In a prior series of posts (1, 2, and 3), we provided recommendations to optimize your investment of time and money as you plan for, procure, and prepare to implement a solution to modernize your permitting and licensing system. 

Now, we fast-forward – your implementation is complete. What can you expect now that your Oracle Permitting and Licensing system is live?  In this first post, we’ll focus on what to expect after go-live from Oracle, as a partner that is committed to your ongoing success.  In the next post, we’ll take a look at what you – as a customer – can and should do to stay successful after go-live and maximize your investment into the future.

 

What to Expect from Oracle

The days of on-premise software and its limitations are now a relic of the past.  As cloud applications are increasingly adopted by customers, the relationship that customers have with cloud providers is also transforming.  Let’s take a look at what customers can expect from partnering with Oracle:

 

Updates to Your Cloud Applications

With the shift to cloud applications, product updates can be rolled out to customers more easily and more frequently than on-premise software.  With our expansive R&D budget, Oracle delivers major product updates to our cloud applications four times a year, and those updates provide real value and not just ominous “bug fixes” and “performance enhancements”. 

Some examples of recently delivered enhancements in our latest release include:

Permitting and Inspections

  • Bulk reassignment of inspections
  • Ability to automatically apply conditions based on business rules

Planning and Zoning

  • Parcel genealogy view
  • Automatic workflow updates when planner is assigned

Code Enforcement

  • Ability to link code enforcement cases directly to permitting and planning applications
  • View a code case timeline of events in a dynamic, horizontal view
  • Support for code enforcement hearings (independent from appeal process)

Reporting

  • Additional subject areas added for planning and zoning
  • Automatic and on-demand generation of planning and zoning reports and notices
  • Ability to run reports directly from the application details screen

 

Product Documentation

Each of the quarterly releases comes with a trove of content to ensure users can easily adopt new features and start realizing their value.  Here is a brief snapshot of some of the content Oracle provides on our Cloud Readiness site:

  • Readiness Training Videos provide an overview of some features within a release, highlighting those that are customer ideas or introduce a significant change to prior or related features;
  • New Feature Summaries provide a listing of features provided in each release, and in addition to describing the features also details any required actions to adopt their use;
  • Updates to User Guides ensure that product documentation is up-to-date, including new feature summaries, updates to user guides, and highlights videos. 

With this content, users can learn about the changes introduced in each release, confidently adopt the features that they want, and quickly begin to work efficiently with them.

 

Ongoing Support and User Group Resources

As one of the world’s largest technology companies, Oracle employs over 14,000 support resources and provides robust support services to our customers.  These services include:

  • Oracle’s Customer Support Portal to monitor their environment performance
  • My Oracle Support serves as a one-stop-shop for technical support
  • 24/7 Live Phone Support, as well as email and chat with technical resources
  • Oracle Cloud Customer Connect is a community space for collaborating with other users of Oracle cloud products, including user forums and an ideas lab which is reviewed by the product development team for future enhancements.

 

Here’s what I recommend…

With the shift from on-premise to cloud applications, the relationship you have with your vendor is less transactional and more of a partnership.  Implementing the vendor’s product is just a milestone, and is not an endpoint.  So before you select a vendor make sure you understand what services they offer beyond the implementation to maximize the value and usefulness of your investment in their product.

 

Learn More

Modern cloud technology solutions can help public-sector organizations overcome many of the challenges they face. By migrating to the cloud with Oracle Permitting and Licensing, organizations can embrace innovation and push the limits of what their employees and constituents have come to expect from their government.  Oracle is excited to be able to partner with government organizations on their journey to the cloud, and you can discover more Permitting and Licensing offerings here.