Mitchell Humphrey

For many contractors and construction professionals, the permit application process often looks like a black hole. Many people in the trades will tell you that getting a permit pulled just to confirm the status often requires precious time in long hold queues on the phone or having to make in-person visits to the planning department.

What many municipal agencies don’t know is that even today, there is existing technology that allows trade professionals to upload plan specs from a mobile device or a web interface. Digitizing the permitting process provides greater transparency and convenience for construction professionals and residents alike, while greatly improving your staffs’ workflows.

Advantages of Electronic Plan Review

When your stakeholders can easily log into a web interface or an app to verify the status of an application, you’re essentially creating an easy, fast, self-service model.

Mobile apps and online submission, as well as review, allow for far greater convenience and time-management over a paper-heavy, in-person process. Utilizing electronic plan review technology enables your constituents to:

• Spend less time confirming permit status on the phone or in person
• Upload new documents to the plan from the job site
• Eliminate additional paper processes when submitting applications to the city
• Share the status review quickly with their clients
• Check and confirm permit status before and after work hours

By automating and digitizing the review process, you’ll also free your staff from time-consuming, manual tasks, bringing them better job satisfaction.

Electronic Plan Reviews Improve Community Relations 

The permitting process is often the last step before any construction job or home improvement project. By the time a project is in the review stage, all parties, including the client, contractor, public utilities, and others, are anxious and ready for the job to start. Coordinating schedules, hiring labor, and getting the right teams on site usually can’t start until the plans are approved.

The permit packet often represents hours of meetings among architects, project managers, subcontractors, and their client. The longer the permit process takes, the more the building or planning department can inadvertently cause frustration. Your clerks, inspectors, administrators, and review boards can often be the recipients of that frustration.

By working with our easy-to-implement FastTrackGov solution, we can help bring nearly every aspect of your municipality’s planning and inspection process online. Our team can work with your existing systems to:

• Increase the accuracy of computing fines, fees, and permit charges
• Automate the confirmation and notification messaging process
• Store electronic copies of applications
• Generate tasks associated with new inspections and applications
• Assign the right inspector to the specific job based on type, location, and availability
• Give all stakeholders a view of projects and permits at any time

Our digital solutions also introduce scalability for your teams and your community. By leveraging the best aspects of technology, you can further maximize your investment in skilled labor resources.

For more information or to schedule a demo, contact us today.