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City staff preview Access Albany 3-1-1 app; board hears rollout plan and costs
Summary
Staff demonstrated Access Albany (SeeClickFix/CivicPlus), a new 3-1-1 platform with geo-routing, multilingual support and dashboards, and said the city will soft-launch now, hard-launch a September media campaign and retire QAlert by Oct. 1; first-year cost was presented at about $39,382.58.
City staff presented the new Access Albany 3-1-1 app Aug. 14, outlining functions, rollout timing and costs. The platform, provided through SeeClickFix/CivicPlus, supports geo-routing (city vs. county), automated routing to departments, real-time status updates for registered users, anonymous submissions, multilingual support and customizable dashboards for ward- and KPI-based reporting.
Ms. Monk (project lead) said the city manager requested a more user-friendly and responsive 3-1-1 experience. Staff compared the new platform to the legacy QAlert product and described anticipated benefits including duplicate-request prevention, photo-enabled location reporting and public performance reporting. The soft launch and internal portal are currently live by link; staff plans a multi-channel media push starting in September and will remove the QAlert public app from stores beginning Sept. 1 with a deactivation date of Oct. 1 to allow a transition for outstanding tickets.
Nicole Sprawl, 3-1-1 call-center supervisor, explained that requests entered in the app will automatically create service tickets, route to the appropriate department and escalate to supervisors under configured SLAs if not completed. Staff noted an initial first-year subscription cost of about $39,382.58 with a projected 5% annual uplift and said contract terms can be annual with the option to reconsider multi-year pricing later.
Board members asked about ownership of source code and integration with existing city systems (AMI billing, other city apps). Staff said SeeClickFix/CivicPlus retains application ownership but the city can embed or link the portal from other web properties; rich customization is available but the city does not have source-code access. Staff also said historical QAlert tickets will remain accessible on the back end during the transition period.
