The Results
Recovered Tax Revenues
$ 0 M
Trade Licenses Renewed Online (in 1st Year)
0 %+
Business Licenses Renewed Online (in 1st Year)
0 %
In June of 2012, the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) was making plans for an ‘eclipse.’
Keen to replacing their aging legacy system with a new “state of the art” software solution capable of managing the City’s burgeoning building, planning and permitting needs, Philadelphia selected POSSE PLS as the enterprise foundation for the eCLIPSE Project: electronic Commercial Licensing, Inspection and Permit Services Enterprise.
Across Philadelphia L&I’s three divisions (Administration, Development, Operations), the transformative eCLIPSE system would meet the agency’s remit to advance development and public safety via the innovative delivery of L&I’s core services:
“Project eCLIPSE will transform the way residents, business owners and developers do business with the City of Philadelphia. It will eliminate redundancies and the need for in-person paperwork and payments while emphasizing accessibility and convenience for citizens. Over time, Project eCLIPSE will improve public safety, government efficiency and delinquent tax collections, reduce vacant and blighted properties across the city and help attract new businesses and development by easing the application, permit and payment processes.”
Former Mayor Michael A. Nutter
City of Philadelphia
To achieve their vision of a cost effective ‘buy not build’ solution capable of facilitating operational processes and industry best practices, Philadelphia L&I, working closely with the City’s Office of Innovation and Technology, had set clear expectations for their preferred software solution:
1. The system should be easy to maintain and inexpensive to upgrade.
2. The system should expand to satisfy future needs for additional functionality and/or processing capacity.
Preference would be given to:
3. A commercial off-the-shelf solution, with a minimum amount of customization required to implement and integrate.
4. A cloud hosted solution, either SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, on-premise private or hybrid, with the vendor maintaining the platform within defined service levels.
With the launch of eCLIPSE, Philadelphia anticipated a comprehensive enterprise solution to enable and, wherever possible, automate online applications, payments, processing, status checks and document exchange across a comprehensive range of operational workflows:
In addition to these core requirements, the eCLIPSE system would simultaneously need to meet or exceed Philadelphia L&I’s overarching goals:
“Project eCLIPSE is a key part of our strategy to make Philadelphia the national leader in building safety, while encouraging development and continuing to improve the customer experience. This new system provides the tools we need to perform our duties with the highest level of accountability and responsiveness.”
Carlton Williams
Commissioner of L&I
City of Philadelphia
In March of 2020, the fourth and final phase of eCLIPSE was launched into production bringing every core L&I service online, including permitting, plan review, license application, renewal and payment options.
With this powerful new online permitting and inspections platform enabling Philadelphians to register licenses and submit permit applications, eCLIPSE promotes full transparency ensuring applications are received and reviewed with greater efficiency while keeping applicants informed of the progress on their submission. In an effort to streamline the Streets Department’s plan review process, a new ePlans module empowers users to apply for and obtain business or trade licenses associated with the License and Inspections Department in conjunction with several city agencies. Through eCLIPSE’s Electronic Plans, the Streets Department Right of Way unit enables registered applicants to submit materials, modify plans, and track the status of applications through the approval process.
By offering L&I services online, the City of Philadelphia has significantly reduced citizen wait times, creating a virtually paperless system with easy payment options. Additionally, L&I inspectors now utilize mobile devices during inspections so they can enter results in real time. In ROI terms, eCLIPSE yielded immediate returns, generating $12 million in recovered revenue by helping inspectors scour Revenue Department records to identify tax delinquents. In years past, with a paper system across several offices, those cross-checks fell through the cracks.
With POSSE PLS as the foundation and eCLIPSE the destination, Philadelphia L&I is now fully equipped to deliver the agency’s vision of a citizen friendly online environment working seamlessly alongside core processing systems within the framework of an expandable and easy to maintain enterprise solution:
“Streamlining this process allows for a more seamless experience for users when dealing with permits and plans that require review by multiple departments. This is a long time coming for our Department’s Right of Way Unit. By bringing the plan review process completely online, we have improved efficiency and are granting increased access to the services we provide.”
Carlton Williams
Commissioner of L&I
City of Philadelphia
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