Frequently Asked Questions - Permitting & Licensing

Over 350 governments of OpenGov’s 1000+ customers use Permitting & Licensing.  In addition to using it to make permitting and licensing more user-friendly, we’ve seen some governments get really creative with the form and workflow technology and to use it for community block grant applications or small business grant applications as well.

Yes, absolutely.  There are two different ways to ensure that only licensed contractors can submit projects or permit applications – and it depends on what you would like to act as your system of record.  Some of our customers provide us with a link to their State’s list of licensed contractors while other governments manage their own list of contractors.  That is, there is an application or record type in the public portal for “Contractor License. Governments can also ask that applicants upload a copy of the contractor’s most recent license as an attachment to applications for extra verification.

While the migration of historical data from one system to another is the most complex part of the implementation, OpenGov has a very talented, very experienced deployment team that has built best practices from the hundreds of implementations they’ve completed across the country.

Some people choose not to migrate the data over into a new system at all, uploading it all into their own document management system before coming to OpenGov. Others do go through the process of mapping old permits onto the addresses in their jurisdiction and importing all of that into our system. It requires a lot of attention to detail, so our team will be ready to help you with every step.

Yes, we do. Nearly all of our customers use Esri ArcGIS to create GIS maps that can be imported onto the maps section of OpenGov Citizen Services.  This helps with geospatial analysis without driving out to the site, of course. Many also provide us with a mapping of what we call “location flags.” For each address in their Master Address Table, they may add a “flag” that denotes whether the address is in a FEMA flood zone or historic district. These flags are then used to build conditional workflows so that permit applications at those addresses automatically get routed to the appropriate department for an extra approval.