because for them, that’s their customer service. And that is a, uh, kind of a pillar in Merced County is the best possible customer service no matter who your customer is, whether it be an internal or an external, um, customer.
Dustin Haisler (20:34):
I love that viewpoint on customer service. You know, when I think about the public sector being a, you know, recovering public servant myself, um, we often think of things like silos and yeah, there’s no shortage of that. Right. And as you think about departments that are coming on board this with like code enforcement, you know, how do you envision this approach and this unification, you know, breaking down those silos? What is this gonna unlock for you?
Nicole Ubbink (20:59):
That’s a great question with code enforcement. ’cause I’m really excited about it, honestly. Um, code ha you know, they have their code cases and there’s a, there’s a complete disconnect, um, between what code has with an active enforcement case and a building permit. And unfortunately there have been times where a building permit will, will get drawn on a property that there shouldn’t be, like it should be locked down, no per no permits allowed, and we didn’t know. And, um, that’s because code is with the sheriff’s department and we are not. Um, so now that we’ve, when Accela was coming online and we were having training and we had code staff like, here’s your logins, here’s how you can go put, uh, you know, you can put a condition on the parcel, like you can lock it down. This is a tool for you to use.
Nicole Ubbink (21:51):
And then they said, well, why, how come we’re not in the, how come we’re not in the mod in the system? Where’s our module? And I said, well, yeah, let’s do that , we wanna do that. So they’re, they’re really excited and we’re, we’re gonna have them live in about a month and a half, and it’s going to just bridge those silos and the communication will be even that much more fluid between our departments. Everybody will know immediately if there is an active code case or, um, any kind of issue with any property with, that’s within the county’s jurisdiction. And I will say, because I’m project managing that implementation as well as the land management, I just know between the two departments, everyone is so excited to have that and be able to not have to worry about things getting missed and just, it’s covered, like it’s covered. And it is easy for them for code to go in and be able to see, again, all those permits on a property, whether it be business license, environmental health, or a planning because of how the database is set up. That I think for when people understood how they could see the information and they saw the benefit to their day-to-day work, it’s, I mean, that’s all you have to show them. I mean, that was the selling feature, you know, for, for the county and for the departments to, um, buy in for the change.
Noam Reininger (23:20):
Nicole, you mentioned what’s gonna happen pretty soon with code enforcement being on the platform and that enabling some real collaboration that wasn’t there before. What are you seeing now in terms of kind of the merging of departments now they’re on one, one platform in terms of interdepartmental collaboration that’s changed from before the implementation to now?
Nicole Ubbink (23:44):
I think, um, it just really smooths out that communication, right? Communication is key. And if we don’t have effective, um, collaboration or communication amongst departments, there’s just always that, you know, I hate to say it, but it, it’s a little bit of finger pointing of why did this happen? Well, you didn’t flag the property or you let the, you let a permit get pulled there. There’s no more of that. And it really, instead of anybody feeling as if you’re working against one another, you’re working together. So by being on, um, one platform altogether, uh, while we’re separate departments, we are really one team, one dream at Merced County, and we have to, uh, work together to provide the best, uh, customer service and services to the constituents. And that’s how having everybody within Accela has us set up effectively and easily and allows for, uh, great communication and collaboration amongst those, uh, maybe independent departments, but we’re all under the county umbrella, so we all do this together. And then we’re bringing in environmental health, which is also just another, another layer to that. Um, seeing the, the growth of Accela and the use of it throughout our county is showing what we’re doing by modernizing and putting everybody together under the, on the one platform. It’s, it’s exciting and, uh, for me to say when we are all in the same system, and it’s almost like the look at this, look what we did. And it’s a, it’s a great answer to solving a lot of problems that we encounter on a day-to-day basis.
Dustin Haisler (25:27):
That’s so great. I think, no, we’re gonna have to check in with Nicole and team, like in six months to see like how much more transformation has happened and kind of where they’re at in this journey. So, you know, another question. As you think about these large scale projects, inevitably you’ll learn things that you might do differently, uh, if you were to do this again. So I’d love for you to maybe think a little bit about, are there any things that you would, you know, advise agencies to think you know about that maybe you would do differently? Could you start over? Uh, again,
Nicole Ubbink (26:02):
I think for us, um, the biggest lessons learned was marketing. Um, you know, how much marketing we needed to do to bring those different segments of the community along. Um, getting them ready and not, and not having them surprised because, you know, best laid plans and you think we have, we’ve got this figured out where we’re doing mailers, we did postcards, we did, you know, we have 5,000, uh, business license holders within the county. Gotta make sure, but we only have emails for 3000. You know, , we had, we had some, some hurdles to, uh, get across by, and I, part of it could be because we’re rural ish and you know, you have people that aren’t, like we talked about earlier, the technology piece of it. They, they like their paper invoices and they’re just not gonna change. And so, you know, what are maybe delving a little bit more into the people we’re going to affect with this change, and how do we effectively communicate the, the, um, new system that’s coming, what will be expected of them differently?
Nicole Ubbink (27:16):
Maybe that’s with their submittals, that that’s going to be a very different look for them. So if you, there’s an organization making a transition from one system to another. Um, and you know, we chose in our transformation to not, uh, migrate any building permits. We didn’t bring any over, we started fresh from day one for buildings. Um, that was a, a calculated decision because we knew the data in our old system probably wasn’t the cleanest. And so it was going to be more challenging in the data conversion, um, for us. But we did it with our planning permits because that data was cleaner and building and business licenses. So looking at those two different aspects, you know, what was the, what, what were the effects of that? Was that the right decision? Um, where buildings was concerned overall, most likely, yes. We’ve had to convert some records now manually.
Nicole Ubbink (28:10):
Um, so, you know, would they wanna manually enter those, uh, applications? I don’t know. It’s been about 500 , so we would see. But again, it really was where I think we fell a little bit short. And I can say that because I was the project manager of the implementation in going be lessons learned for the environmental health go live in March. Uh, is that communication frequent, detailed enough, but not overwhelmingly, but what, here’s what to expect with how you’re gonna, we’re gonna change the way you do business with us, and what does that mean? I think that’s where we could have been more effective and we’re gonna learn from that going forward.
Noam Reininger (28:58):
Cool. It sounds like you had some really good lessons learned in terms of a, a lot of it is about communication mm-hmm . And then you had to make some choices of are there records that you redo from scratch? Are there ones where you reuse and import as you think about other agencies that are about to embark on a big transformation like yours? And a lot of things went extremely well. You’re 10 months in, it’s going fantastic. What are some of the things that you said were kind of key success factors? So we talked about lessons learned, but what do you think that your team, the county, did really well that you would recommend for another agency as they embark on a transformation?
Nicole Ubbink (29:41):
I think our, our team understood their data. They understood what they had in the old system and what needed to come and what didn’t need to come. So we did a very, um, a very detailed data analysis into understand, you know, what were the parameters that were important to say, what data’s gonna come and what is not. And then we also had a plan for what we, what we did with all of those records that didn’t come into the system. We’ve, we have an archive in place, so we solved for those pieces because we know we still need to access that old data, but we didn’t necessarily need to bring it with us. And that, I think we did a really good job of evaluating sitting people down over, you know, these things just don’t happen as, you know, overnight. It entails many people from many, um, areas of our organization, it the business side, our, you know, the Accela team and understanding what are the implications, asking those questions, what are the potential unintended consequences if we do something or don’t do something?
Nicole Ubbink (30:50):
And being confident in the decisions that we made. And I think because we had so many subject matter experts at the table that we went into it feeling very confident. And I will say it was successful as far as the, the data migration and how we configured our system, um, from the get go. And where I also think we are a good team and really successful is that we can evaluate ourselves on a regular basis and be honest about was that the right choice? Yes it was, or no, it wasn’t, and let’s fix it and what is it gonna take to fix it? And so, um, nobody, nobody is just saying, I made that decision and I’m, you know, it was the right one. Uh, I’m not gonna change. Um, we, we always want to look, we’re looking to continuing to enhance and evolve. So I think that taking that mindset of, we always just wanna make it better and we’re happy with where we’re happy with where we started and now we’re looking to do with the next level of improvement. And that’s, that’s the drive for us.
Noam Reininger (31:58):
Well, folks, that’s a wrap. Nicole, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I, I’m, I’m really inspired by your humility, the continuous strive for improvement that you’re talking about. And what’s really inspiring is, is the significant transformation that you and the team at Merced County were, were able to make. So thank you again.
Nicole Ubbink (32:20):
Well, thank you for having me. I, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s great to share it. .
Dustin Haisler (32:24):
Yeah, I echo Noam sentiments. It’s inspiring to kind of hear your story and what you and the team have been able to do in, in a world of uncertainty and frequent change. I mean, you’ve really done a tremendous job showing kind of the art of the possible, and, and you’ve got data to prove it. So, uh, what a, what a powerful story.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Well, thank you.
Noam Reininger (32:45):
Yeah. So to all our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. You can pick up other episodes as well. And thank you for spending time with us today.
Dustin Haisler (32:56):
And don’t forget to visit accela.com/podcast for more episodes, show notes, and resources.
