City of Seattle Procures Enterprise License for Accela's Civic Platform

SAN RAMON, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 17, 2013) - Accela, Inc., the leading provider of civic engagement solutions for government agencies, announced today that the City of Seattle, Department of Planning and Development will replace its legacy permitting and code compliance system with Accela Automation® to streamline processes, improve automation and technology integration, and provide mobile functionality for staff in the office and the field. With a population over 620,000, the City is focused on providing streamlined permitting and inspection processes for its citizens.

"Accela's software stood out from other vendor products because of its ease of use, capability to support mobile technology, built-in interface with GIS, strong Electronic Plan Review features, and built-in ad-hoc reporting capability," said Bob Laird, Director of Operations for the Department of Planning and Development.

Specifically, the City of Seattle will utilize:

Accela Automation: Offers a web-enterprise platform that utilizes an open cloud architecture and a centralized database, allowing information to be shared across departments while improving communication between office and field workers, citizens, businesses and other key stakeholders.

Accela Citizen Access™: Delivers a cost-effective way to move traditional counter and call center services to the Web, providing citizens with easy and convenient multi-language and 508c compliant online access to an agency's permitting, licensing, and Rental Registration, Requests for Services and any other regulatory service the City automates. By streamlining processes and providing more self-service options to their customers, City tasks that had previously taken days to complete can now in some cases be self-issued by customers over the internet, leaving staff more time to focus on other job functions and leaving contractors, business owners, homeowners, and other members of the community more time to attend to the demands of their busy schedules.

Accela Mobile Office: Improves mobile workforce efficiency for government workers. Designed specifically for field use and leveraging the latest in mapping technology, Accela Mobile Office helps users create inspections, investigations, service requests, work orders, code enforcement cases and manage asset inventories and condition assessments from the field.

Accela GIS: Provides a robust solution for leveraging agency's geospatial data to improve decision-making and streamline process. Provides a geographic view of all land-use, zoning, and infrastructure information associated with parcels, permits, inspections, code cases, assets, work orders or service requests.

Accela Civic Apps: Allows access to inspection information from Apple iOS devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, Android devices, and Windows 8 mobile devices and tablet PCs. Accela Mobile Apps, such as Accela Inspector, provide greater convenience and faster turnaround time for field inspectors and end users. Accela's Mobile Apps also include Accela GIS™, which integrates ESRI ArcGIS for planning entitlements, building permits, improvement plans, and code enforcement.

"Accela is proud to be working with Seattle on this very important project as our solutions support the City's mission to provide information assets and data to foster civic innovation," said Maury Blackman, Accela CEO and President. "Accela's Civic Platform aligns with Seattle's vision and provides the foundation for innovation through mobile apps and capabilities for engagement with citizens. We look forward to implementing solutions to streamline Seattle's civic processes related to permitting and inspection." 

About Accela

Accela, Inc. provides the leading civic engagement platform, powering thousands of services and millions of transactions daily for large and small public agencies worldwide. We connect government to people and accelerate and streamline land management, licensing, asset management and public health and safety processes. Accela's Civic Cloud includes a complete platform, both packaged and tailored solutions and cloud-based, office, mobile and social applications to support government agency, business and citizen needs. Accela is headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., with international offices in Australia and the United Arab Emirates. For more information, visit www.accela.com.

Media Contact:
Erica Harvill
Accela, Inc.
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