The City of Shakopee has been using LOGIS PIMS since its inception.  There are significant limitations and despite our best efforts, the program has not changed.

Given the volume of permits handled and in an effort to provide one seamless product for the customer that also integrates internally, IT staff and Building Department and Engineering staff have reviewed many products on the market and had presentation of four specific programs.

The Tyler product was unanimously chosen since it allows customers to use one portal for submission, plan review, permitting and payments.  It will also allow the customer to schedule inspections online while allowing inspectors to document and approve or fail inspections in the field and also notify applicants in real time.  This will create a one-stop shop portal for all permits and licensing including Right-of-Way, Licensing, building permitting and planning permits.  All submissions will arrive through the Permit Coordinator, be checked for completeness, and then forwarded to the appropriate reviewers and departments. 

Tyler's industry-leading EnerGov™ platform uses GIS to automate and connect critical processes, streamline workflow, improve communication, and increase productivity from desk to field, from planning, permitting to licensing. The software is used by more than 15,000 government organizations world-wide.

The software will allow all types of payments online including credit cards and checks.  Currently, applicants must bring in checks to city hall, slowing down the application process.  This has the potential to save the city credit card charges, which this year will be more than $60,000.  Checks are processed at a lower fee than credit cards.

This product is being paid out of the Electronic Processing fee and that Council adopted two years ago when the city went to e-permits and electronic permit reviews along with Building Permit Revenues.  The Electronic Processing Fee has already generated over $225,000 to date.  Electronic permitting and review saves customers time since they can apply at any time of day or night while also eliminates the need for plan sets.  On larger projects, these plan sets cost tens of thousands of dollars to print and eliminates the need to constantly review complete sets.

The city is currently running two systems for building permits: PIMS and ProjectDox.  Right-of Ways and other licenses have been handled manually.  This will completely streamline and automate much of the processes.

This new system will integrate all of these into one system and one repository in Laserfiche.  Also, the software allows any field person to photographically document anything and it automatically will attach to the permit history.

Tyler Technologies is one of the largest providers of software to governments.  They offer a specialized team for support and implementation.

Implementation, conversion of the city's existing data and training will take approximately eight months.  Since many of the business practices were streamlined during the ProjectDox process, we are hopefully that it will be functional by first quarter of 2020.