Sectors
Municipal permitting and licensing systems
How cities manage permits, inspections, and licenses, and what a modern system needs to do.
Permitting and licensing are among the most visible services a city provides. Residents and businesses judge the city by how easy it is to pull a permit, schedule an inspection, or renew a license. The systems behind these services are complex and are frequently modernized.
Functions
- Application intake, online and at the counter
- Plan review, including electronic plan review with markup
- Fee calculation and payment
- Inspection scheduling, routing, and results from the field
- Code enforcement cases
- Business licensing and renewals
- Public records and status lookup
- Reporting for planning, building, and finance
Integration points
GIS for parcel and address data, finance for fee posting, document management for plans and records, code enforcement, and sometimes utility billing and public safety.
What modern systems need
Resident-facing design. Mobile-friendly, accessible, plain-language applications with status tracking and payment.
Configurable workflow. Cities change fee schedules and processes; staff should be able to adjust without vendor changes.
Field mobility. Inspectors need offline-capable mobile tools.
Open data. Permit activity is a frequently requested dataset.
Integration. Documented APIs to the systems above.
Common modernization challenges
Migrating decades of permit history and documents. Reconciling address data with the GIS. Recreating fee logic that exists only in the old system's code. Training staff and the public simultaneously.
Where a technology firm fits
Requirements and vendor evaluation for a platform replacement, integration with GIS and finance, data migration validation, custom public-facing front ends where the platform's are inadequate, and accessibility remediation.