Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 8
accounts that meet that criteria so they don’t have to go keep searching for it over and over again, it will be
right there for them, just scroll through everything.
Another nice feature with AP5 is everything is exportable to Excel. So they do a filter on something and
they can quickly export that information to an Excel Spreadsheet. Along with the upgrade comes enhanced
security, it’s now integrated with the City’s Window's Accounts, so no additional passwords for users to
remember. This is referred to a Single Sign On. So it’s great for IT so we can quickly manage who has
access to the system so as people come on or as people leave the City, we can quickly take care of that
within our normal duties. We do not have go and remember the take care of some other authentication
mechanisms. Permissions are now based on roles instead of individuals for easier maintenance. So an
example like the clerks will have certain permissions that they are allowed to do, the Assessors will have
certain permission that they are allowed to do. We can do it by read only, we can control who can create,
we can control who can modify and we can control who can delete any record in the system.
There’s increased granularity, we can do the permissions down to a field. We don’t have to do a specific
form or table as was the previous table. We can go down to the field level, which is very nice and makes
life much easier for IT, because that is less stuff that we have to fix in case someone does something that
they shouldn’t do. We have the ability to make the field required before a save can be made, so this is
good as we re-write the procedures so there is certain information that we want to capture and it forces
whoever is entering that information to add that particular info. So again, we have it tracked for historic
purposes. Anything that is changed in the system is now audited so we can see what fields were changed
by who and when. Previous years are easily locked down to prevent changes being made, for example, as
soon as we prepare the system for December tax bills, we put that year in read only status so no one can
make any changes. Again, we can keep the future year open to create additional changes. So it keeps
them working, we don’t have the time lapse that we had with the Classic version.
And finally, where we currently stand with the integration. We conducted dual entry in the old and new
systems for 3 months to verify functionality. This gave the staff time to become familiar with the new
system, where things were located. It gave us the ability to make sure that the new system is calculating
things the same way that we were being done in the old system. AP5 has been integrated with the City’s
new Building Permit Application, Civicgov. So the two systems are passing data back and forth as new
accounts are created, they get passed up to Civicgov as permits are created by the Building Department,
they come into AssessPro. Also, it has been integrated with the City’s GIS System, so the multiple maps
that we have on-line. It is feeding information out to that on a daily basis, so that information is updated
daily so a citizen can go to any one of our GIS maps that contain information, Assessing Information and
see the current information.
It has also been integrated with the City’s Tax Collection System, MUNIS so we can process the
information and send it to the Tax Department and they can upload it for the tax billing cycle. Importantly
we removed the dependency on Admins for the exemptions and credits process. And the final dependency
on Admins for the abatement process will be converted by the end of this month. We are in the process of
just verifying that, well actually not verifying creating the same type of file that MUNIS needs for the
abatements. We are also implementing mobile tablets for data entry in the field. This will be completed by
end of July which will allow the Assessors to make changes right in the field. So as they go out on an
inspection they don’t have to write on a piece of paper and bring it back, they make the changes right in the
system and it is live. So as soon as they make that change it is there for the rest of the team to act on it.
The MS1 Report that we file with the State matches that of the old system for December 2019 and the July
2020 tax bills. This was important because we needed to make sure we are providing the same
information out of both systems. We are also working with Patriot to develop a custom property record card
that is easy to read for both citizens and Assessors. This is also planned to be done by the end of July.
There’s information on their base card that the City does not use. So it is pointless to have it display. We
want to have the information displayed that is important for us and our citizens. We are also upgrading the
over-the-counter application that citizens use to look up current information when they come into City Hall,
I’m sorry, I’ve got to slow down here, wrong slide, OK there we go.
