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City unveils 'Access Albany' 3‑1‑1 app; board hears features, costs and rollout plan
Summary
City staff demonstrated the new Access Albany 3‑1‑1 app (SeeClickFix/CivicPlus), outlined features—automatic routing, geo‑services, multi‑language support and dashboards—and recommended an initial $39,382.58 first‑year subscription with a planned hard launch in September and QAlert deactivation Oct. 1.
City staff presented a demonstration of Access Albany, the municipality’s new 3‑1‑1 mobile and web platform powered by SeeClickFix/CivicPlus, and described functionality, costs and the marketing plan.
Miss Monk described the platform’s primary features: automatic routing of service requests to the correct department, geo‑fencing so reports inside city limits route to city staff, real‑time status updates for registered users, optional anonymous submissions, multilingual interfaces and customized dashboards for key performance indicators by ward and district. She said the platform can merge duplicate reports at the same location and will support both public submissions and internal work‑order tracking.
Nicole Sprawl, the 3‑1‑1 call center supervisor, explained operations for ticket routing: “once that ticket is put in by the constituent or the citizen, it will route to the appropriate department… and there is escalation. Every department set their own SLAs. And if it’s not completed within 3 days… it will escalate to their supervisor.”
Staff said the first‑year subscription cost is approximately $39,382.58 with a ~5% annual uplift thereafter. The presentation recommended an initial one‑year contract (with options to extend to three or five years for pricing breaks later). The app and new website are in soft launch now; a media campaign and hard launch are planned for September and staff intends to remove the legacy QAlert app from public app stores and deactivate the public side of QAlert on Oct. 1 while keeping access to backend data for historical records during transition.
Members asked about software ownership, integration with a potential city app and AMI/customer‑consumption data; staff replied CivicPlus retains the application code but the city can embed or link the portal into other city sites and work with CivicPlus on available interfaces. The board directed staff to proceed with the planned launch and contract process and to return with any recommended longer‑term term pricing if the product meets expectations.
