Omaha, Nebraska Successfully Completes Implementation with Integration to Accela Civic Solution - e-PlanSoft

For Immediate Release: Irvine, CA | The City of Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, accomplished a very successful implementation of e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR), The Ultimate Online Plan Review Solution, which is tightly integrated with their existing Accela Civic Platform for permitting. As an existing client, Omaha has upgraded to e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR) from e-PlanSoft’s legacy product, e-PlanCheck (ePC).

“Agencies are looking to work smarter, more efficiently, and leverage technology that better tailor’s their environment and future needs no matter where they’re working from and Omaha is no different,” said Jorge Raya-Navarro, Product Manager for e-PlanSoft™.  “We’re excited that this integration further extends the value that Omaha was already seeing by using ePC.”

e-PlanSoft™ partnered with Velosimo, Inc. to configure the Velosimo Connect (VC) iPaaS platform in order to optimize the integration between EPR and Accela.  VC provides e-PlanSoft customers with flexible integration into existing Accela configurations providing a robust integration between EPR and Accela while maximizing existing Accela configurations.  Through the use of VC; security, connectivity, data validation and system monitoring are now all bundled in a single system rather than using a fixed in time hard-coded integration that works until it doesn’t work.  VC monitors all data flows between the systems and alerts system users when a flow fails for between the systems ensuring the integrity and completeness of data in both systems.

A significant element that influenced the move to EPR was the experience they had with the easy integration of ePC and Accela products that the City was using. November 2016, Omaha made the initial decision in an effort to meet a diverse and growing economy to purchase licenses for  e-PlanCheck®, e-PlanSoft’s legacy electronic plan check software which leveraged the most advanced plan review technology offered at that time. Plan review documents for the City were organized in a hard to retrieve  data  system  that  was  code  driven,  and  only  a  few  individuals  that  were  specially trained could access the information, leading to frequent user error. All building inspections had to be completed via paper and the hard copy kept in a storage area. Something needed to be done to help streamline the processes associated with the city building and development projects which is why ePC was chosen.

Since then, the City of Omaha has seen a tremendous amount of return on their investment and was even awarded the ‘Next Gen Economic Development Accela Trendsetter’s Award’ at the 2018 Accelerate  Conference  for  expanded  use  of  electronic  plan  review  and  online  permitting.  Now three years later from the initial use of e-PlanCheck, the City of Omaha has chosen to continue their partnership with e-PlanSoft™ by transitioning to e-PlanREVIEW®.

EPR  is  the  next generation in  plan  review  management  systems  offered  by  e-PlanSoft  and  it comes with many features that e-PlanCheck did not have. These feature capabilities include but are not limited to:

Plan Review Features

1. Changes made to reviewer comments are logged and timestamped
2. With overlay mode, resize or rescale pages to highlight differences
3. The new chat feature enables secure collaboration between all contributors

 API

1. RESTful OpenAPI Specification Compliant (OAS)
2. Full POSTMAN Collection Available
3. API Client Code Generator for all platforms (Java, NodeJS, C, C++, PHP, Ruby, Python, etc.)

Additional Features

1. Upload frequently used comments/codes to the searchable comment library
2. Create and manage projects for permitting or design review purposes
3. Integrated Scout PDF inspection tool to checks for bad PDF

It also enhances some of the features that were already existing in ePC:

• web-based review and markup tool,
• simultaneous review and markup,
• comparison and overlay,
• multi-page processing,
• correction and/or interim correction letters,
• internal communications all with 100% integration to the Accela Civic Platform and Citizen Access.

Patrick Sweeney, the Network Specialist for the City of Omaha Planning Department, will be presenting Taking the Next Step to Electronic Plan Review,October 7, 2019 at the Accelarate 2019 Conference in Denver, CO.  This session will cover how the City of Omaha transitioned to e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR) for Electronic Plan Review with the help of Velosimo and Accela Citizen Access (ACA) and how they improved efficiencies such as reducing the number of paper plans submitted by mail, shortening review timelines, and saving time and money across the process.

About Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in Nebraska and ranks eighth among the nation’s 50 largest cities in both per-capita billionaires and Fortune 500 companies. Diversified between several industries, including banking, insurance, telecommunications, architecture/construction, and transportation, Omaha’s economy has grown dramatically since the early 1990’s.

Today, Omaha is the home to the headquarters of four Fortune 500 companies: mega-conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway; one of the world’s largest construction companies, Kiewit Corporation; insurance and financial firm Mutual of Omaha; and the United States’ largest railroad operator, Union Pacific Corporation. Many large technology firms have major operations or operational headquarters in Omaha, including Bank of the West, First Data, PayPal and LinkedIn. The city is also home to three of the 30 largest architecture firms in the United States, including HDR, Inc., DLR Group, Inc., and Leo A Daly.

To learn more about Omaha, NE please visit  http://www.cityofomaha.org 

About Velosimo

Velosimo Connect is a cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution specific to government connecting systems quickly and seamlessly. Integrations with the Velosimo Connect platform are available between cloud-to-cloud solutions, cloud to on-premise solutions or any combination thereof.  www.velosimo.com

About e-PlanSoft™

e-PlanSoft™ develops cloud-based electronic document review software that assists governmental agencies, construction and manufacturing industries, developers and owners for their plan review, design review, product review, construction and asset review process in real-time. www.eplansoft.com