Anyone Using Cloudpermit? Looking for Feedback

[Miki]

Is anyone here using Cloudpermit for permit management?

I'm curious how your team likes it—what's working well, and what could be better?
Also, how do you name or organize your projects in the system? Any lessons learned would be super helpful.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ap1268]

We have had a few discussions with them, and it would seem like there is a lot of turnover in their sales department and a lot of inconsistencies in their product. They do not even have a Bluebeam integration as of right now if you use Bluebeam.

 

[Amy B]

Yes, we use it! We came from an old dos system so for us...we love it. Citizens do enjoy being able to fill out a permit or pay for a permit from their computer. WE LOVE the reviewing/scheduling for inspections/invoicing...so easy and all in one program. It can work with other programs if your treasurer needs to use on their system. Unfortunate, for us, our finance department still is choosing to use a DOS system, so we are not connected.

 

[alishna]

Yes, we’ve been using Cloudpermit for about a year, and it’s been a nice change from paper/email. It’s easy to track applications and contractors, as everything can be submitted online. The search tool could be better, though, especially if you don’t know the exact name.

 

[Bobby McClanahan]

We are just beginning the integration process. Moving away from ePermitting in the hope Cloudpermit is more user friendly and has the ability to handle business licensing and code enforcement.

 

[Alison Williams]

We've been using it since March of 2024. We've found it to be a mixed bag. We were doing everything on paper before we switched to Cloudpermit, so there are some definite upsides: customers love being able to apply online; staff appreciate not having to input application info into the software from paper copies; staff also like that staff can be assigned reviews and complete them online, and that the software tracks all steps of the application and review process. Our general organizational system is much better now than when we were dealing with paper files. The system is very customizable in a lot of ways, too.

On the other hand, we've had a fair amount of trouble with the system. The main problem is that a lot of our customers do not find the system user-friendly, and that includes lots of tech-savvy people. The design is just not as intuitive as it's intended to be. (For instance, the "application" phase of a permit and the "work & construction" phase are both available once the permit has been issued, but all the documents applicants or staff uploaded, and bills they paid, during the application and review phases stay on the "application" phase side of things, and it's not obvious to lots of people that that is the case or how to get to the "application" phase. Customers will be looking and looking and not able to find their approved drawings and plans or their invoices or receipts, because the system by default takes users to the "work & construction" phase, while all those documents are on the "application" phase.)
We've also had some frustrations with the reviewing and circulating functions. Cloudpermit doesn't have a super robust notification feature for staff users, so we've had to make a habit of notifying staff by email when they have a review to do; Cloudpermit will put the review on the user's dashboard, but it doesn't send them an email notification, so they don't know they have a reason to log into CP.
Another complaint we have is that finding and extending a permit's expiration date is a somewhat convoluted process. Why is there not just an editable "expiration date" field on the permit workspace?
Also, when permits expire, nothing obviously changes in the system to make that event obvious. The customer gets a notification that their permit has expired, but staff has no indication that a permit is expired, unless they go individually track down the expiration date, which again is a convoluted process. I feel like expired permits should be easily identifiable as such. Like their status should change from Permit Issued to Expired, or they should have a big obvious "EXPIRED" label, or something, but nothing like that happens.

The support team at CP has been mostly quite helpful. What user ap1268 said above is true, though; there seems to be a lot of turnover at the company, which can be a real pain.

The most major lesson I've learned since going live with CP is that, if an applicant is having trouble while trying to apply, they need to send staff a message from within the CP application. Unless they do that, their draft application isn't visible to staff at all; it doesn't become visible until it's submitted. I spent SO MANY hours on the phone with people, trying to blindly talk them through troubleshooting their application without being able to see it myself. Just a couple months ago, I learned from a CP support tech that, if the applicant sends us a message from within their application, we can see their draft app. Life-changing knowledge. The blind troubleshooting was a MAJOR frustration for us and for applicants.

TL;DR:
Cloudpermit is better than doing everything on paper, but it has lots of issues. I would guess there have to be better systems out there. In fact, we're looking into switching to SmartGov, less than two years after going live with CP.

 

[Bobby McClanahan]

We've also had some frustrations with the reviewing and circulating functions. Cloudpermit doesn't have a super robust notification feature for staff users, so we've had to make a habit of notifying staff by email when they have a review to do; Cloudpermit will put the review on the user's dashboard, but it doesn't send them an email notification, so they don't know they have a reason to log into CP.

Another complaint we have is that finding and extending a permit's expiration date is a somewhat convoluted process. Why is there not just an editable "expiration date" field on the permit workspace?

Thank you for all the good info and heads up.

I am wondering if this is a settings issue that someone with admin access can change? Having to send separate email notifications seems like more work than necessary. As far as expiring permits-is there a report that can be run?

Its early days for us and I have only seen glimpses of how things function, but I will certainly be asking questions as we go through the setup process.

 

[Alison Williams]

Thank you for all the good info and heads up.

I am wondering if this is a settings issue that someone with admin access can change? Having to send separate email notifications seems like more work than necessary. As far as expiring permits-is there a report that can be run?

Its early days for us and I have only seen glimpses of how things function, but I will certainly be asking questions as we go through the setup process.

I am the administrator for my organization, so I have all the access available, and there just are not many notification settings, period. It's like they assume all staff users will log into CP daily and check their dashboard, which just isn't the case for some of our review staff. For several of them, reviewing permits is only a tiny slice of their job, so they're not going to make a habit of logging in every day.

For expiring permits, there is a search filter that can show all expired permits, or all permits due to expire in the next month. But even when you've filtered it like that, the expiration date is somewhat hidden away. And you can't sort by expiration date. And there's no report that I can find that shows expiration dates. So there's just not a great way to keep on top of which permits have recently expired at any given time.

This all sounds pretty negative, but CP does have lots of good features as well. It's just harder for me to identify them, because the issues are what draw my attention. The stuff that works, just works, and I don't notice it.
It is really nice, for instance, to have inspections integrated into the permitting system and accessible to the permittees online. They can schedule online, and the inspector can do the inspection on his tablet, and the permittee gets an inspection report immediately that they can download, and it's all recorded in CP.
Also, the customizability of the system is impressive. It took a long time to configure it all the way we wanted it when we were setting up the system, but once we got it all configured, a lot of it works like clockwork (which types of permits require which types of applications, fees, and inspections, for instance. It took forever to set it all up, but now it just works.)

 

[Rocky]

As an owners representative (architect) I'm responsible for submitting Building Permit Applications and I find it extremely frustrating. It has to be the least intuitive or user friendly program I've ever used. It lacks the very simple and basic tools of asking a user the yes/no questions. For example when trying to enter an individual's information and role there is no "are you done = yes or no"...or "Please pick the role of this individual" then move on to ask the next question etc...I cannot express how frustrated I am right now. I spend more time trying to figure out how to provide information and move forward in the application process than it took to put the building design together. Its absolutely painful.