Toby Ingleton |
The US state of Rhode Island is helping to realise greater levels of efficiency around its ePermitting processes thanks to a new cloud platform powered by Microsoft Azure.
Viewpoint Cloud from Microsoft partner Viewpoint Government Solutions moves permitting and licensing online, allowing citizens to access the information they need at any time and from any location.
Viewpoint Government Solutions and the State of Rhode Island signed a contract in the summer of 2016. A pilot was then carried out, which saw the Azure-powered ViewPoint Cloud used to meet the permitting needs of ten municipalities.
Just six months after signing the contract, the first ‘go-live’ took place. Phase one of the wider rollout will take place this month and will focus primarily on trades permits, such as building, fire, electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits.
Thanks to the new ePermitting system, the State of Rhode Island will be able transform its formerly manual, paper-based processes into digitised, efficient practices.
“The goal is to provide a citizen access portal – a website – where constituents in Rhode Island can go online and apply for, pay for and track trades permits from beginning to end,” said Alex Pajusi, chief technology officer at Viewpoint Government Solutions.
The state is also looking into every aspect of the permitting process to see how it can be improved. Down the line, the same digital approach could be applied to other government services, such as online licensing and birth and death certificates.
“I want to emphasise how important the Azure platform plays into ViewPoint Cloud,” Pajusi said. “Azure allowed us to quickly move from an on-premise application to the cloud. Enough can’t be said about how important Azure played into this strategy.”
As part of the rollout’s first phase, the new ePermitting system will be implemented in all ten of the municipalities in which it was piloted, as well as two state agencies. Going forward, the remaining cities and towns in Rhode Island will move from their legacy systems to the statewide e-Permitting platform.
“We’ve had several meetings with representatives of every municipality in the state; they’re incredibly excited about this,” said Pajusi. “We’re looking forward to bringing ViewPoint Cloud to more and more communities around the country.”