Hiding in Plain Sight

Making Data Reveal Performance
Every Community Development Department has a way of doing things that’s all its own. There are requirements, workflows, reviews, inspections, certifications, and conditions that make up procedures and business rules. Usually compiling performance data is difficult. It’s in many locations, some of them paper, and many of them badly categorized. But this is the essential data required to see how you’re doing and determine your needs.

There are plenty of timekeeping and workflow applications you could use but often they represent double entry and don’t provide the proper instruction at the proper time. There are too many gaps, too many opportunities for human error, and too many problematic situations that could have been avoided. But the only way to avoid them is to incorporate your performance needs into the software you use to manage your permitting and code enforcement.

Enter SMARTGov Community by Paladin Data Systems. This web based permitting and code enforcement software is designed to integrate your business practices into the day-to-day use of the system. Exacting workflows with steps, prerequisites, actions, corrections, and cycles can be defined according to your rules. Separate measurement of processing time for both your department and the applicant’s response give you what you need to determine staffing capacity and meet any mandates required by your jurisdiction.

Sequences of activities are defined along with the permit or code enforcement type so when a record is created the activities are presented in the proper order helping to ensure that steps are not inadvertently skipped. Staff members no longer need to remember what submittals or fees are required. Reviewers no longer work without the results of other reviews, and inspectors don’t waste time determining if the requested inspection has passed its prerequisites.

Simply by using the SMARTGov Community system you will be generating the data necessary to gauge your performance. Additional staffing requests will be backed up by hard data, streamlining of procedures becomes obvious, and problematic situations are brought into the light. If your software doesn’t help you manage your department then it’s time to take a look at SMARTGov Community.