Monthly Archives: February 2020

Community Development Software Reporting Q&A

Citizenserve's Community Development Software Reporting is a powerful tool to support your community. The following questions were included in a formal Permitting and Land Management System Request for Information from a city of about 62,500 residents.  Read our responses below for more information about some of the reporting features included in Citizenserve's e-government software solution.

1.13   Community Development Software Reporting

1.13.1. Describe the capability to provide standard reports for operational, managerial, and executive reporting.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve includes a robust offering of standard reports; in addition, the development of an unlimited number of custom reports is included in the subscription.

1.13.2. Describe the solution’s capability to provide ad hoc tools or templates that provide the ability for users to create their own reports based on available elements.

Citizenserve Response: There is a built-in end-user reporting wizard in Citizenserve that allows non-technical users to design their own reports and share the reports with others. The reporting tool supports the use of custom fields on the application forms. End users can create their own tabular, map, chart, and merge reports.

1.13.3. Describe the solution’s ability to support both ad-hoc and scheduled reporting.

Citizenserve Response: There is a built-in end-user reporting wizard in Citizenserve that allows non-technical users to design their own reports and share the reports with others. The reporting tool supports the use of custom fields on the application forms. End users can create their own tabular, map, chart, and merge reports.

If the City prefers, users can request the creation of a custom report at any time as part of Citizenserve’s unlimited support. Citizenserve has same-day turnaround on most reports. Our staff will create a SQL script in a stored procedure that is rendered by the software and can contain process features and HTML. The SQL scripts create maximum flexibility.

Scheduled reports are available for an additional fee.

1.13.4. Describe the solution’s ability to allow for the creation of actively updating dashboards for both internal users and external customers.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve provides multiple, actively updating dashboards to enable your users to quickly obtain the information they need, and can configure other dashboards as part of our unlimited support. The user dashboards are flexible and configurable, and can be configured to meet the specific needs of individual users filling different roles.

1.13.5. Describe the solution’s analytics capabilities, both native and integration with Business Intelligence tools, such as Power BI.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve uses Microsoft SQL Server as its database engine for our community development software reports.  A copy of the database can be provided for data warehousing and business intelligence purposes.  Unlimited custom reports are included in the subscription and an end user report writing tool is built into the software.  Reports can be exported as Excel or CSV files for use with end user analysis tools.

Our cloud-based integrated community development software provides multiple solutions to Village, Town, City and County government. In addition to online permitting software, we offer licensing, development, code enforcement, and request tracking solutions. Your subscription also includes an online citizen portal. Keep exploring our site to find pricing information, to request your live demo, or to see how we can support your community development needs.

Visit Customer Profiles to see how our customers are putting our permitting software for governments to work for their communities.

Visit Yavapai County Community Development Innovates their Online Services to see how one Arizona County implemented citizenserve. And then scroll down to the bottom of this page and enter your contact information to request your live demo today. And you'll see how citizenserve can provide Community Development Software Reporting, plus much more.

GIS Integration

Citizenserve offers GIS Integration and much more. The following questions were included in a formal Permitting and Land Management System Request for Information from a city of about 62,500 residents.  Read our responses below for more information about some of the features included in Citizenserve's e-government software solution.

1.7     Geographic Information Systems

1.7.1. Describe the solution’s integration capabilities with ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute)-based GIS systems and services.

Citizenserve Response: Most Citizenserve customers have ESRI GIS with various layers and property information.  Two-way GIS integration using web services allows ESRI GIS information to be incorporated into Citizenserve.

1.7.2. Describe features offered, ESRI solutions and versions supported.

Citizenserve Response: Mapping features are built into the software.  Wherever the map pin is available users can click on the pin icon to see their permitting, licensing, and case files on a map.  Reports can also be rendered as a map rather than a table and the information included in each file can be easily customized.  Citizenserve uses the Google Map API and all features available through the Google API can be incorporated into the software.  Most Citizenserve customers also have ESRI GIS with various layers and property information.  Two-way integration using web services allows ESRI GIS information to be incorporated into Citizenserve.  This short demonstration video provides a general overview of features:

https://www.citizenserve.com/portfolio-view/mapping/

1.7.3. Describe how the system allows real time access to the GIS services and associated databases in order to query the latest address, parcel, zoning, neighborhood, and other relevant datasets?

Citizenserve Response: We will set up two-way GIS integrations to the City’s GIS rather than accessing the data downloads the City provides on its redmond.gov website, since the City is requesting real time access. We will use web services for the integration.

1.7.5. Describe the solution’s capabilities to provide geographically based analysis, data, and reports.

Citizenserve Response: Mapping features are built into the software.  Wherever the map pin is available users can click on the pin icon to see their permitting, licensing, and case files on a map.  Reports can also be rendered as a map rather than a table and the information included in each file can be easily customized.  Citizenserve uses the Google Map API and all features available through the Google API can be incorporated into the software.  Most Citizenserve customers also have ESRI GIS with various layers and property information.  Two-way integration using web services allows ESRI GIS information to be incorporated into Citizenserve.

Any of the data available from the Google Map API and/or the City’s ESRI GIS are available for reporting and analysis.

This short demonstration video provides a general overview of our GIS Integration features:

https://www.citizenserve.com/portfolio-view/mapping/

1.7.6. Describe the solution’s integration capabilities to provide an interactive mapping component with the ability to create custom queries and reports.

Citizenserve Response: The end user reporting tool that is built into the software allows end users to create tabular reports, map reports, and merge reports that merge a list with a template like an expired permit notice.  Using HTML, the reports can be interactive with drill-down capabilities, etc.  The creation of unlimited custom reports is included in the Citizenserve subscription, and any user can request a report at any time and our support team will create the report definition and put it in the user’s reporting folders.  This video demonstration provides a short overview of reporting features in Citizenserve: https://www.citizenserve.com/portfolio-view/reporting/

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In addition to GIS integration, our cloud-based integrated community development software provides multiple solutions to Village, Town, City and County government. In addition to online permitting software, we offer licensing, development, code enforcement, and request tracking solutions. Your subscription also includes an online citizen portal. Keep exploring our site to find pricing information, to request your live demo, or to see how we can support your community development needs.

Visit Customer Profiles to see how our customers are putting our permitting software for governments to work for their communities.

Visit Yavapai County Community Development Innovates their Online Services to see how one Arizona County implemented citizenserve. And then scroll down to the bottom of this page and enter your contact information to request your live demo today. And you'll see how citizenserve can provide permitting software for governments, plus much more.

Mobile Permitting Software Q&A

Citizenserve offers Mobile Permitting Software in it's community development software suite. The following questions were included in a formal Permitting and Land Management System Request for Information from a city of about 62,500 residents.  Read our responses below for more information about some of the Mobile Workforce features included in Citizenserve's e-government software solution.

1.12   Mobile Permitting Sofware

1.12.1. Describe how your mobile solution supports all mobile devices, operating systems and browsers.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve is device and browser independent and has full functionality from mobile devices.

1.12.2. Describe the capabilities of the mobile tools provided with your solution.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve is device independent and has full functionality from mobile devices. Citizenserve can leverage tools on the mobile device such as speech to text functionality for inspectors to enter inspection results.

1.12.3. Describe your mobile permitting software solution’s ability to support speech to text functionally, as well as any spell check capabilities.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve leverages the speech-to-text and spell check functionality of the device and browser.

1.12.4. Describe how the mobile solution will allow the linking of photos and other documents to permits using mobile devices. Provide information on where and how these attachments are stored.

Citizenserve Response: A user such as an inspector can take a photo from a mobile device such as a Surface or iPad, and can upload the photo to the open case file. The attachments are immediately stored to the application server and transferred to the database on a nightly process.

1.12.5. Describe the options for mobile permitting software connectivity and the related security environment.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve is a cloud-based system; mobile users have the same security protections as desktop users.

Document Management Q&A

The following questions were included in a formal Permitting and Land Management System Request for Information from a city of about 62,500 residents.  Read our responses below for more information about some of the document management features included in Citizenserve's e-government software solution.

1.14   Document Management

1.14.1. Describe the application’s capabilities for document management.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve includes robust document management and unlimited storage. Any type of file can be attached to a case file, including Word, Excel, digital photos, electronic plans, and emails; documents and emails generated by Citizenserve are automatically associated with the relevant case file.

1.14.2. Describe the integration you provide with third-party document management solution providers.

Citizenserve Response: Citizenserve has robust document management capabilities and does not have a limit on document storage; most customers choose to use Citizenserve’s internal document management functionality rather than integrate to a third-party document management solution. However, we have provided this integration for past customers; Mount Prospect, Illinois and Rogers, Minnesota are two examples where we provided integration between Citizenserve and Laserfiche.