Infor Public Sector Helps City of Rockford Meet Citizen Demands for Online Government Interaction

Infor Public Sector today announced the city of Rockford, Ill., with more than 150,000 residents, has gone live on its Community Development and Regulation (CDR) software, Infor Hansen CDR, for Building Permits, Code Enforcement, and Neighborhood Development and Planning. As part of the implementation, Infor DynamicPORTALTM, which provides 24-7 access to Rockford citizens and contractors, will be deployed to facilitate online government interaction. The new systems improve efficiency, transparency and citizen service while reducing risk of errors and expand Infor Public Sector's contribution to improving citizen relations in Rockford, which has used Hansen CRM software to address and resolve citizen issues for more than two years.

Using Hansen CDR, the City of Rockford is able to process permits at a faster pace, while reducing the number of steps that are vulnerable to human error. The software provides Rockford full transparency across the permitting process, enables visibility into resource optimization and reduces unnecessary cost. By integrating the Hansen software with DynamicPORTAL, contractors, builders and citizens can apply for and check the status of permits online at any time. When a permit is applied for using DynamicPORTAL, an email alert is triggered to the responsible staff member so that processing can begin and updates are made in real-time on the Web for citizen review.

"Mayor Lawrence Morrissey received feedback from the community that the citizens of Rockford would like to be able to use the Internet to conduct their business with City Hall," said Todd Cagnoni, deputy director, Community Development, City of Rockford. "We acted on the Mayor's request and now that we are live on Infor Public Sector DynamicPORTAL, our builders, contractors and citizens can complete the permitting process around the clock without filling out paper forms, waiting in lines or on the phone only during business hours. This provides a 360 degree view of citizen interaction, which is an important step toward meeting the demands of our citizens for a more user-friendly government."

Rockford selected Hansen CDR to improve on its previous systems of disparate solutions for permitting, planning and code enforcement. In 2007, before implementing the Hansen solution, the city processed over 7300 permits in a manner that was labor intensive, vulnerable to errors and lacking transparency and visibility. Since going live on the new system, the city has processed more than 2300 permits with greater efficiency and minimal errors.

"The community development and regulation processes for local governments, including planning, permitting and code enforcement, are incredibly large and complex, requiring significant resources to ensure that they run smoothly," said Bob Benstead, vice president, strategic planning, Infor Public Sector. "Hansen CDR software from Infor Public Sector helps governments manage these processes to increase operational efficiency, cross-departmental communication and transparency, and citizen satisfaction."