One thing we have learned with government technology over the past year is the need for jurisdictions to remove slow, paper-heavy processes. Uptake in digital services has soared with the need for more flexibility in working practices. This includes enhancing the permitting experience for citizens and commercial partners.
For many, the permitting process remains labor intensive. From lengthy delays dealing with submitted plans with issues (around 3-5%) to limited collaboration from working in silos, agencies need tighter digital processes and collaboration. On average, the permitting process takes 200% longer using desktop-based tools, rather than with integrated plan review, like DigEplan for Accela. A wide range of roles across multiple departments all reviewing documents and working in siloes hampers speed, collaboration, effectiveness, and efficiency. This can impact employee morale and the citizen experience.
How do you stop the back-and-forth of submissions?
Digitalization of the permitting process can enhance communication across multiple functions. It ensures corrections, comments, and tasks are shared in real-time and provides the ability to create dynamic relationships between teams, assets, and processes.
Fully integrated electronic plan review provides visibility to reviewers during the permitting process; it can identify changes that have been made and can identify issues, all without having to speak to multiple people. Being part of the existing permitting workflow in Accela ensures that your plan review is efficient and creates a full audit trail of decisions.
How to eradicate bad plan submissions from citizens?
At DigEplan we take in over 55,000 plans and documents each month. These plans are typically submitted via Accela’s Citizen Access web portal – or uploaded directly – and are registered in the back office ready for the permitting workflow. We’ve heard from our customers that one of the challenges is ensuring that the first time a plan is submitted, it is ready for review without issues.
What do we mean by issues?
An issue can be something as simple as a corrupted file, a password-protected file, or a file that does not meet submission standards, such as bookmarks or sheet names. Equally, the submission might not meet the required criteria, like Digital Signatures, which may be mandatory for a particular application or jurisdiction.
Around 3-5% of submitted plans and documents have issues, which can take on average 42 minutes to resolve. With an average of 6,000 plans and documents submitted, savings of over $60,000 can be achieved.
DigEplan’s file submission analyzer is embedded in your Accela portal and provides real-time feedback to your applicants. The applicant is notified about any issues before submitting documents, eliminating the cost and time spent in administering bad data. DigEplan helps improve the permitting experience for your customers by ensuring a smoother process and quicker permit issuance.
In benchmarks, DigEplan’s integrated solution was 200% faster than other leading desktop-based PDF markup tools and employees find it easy to use.
To find out more about DigEplan’s integrated electronic plan review, contact your Accela account manager or DigEplan USA at +1 (727) 493 2838, sales@lctsoftware.com.
Schedule a time to connect with us in the Accelarate Partner Pavilion October 4th – 6th, where DigEplan is a Gold Sponsor.
