Tyler's Enterprise Solution Simplifies Environmental Health
- Industry: Town
- Location: Prosper, Texas
- Number of Employees: 330
- Population: 38,520
- Tyler Client Since: 2023
- Tyler Products Used: Enterprise Permitting & Licensing [powered by EnerGov], Enterprise Environmental Health, Civic Access
Located a short distance from downtown Dallas, the Town of Prosper, Texas, provides its 38,000 residents with all the comforts of home, an active lifestyle, and a thriving downtown atmosphere. From eating lunch at a new food truck to splashing around in a community pool or playing a game of pickleball on the town’s courts, there are a variety of things to do. Town leaders are committed to balancing their rapidly growing community with the small-town heart appeal that makes Prosper unique.
Challenges
The town’s code compliance supervisor and health inspector worked hard behind the scenes to ensure that businesses complied with local standards, but managing their environmental health programs was cumbersome.
The town’s manual paper-based process made it difficult to track permits and manage their highly nuanced workflow. Hard to read handwritten inspection notes and varied permit expiration dates made tracking difficult. Managing reoccurring and various re-inspections for the numerous restaurants, grocery stores, public pools, and annual events was challenging. Lack of automation and paper-based scheduling added to the problem.
With the number of new food establishments coming to the town, staying on top of food handler certifications was also difficult. Inspectors relied on businesses to keep them up to date on new workers and often received incorrect or incomplete information, which significantly delayed processing. With a paper-based system, it was also easy for this information to get lost in the shuffle.
Solution
“Finding a software solution with the right business operational permit tracking and food safety inspection capabilities was our top priority because we need to ensure that all Prosper’s establishments are safe to the public,” says Pamela Clark, the business systems specialist for the town.
Prosper was in the process of implementing the Enterprise Permitting & Licensing solution suite from Tyler Technologies, when they discovered that Tyler also had an environmental health application built on the same platform. Enterprise Environmental Health offered a seamless integration with the permitting and licensing software, providing unmatched visibility into all their permitting, licensing, and compliance processes.
The solution delivered digital workflow capabilities and environmental health-specific functionality, eliminating manual tasks and delays inherent in paper-based processes. Streamlined health permit processing gave health inspectors more time to focus on inspections. Automation and notification functionality reduced the number of missed permit expirations. Their enterprise software allowed health inspectors to send standardized, professionally formatted results along with the report to business owners immediately following an inspection.
The inspectors like how the Enterprise Environmental Health application allows them to view and collaborate on all operational permits from one location, making it easier and faster to issue permits.
Pamela Clark
Business Systems Specialist for the Town of Prosper, Texas
Results
Implementing an enterprise solution brought swift improvements to the heart of Prosper’s environmental health programs. Digital workflows standardized application intake, health inspection protocols, and comments, while automation kept projects moving and delivered inspection results faster.
According to Clark: “Inspectors now have standardized comments that reduce the time it takes for them to complete an inspection and take notes. Enterprise Environmental Health makes it easier to respond to frequent violators and take actions to resolve the violations.” The software enables the town to track permitting, complete inspections, deliver results, and capture key information for each establishment in the field, and link that information to operational permits in a single platform.
A standard checklist for health and operational business permits bridges the knowledge gap between permit technicians and inspectors. Health inspectors now receive full, correct applications, saving them 30 to 45 minutes previously spent contacting an applicant regarding missing or incorrect information.
Leveraging ESRI® GIS to link main location information to operational permits cuts the time to submit an operational permit in half. “Environmental Health’s integrated platform allows us to view all the different operational permits and collaboration associated with a specific location, such as one grocery store with Starbucks, a sushi bar, and their deli section,” says Clark.
She went on to elaborate on how technology improves their inspection process. “Inspectors are now able to catalog their results in the Enterprise Environmental Health application and simultaneously send them to the applicant with the report attached.” Clearer results are reducing failed inspections, saving business owners and inspectors an average of 2 to 3 hours of re-inspection time.
Conclusion
As new residents expand Prosper’s community and their business environment evolves, Tyler’s enterprise solutions can grow with them. Clark mentions having a single-source-of-truth platform is a game changer for the town’s permitting capabilities. “Applications for construction to health permits are now visible, as everything is in one system. Inspectors can view and collaborate on all permits.”