Gorge Commission staff complete cutover from Access database to Tyler Technologies permitting platform

The Columbia River Gorge Commission staff told commissioners on Feb. 11 that the agency has completed the internal cutover from its legacy Microsoft Access permitting database to a new platform provided by Tyler Technologies and expects the public-facing application portal within about a month.

Mike, a staff member leading the project, said, “we feel pretty confident going forward that we, definitely know how to use the new, platform,” and described the last weeks as “probably the busiest, concentrated effort by the full staff, since this project began.” He told the commission the old Access database was closed the previous Friday and that legacy records and attachments were compressed, uploaded to Tyler, and are in the final stages of data conversion.

The new platform — described in the meeting as an EP&L permitting system built with Tyler Technologies — will let planners open records and attachments from within the database, share saved queries, and run more advanced analytics than the old system allowed. Mike said the back-end (staff-facing) portion will go into production first, with the public portal staggered later so staff can enter several weeks of new development reviews before opening online applications to external users.

Commissioners asked about knowledge transfer, governance of on-the-fly configuration changes, and audit trails. Commissioner Weisfelt asked whether training and documentation exist to avoid a single-person dependency; Mike replied that all end-user configuration training was completed by the full staff, training recordings will remain available through Tyler’s training resources (Tyler University and Tyler Community), and the commission has a policy to log and review requested configuration changes before implementation. Mike said the platform records user activity in a history area and that role-based permissions will be available so the commission can control who makes system changes.

Mike also said staff expect to make additional minor aesthetic changes to the public site (branding and navigation) before launch and to provide preview demonstrations to the communications committee and then the full commission.

Why this matters: commissioners and county planners will be able to retrieve development review documents and GIS data from a single system, easing coordination with counties and public searches of past reviews.

What’s next: staff expect the back-end to accept new entries immediately and the public application/search portal to be ready within weeks; staff will schedule demonstrations for commissioners.